tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/obiturary-94051/articles
Obiturary – The Conversation
2023-06-06T06:35:13Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207106
2023-06-06T06:35:13Z
2023-06-06T06:35:13Z
Intimate and immense: remembering Kaija Saariaho, one of the greatest composers of our time
<p>The Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho passed away Friday at the age of 70. </p>
<p>There’s been an outpouring of grief, sadness and love on social media and in statements from orchestras, festivals and opera companies as the music community processes the loss of one of the greatest composers of our time.</p>
<p>When I was a young composer, the first work by Saariaho I heard live was Jardin Secret I (1985) at the 1988 Hong Kong ISCM Festival. </p>
<p>It was the first time the International Society of Contemporary Music had staged a festival in an Asian country, and many European composers were in attendance. </p>
<p>I was swept up by the work with its haunting bell tones transformed through electronics. The music sounded simultaneously familiar and alien, intimate and immense. I was awed by the imposing presence of a composer I knew only from <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/modern-music-and-after-9780199740505?cc=us&lang=en&">music history texts</a>.</p>
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<p>Later, we met when I served on some competition juries she chaired. </p>
<p>I briefly got to know someone of warm generosity, incisive knowledge and integrity who brought a hilariously dry wit and impeccable timing to telling stories.</p>
<h2>Operas of love and loss of innocence</h2>
<p>Saariaho will be remembered for her many illustrious achievements in forging a luminous musical language out of instrumental and electronic resources, the composition of five major operas, and through numerous orchestral works often showcasing close collaborators as soloists.</p>
<p>Her career reached its peak with two operas.</p>
<p><em>L’amour de loin</em> (Love from afar) created a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/08/17/arts/opera-review-a-prince-idealizes-his-love-from-afar.html">sensation</a> when it premiered at the Salzburg Festival in 2000 in a production by American director Peter Sellars. </p>
<p>In a lyrical retelling of an enigmatic story of love and spiritual yearning, with a libretto by Lebanese-French writer Amin Maalouf, it has become one of the most <a href="https://operawire.com/in-tribute-to-her-an-exploration-of-kaija-saariahos-operas/">successful</a> 21st century operas.</p>
<p>Hypnotic, suspended harmonies and modal melodies create an alternative, idealised world in which one has time to contemplate themes of obsession, devotion and the realities and illusions of love.</p>
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<p>In 2016, it was the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/02/arts/music/review-met-opera-amour-de-loin-kaija-saariaho.html">first opera by a female composer</a> to be staged at the Metropolitan Opera in New York since the production of Ethel Smyth’s <em>Der Wald</em> (The Forest) in 1903. </p>
<p>Two decades later, Saariaho’s last opera Innocence (2018) was described by the New Yorker as a “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/26/the-sublime-terror-of-kaija-saariahos-innocence">monumental cry against gun violence</a>”. Again, it was immediately hailed as a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/arts/music/innocence-saariaho-opera-aix.html">masterpiece</a> at its premiere at the 2021 Aix-en-Provence Festival in France.</p>
<p>Innocence is set in nine languages with a multitude of intersecting stories, but its genius lies in the way the luminously pulsing music is used to maintain dramatic momentum and a clear through line. </p>
<p>Following its premiere, Innocence has been taken up by major opera houses around the world.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/la-passion-de-simone-brings-simone-weils-sufferings-to-life-but-the-movements-feel-static-109794">La Passion de Simone brings Simone Weil's sufferings to life, but the movements feel static</a>
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<h2>A trailblazer for composers</h2>
<p>Since the mid-80s, a time when there were very few prominent women composers on the international stage, Saariaho has been a major role model.</p>
<p>She <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2016/12/03/503986298/half-of-humanity-has-something-to-say-composer-kaija-saariaho-on-her-met-debut">resented</a> the “woman composer” label and spoke infrequently about the prejudices and challenges she had encountered in the decidedly male-dominated world of classical music. </p>
<p>Yet on the occasions when Saariaho <a href="https://slippedisc.com/2013/11/the-composer-kaija-saariaho-on-sexism-in-classical-music/">did address this topic</a>, she conceded there was a role she could play in raising consciousness about the persistence of gender inequality in music. </p>
<p>In an <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2016/12/03/503986298/half-of-humanity-has-something-to-say-composer-kaija-saariaho-on-her-met-debut">interview for NPR</a> in 2016 she said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve seen it with young women who are battling with the same things I was battling […] 35 years ago. […] Maybe we, then, should speak about it, even if it seems so unbelievable. You know, half of humanity has something to say.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Saariaho opened pathways for many composers across different generations and practices. Her work alchemised several 20th century musical trends that had tended to inhabit separate “camps” into a unique and emotionally powerful style with broad appeal for both specialists and the general public. </p>
<p>Early on, she engaged with a modernist focus on a detailed chiselling of sounds working with techniques that extended the capacities of any virtuoso performer performing her work. </p>
<p>Working at IRCAM (the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music) in Paris in the 1980s, she created several genre-breaking works.</p>
<p>Lichtbogen (1985/86) for ensemble with live electronics used computer-aided analyses of sound to shape huge sweeping brushstrokes of sensuous sound. </p>
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<p>She worked within the musical field of “<a href="https://www.rem.routledge.com/articles/spectralism#:%7E:text=Spectralism%20is%20a%20tendency%20in,point%20of%20departure%20for%20composition">spectralism</a>”, where the analysis of the acoustic properties of sound is used as the basis of composition. This opened up new approaches to harmony in her music.</p>
<p>Orion (2002) for large orchestra is an example of how she could build up layer upon layer of sound where you hear individual colours in translucent detail within epic, billowing clouds of resonance.</p>
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<p>Her operatic works from 2000 on brought a narrative directness, a ravishing beauty and devastating emotional punch that saw her work embraced by audiences around the world.</p>
<h2>Soul listening</h2>
<p>At the heart of her work was a kind of soul-listening and deep connection to nature. </p>
<p>In 2015, I had the privilege of going for a walk with Saariaho in a snowy landscape outside Hämeenlinna, Finland (the birthplace of Sibelius). As we walked, I got to hear the sounds of cracking ice and the whisper of birch trees through the lens of her delicate observations.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/02/arts/music/kaija-saariaho-dead.html">quoted in The New York Times</a>, she remarked to her biographer Pirkko Moisala:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The task of today’s artist is to nurture with spiritually rich art. […] To provide new spiritual dimensions. To express with greater richness, which does not always mean more complexity but with greater delicacy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-sound-of-silence-why-arent-australias-female-composers-being-heard-59743">The sound of silence: why aren't Australia's female composers being heard?</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liza Lim does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The Finnish composer passed away Friday at the age of 70. She was someone of immense generosity, incisive knowledge and integrity.
Liza Lim, Professor, Sculthorpe Chair of Australian Music, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/191932
2022-10-05T22:24:02Z
2022-10-05T22:24:02Z
Loretta Lynn was more than a great songwriter – she was a spokeswoman for white rural working-class women
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488344/original/file-20221005-25-vdq94c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=110%2C423%2C2953%2C1972&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Loretta Lynn's music articulated the fears, dreams and anger of women living in a patriarchal society.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/loretta-lynn-performs-on-stage-at-the-country-music-news-photo/91885297?phrase=loretta lynn concert&adppopup=true">David Redfern/Redferns via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Loretta Lynn’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/04/arts/music/loretta-lynn-dead.html">death at the age of 90</a> marks the end of a remarkable life of achievement in country music.</p>
<p>Her dramatic life story – retold in the 1980 award-winning film “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080549/">Coal Miner’s Daughter</a>,” based on <a href="https://www.grandcentralpublishing.com/titles/loretta-lynn/coal-miners-daughter/9781538701690/">Lynn’s 1976 biography</a> – made Lynn a household name. She grew up in poverty in a small Kentucky mining town, marrying and starting a family as a teenager before reaching unprecedented heights of commercial success as a recording artist of modern country music.</p>
<p>But as a <a href="https://arts-sciences.buffalo.edu/music/faculty/faculty-directory.host.html/content/shared/arts-sciences/music/new-faculty-profiles/vander-wel-stephanie.html">scholar of gender and country music</a> and author of “<a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p084959">Hillbilly Maidens, Okies, and Cowgirls: Women’s Country Music, 1930-1960</a>,” I know that Lynn represented more than just star power and fame in country music – she spoke to the concerns of women, especially white working-class women in rural and suburban America.</p>
<h2>Speaking up, singing out</h2>
<p>Lynn’s rise in the 1960s took place when country music appeared tied to conservative politics. It was a time when Merle Haggard’s “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/california-scholarship-online/book/28551/chapter-abstract/238414028?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Okie from Muskogee</a>,” with its attacks on counterculture, marijuana and draft-card burning, became a populist anthem for the country’s cultural conservatives.</p>
<p>In contrast, Lynn’s songwriting continued the legacy of <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-kitty-wells-20120717-story.html">Kitty Wells</a>, <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2016/09/25/country-music-hall-famer-jean-shepard-dead-82/76568704/">Jean Shepard</a> and other women in country music who were willing to speak up about the concerns of American women.</p>
<p>Lynn’s songs defied societal expectations by connecting her musical representations of working-class and rural women to broader social issues affecting women across the U.S.</p>
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<p>She aimed for her music to articulate the fears, dreams and anger of women living in a patriarchal society. It railed against those who idealized women’s domestic roles and demonized outspoken feminists.</p>
<h2>‘There’s gonna be some changes’</h2>
<p>Specifically, for a generation of predominantly white women in the 1960s and 1970s who did not identify as urban or college-educated feminists, Lynn’s music offered candid conversations about their private lives as wives and mothers.</p>
<p>As Lynn <a href="https://www.grandcentralpublishing.com/titles/loretta-lynn/coal-miners-daughter/9781538701690/">stated in her autobiography</a>, her audience recognized her as a “mother and a wife and a daughter, who had feelings just like other women.”</p>
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<img alt="Black and white photo of woman posing with guitar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488343/original/file-20221005-18-iyp0sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488343/original/file-20221005-18-iyp0sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488343/original/file-20221005-18-iyp0sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488343/original/file-20221005-18-iyp0sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488343/original/file-20221005-18-iyp0sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488343/original/file-20221005-18-iyp0sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488343/original/file-20221005-18-iyp0sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=871&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Loretta Lynn made the concerns of everyday American women a focal point of her work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/loretta-lynn-poses-for-a-portrait-holding-a-guitar-that-has-news-photo/74282205?phrase=loretta%20lynn&adppopup=true">Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>She did this through clever and witty songwriting and lyrical techniques that combined the vernacular of her audience with her resonant voice.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the song arrangements of Owen Bradley of Decca Records directed Lynn’s musical talents to a broad audience. He combined the edgier sound of honky-tonk instrumentation – electric guitars, pedal steels and fiddles – with the polish of the Nashville sound by including the smooth sounding vocal harmonies of the vocal quartet the <a href="http://www.jordanaires.net/">Jordanaires</a>, as heard in numerous country, gospel and rock ‘n’ roll recordings.</p>
<p>This provided a sound of strength and conviction to accompany Lynn’s bold and forthright songs as she laid bare the double standards of gender roles. </p>
<p>With her assertive and resonant voice, Lynn, in her 1966 track “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/loretta-lynn-best-lyrics-songwriting-175002/">Don’t Come Home A Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind)</a>,” warns men not to expect women to be waiting at home, sexually available for them after they’d spent the night drinking: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well, you thought I’d be waitin’ up when you came home last night</p>
<p>You’d been out with all the boys and you ended up half tight</p>
<p>Liquor and love, they just don’t mix</p>
<p>Leave that bottle or me behind</p>
<p>And don’t come home a drinkin’ with lovin’ on your mind</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a similar vein, Lynn, who <a href="https://www.grandcentralpublishing.com/titles/loretta-lynn/coal-miners-daughter/9781538701690/">claimed that her songs about wayward husbands</a> were inspired by her fraught marriage to Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn, confronted the “other woman” in songs such as 1966’s “You Ain’t Woman Enough” and 1968’s “Fist City.” </p>
<h2>A lasting legacy</h2>
<p>Fully aware that her personalized accounts became political messages for her fan base of women, Lynn co-wrote and recorded “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/04/loretta-lynn-the-pill/">The Pill</a>” in 1975. It was a rare foray into the topic of women’s reproductive rights for country music. In typical fashion, though, Lynn approached the issue from the perspective of a rural working-class woman: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m tired of all your crowin’</p>
<p>How you and your hens play</p>
<p>While holdin’ a couple in my arms</p>
<p>Another’s on the way</p>
<p>This chicken’s done tore up her nest</p>
<p>And I’m ready to make a deal</p>
<p>And ya can’t afford to turn it down</p>
<p>‘Cause you know I’ve got the pill</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The song’s sexual innuendos about cavorting roosters and hens incorporated the double entendres and humor of early blues and country, while providing a frank discussion about female sexual pleasure. It also addressed the right for women to take control over their bodies and reproduction.</p>
<p>The song came out just two years after <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/113/">the Supreme Court passed Roe v. Wade</a>, granting women the ability to govern their own reproductive health through abortion.</p>
<p>Indeed, Lynn commented on the Supreme Court’s ruling in her autobiography:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Personally, I think you should prevent unwanted pregnancy rather than get an abortion. It would be wrong for me. But I’m thinking of all the poor girls who get pregnant when they don’t want to be, and how they should have a choice instead of leaving it up to some politician or doctor who don’t have to raise the baby.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Her recording “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/music/2022/10/04/loretta-lynn-the-pill/">The Pill</a>” spoke to married women who wanted to be able to space out their children and prevent unwanted pregnancies so that they could pursue educational and professional opportunities. </p>
<p>In interviews, Lynn discussed at length how female listeners flocked to her after concerts, relieved to find a public figure with whom they felt comfortable to discuss birth control. </p>
<p>Not everyone was thrilled, though. Male country <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/after-country-stations-banned-loretta-lynns-the-pill-it-became-her-biggest-pop-hit">disc jockeys banned</a> “The Pill” from the airwaves. Nonetheless, the recording became her biggest seller in 1975 and furthered Lynn’s reputation as a spokeswoman for white rural working-class women. </p>
<p>Her music also inspired the women in country music who followed her to further explore issues of gender roles. Lynn’s legacy lives on in the music of female country artists – such as <a href="https://www.reba.com/">Reba McEntire</a> and <a href="https://www.mirandalambert.com/">Miranda Lambert</a> – who learned from Lynn how to create music that confronts and triumphs over the societal obstacles that women face.</p>
<p>While all of country music will mourn the death of Lynn, it is perhaps her female fans who will feel the loss more acutely. Lynn gave them a social and political voice, and helped make country music a genre relevant to the complexities of women’s lives.</p>
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<span class="caption">Flowers left by fans on Loretta Lynn’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/flowers-are-placed-on-loretta-lynns-star-on-the-hollywood-news-photo/1430495880?phrase=loretta%20lynn&adppopup=true">Emma McIntyre/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Vander Wel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Through songs such as ‘The Pill,’ Lynn addressed issues confronting all women. The country star died on Oct. 4 at age 90.
Stephanie Vander Wel, Associate Professor of Music, University at Buffalo
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/170945
2022-09-08T17:54:47Z
2022-09-08T17:54:47Z
16 visits over 57 years: reflecting on Queen Elizabeth II’s long relationship with Australia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429538/original/file-20211101-25-t4jfl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2995%2C2191&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip drive down Victoria Park racecourse, in Adelaide, 1963. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth” has died. Given her advanced years, this has long been expected, yet it still seems incredible this woman who has been Australia’s queen for the duration of most Australians’ lives is no longer with us. </p>
<p>While the focus of the formalities and ceremony of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II will centre on London and the UK, there is no doubt it will be keenly observed by many Australians.</p>
<p>The queen liked Australia and Australians. She came here 16 times throughout her reign and was, famously, on her way to our shores in 1952 when she learned her father had passed on and she was now queen.</p>
<p>Her visits to Australia – from her first in 1954 through to her last in 2011 – offer a snapshot of the changing relationship Australians have had with their sovereign and with the monarchy. </p>
<h2>An enthusiastic nation</h2>
<p>The queen’s 1954 tour took place during a time described by historian Ben Pimlott as the age of “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-923X.00194">British Shintoism</a>”. Deference to the Crown was paramount in Britain and the Commonwealth, and many Australians were madly enthusiastic about their queen.</p>
<p>After her arrival at Farm Cove in Sydney on February 3 1954, Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to set foot on Australian soil. The royal tour lasted nearly two months and consisted of a gruelling schedule taking in visits to every state and territory apart from the Northern Territory. </p>
<p>During the tour, the queen greeted over 70,000 ex-service men and women; drove in cavalcades that took in massive crowds; attended numerous civic receptions; and opened the Australian Parliament in Canberra. The tour saw Elizabeth travel 10,000 miles by air and 2,000 miles by road – including 207 trips by car and by appointed royal trains. </p>
<p>It is estimated as much as 75% of the population saw the queen and Prince Philip during this tour. </p>
<p>No Australian prime minister has ever had a reception on this scale or exposure to so many of the country’s citizens.</p>
<h2>A “new” and prosperous country</h2>
<p>During her first two tours in 1954 and 1963, the Australia laid-out for display for the queen was depicted as having gone from being a small colonial settlement to a thriving economy that had ridden to prosperity “<a href="https://slll.cass.anu.edu.au/centres/andc/meanings-origins/o">on the sheep’s back</a>”.</p>
<p>The queen was treated to endless displays of sheep shearing, surf carnivals, wood chopping, whip cracking, and mass displays of dancing and singing by school children. Federal and state dignitaries, mayors and civic leaders from across the political divide jostled to meet and be seen with her; the country’s florists were emptied of flowers for the hundreds of bouquets presented to her by dozens of shy, nervous school children nudged gently forward by awe-struck parents.</p>
<p>During the early tours, Aboriginal Australians were kept at a discreet distance. Apart from a demonstration of boomerang and spear throwing, <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/australia-and-the-monarchy-9780857987549">the closest the queen came</a> to experiencing anything of Indigenous Australian culture was a ballet performed by the Arts Council Ballet titled Corroboree, with no Aboriginal dancers but dancers with blackened faces. </p>
<p>During the 1970 visit, the queen <a href="http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107922584">witnessed the re-enactment</a> of Captain James Cook’s arrival at Botany Bay, with Cook and his crew meeting “the resistance of the Aborigines with a volley of musket fire”. </p>
<p>By 1973, Indigenous Australians were given a more significant role in the royal tours. Aboriginal actor Ben Blakeney, one of Bennelong’s descendants, gave the official welcome during the opening of the Sydney Opera House, and the then unknown actor David Gulpilil was among those performing a ceremonial dance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429680/original/file-20211102-13-1wftw5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429680/original/file-20211102-13-1wftw5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429680/original/file-20211102-13-1wftw5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429680/original/file-20211102-13-1wftw5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429680/original/file-20211102-13-1wftw5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=376&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429680/original/file-20211102-13-1wftw5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429680/original/file-20211102-13-1wftw5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429680/original/file-20211102-13-1wftw5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen Elizabeth II declares open the Sydney Opera House complex, 1973.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Invited guest, not ruler of the land</h2>
<p>As early as the 1963 tour, the nation-wide royal fervour had dimmed a little. The 1963 visit witnessed smaller crowds and fewer mass public events. When Prime Minister Robert Menzies courted the queen with the now-famous line, “I did but see her passing by, and yet I love her till I die”, the ensuing blushes – including the queen’s own – reflected many Australians’ growing sense of embarrassment at public displays and unquestioning expressions of deference. </p>
<p>Despite this, Menzies’ displays of public ardour saw him being granted The Order of the Thistle shortly after, a bestowal which must surely remain the envy of some subsequent prime ministers.</p>
<p>The 1977 Silver Jubilee and 1988 Australian bicentenary visits perhaps marked the end of a period of royal tours as overt celebrations of Australia’s ties to Britain. This new flavour of tours positioned the sovereign as an invited guest to an independent, modern and multi-cultural nation. </p>
<p>On her 10th tour in 1986, the queen returned to sign the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Act_1986">Australia Act</a>, which brought to an end the ability of the UK to create laws for Australia. </p>
<p>Her role as our sovereign subtly transformed from cutting ribbons and opening Parliament to signing the documents that slowly, by degrees, contributed to the cutting of Australia’s ties to the UK and the Crown.</p>
<h2>A question of the republic</h2>
<p>By the 12th tour in 1992, the cost of the queen’s visits to Australia were increasingly scrutinised by a public feeling largely indifferent about the royal family. The prime minister of the day, Paul Keating, was seen not so much as an entranced liege lord revelling in the opportunity to see his sovereign “passing by” as one who instead – unthinkingly – committed an act of <em>lèse majesté</em> by placing his bare hand on the royal back and waist as he guided her through the crowd. </p>
<p>The gloves, it seemed, were coming off.</p>
<p>The queen made it clear in her last visits to our shores that whether or not Australia should become a republic was a decision for its own citizens to make. Her <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/507504.stm">official announcement</a> after she learned of the result of the 1999 Republic Referendum confirmed this: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have always made it clear that the future of the Monarchy in Australia is an issue for the Australian people and them alone to decide, by democratic and constitutional means. … My family and I would, of course, have retained our deep affection for Australia and Australians everywhere, whatever the outcome.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the last decades of her life, the queen retained the affection of many. Her popularity seemed to grow in line with Australians’ increased disenchantment with their home-grown political leaders: the former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Julia Gillard are right to have sensed that any discussion about an Australian republic would have to wait until after Elizabeth II’s death. </p>
<p>Queen Elizabeth II reigned across seven decades and her tours to Australia served as a marker of Australia’s changing relationship with the Crown as well as with its own colonial past and national identity. </p>
<p>Almost certainly, Elizabeth II’s reign as the stalwart, loyal, dutiful, and most cherished and admired of “Glorianas” is one we are unlikely ever to see again.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: the article previously stated the queen was on her way to Australia in 1953 when she learned of her father’s death. This has been corrected to 1952.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170945/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Giselle Bastin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The queen’s visits to Australia from 1954 to 2011 offer a snapshot of the changing relationship Australians have had with their sovereign and with the monarchy.
Giselle Bastin, Associate Professor of English, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188523
2022-08-10T04:53:05Z
2022-08-10T04:53:05Z
Part of the Japanese revolution in fashion, Issey Miyake changed the way we saw, wore and made fashion
<p>Throughout his career, Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake, who has died of cancer at 84, rejected terms like “fashion”. </p>
<p>But his work allowed much of the world to reimagine itself through clothing.</p>
<p>Born in Hiroshima in 1938, Miyake studied graphic design in Tokyo where he was influenced by the Japanese-American sculptor <a href="https://www.noguchi.org/isamu-noguchi/biography/biography/">Isamu Noguchi</a> and the black and white photography of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/oct/20/irving-penn-beyond-beauty-in-pictures">Irving Penn</a>. </p>
<p>As soon as the post-war restrictions barring Japanese nationals from travelling abroad were lifted, he headed to Paris, arriving in 1964. </p>
<p>There, the young designer apprenticed for eminent <em>haute couture</em> fashion houses <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Laroche">Guy Laroche</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_de_Givenchy">Hubert de Givenchy</a>. Such houses made expensive clothes that conformed to prevailing standards of etiquette. Miyake was to go well beyond that.</p>
<p>Miyake was there for the Paris <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/05/29/613671633/in-france-the-protests-of-may-1968-reverberate-today-and-still-divide-the-french">student revolt of 1968</a> and was galvanised by the youth quake shaking all rules of society. </p>
<p>The ready-to-wear concept by a couturier had been launched just a few years earlier when Yves Saint Laurent created <a href="https://museeyslparis.com/en/biography/saint-laurent-rive-gauche">Saint Laurent Rive Gauche</a> in late 1966. </p>
<p>The fashion system was changing and Miyake rose to the challenge. </p>
<h2>Japanese fashion revolution</h2>
<p>Miyake arrived in Paris shortly after Kenzo’s “<a href="https://www.drapersonline.com/insight/analysis/kenzo-takadas-colourful-and-inclusive-influence-on-fashion">Jungle Jap</a>” clothes had made waves, with their bright colours and unexpected patterns based partly on Japanese artistic traditions. </p>
<p>The Japanese revolution in fashion was commencing. </p>
<p>Japanese designers including <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/comme-des-garcons-rei-kawakubo-spring-2021-interview">Rei Kawakubo</a> for Comme des Garçons, <a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/people/yohji-yamamoto">Yohji Yamamoto</a> and Issey – all born in the 1930s and 40s – rose to prominence in the 70s and showed in Paris. </p>
<p>All questioned Eurocentric views of fashion and beauty. The Japanese designers reversed the Western focus on symmetry and tidiness and adopted aspects of Japanese aesthetic systems, such as Yamamoto’s use of black with colours such as red, purple, cerise, brown and dark blue.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478438/original/file-20220810-22-yqqo5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Thigh high laced suede boots worn over cotton pants and woven with a quilted look are worn with a full-sleeved lamb wool jacket" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478438/original/file-20220810-22-yqqo5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478438/original/file-20220810-22-yqqo5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478438/original/file-20220810-22-yqqo5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478438/original/file-20220810-22-yqqo5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=882&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478438/original/file-20220810-22-yqqo5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478438/original/file-20220810-22-yqqo5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478438/original/file-20220810-22-yqqo5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1108&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An early creation by Issey Miyake presented in New York City in 1972.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Miyake held his first show in New York in 1971 and in Paris in 1973. He integrated technology with tradition, exploring Japanese aesthetics and the uncut, untailored garment. He also commissioned high-tech textiles that influenced fashion around the world.</p>
<p>Miyake’s BODY series included the <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/675703">famous bustiers</a> of plastic, rattan and resin in which the female body was re-imagined as a type of armour.</p>
<p>In February 1982 the prominent journal Artforum photographed a Miyake bustier <a href="https://www.artforum.com/print/198202">on its cover</a>. </p>
<p>It was the first time a contemporary art journal had featured fashion. </p>
<h2>Covering the body</h2>
<p>Throughout his career Miyake completely re-imagined the potential of textiles. </p>
<p>Working with his textile director Makiko Minagawa and Japanese textile mills, he began to create the famous Pleats collections: using thermally processed polyester textiles that are not pleated before sewing (the regular practice), but manufactured much larger, and then pleated in machines. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://collection.imamuseum.org/artwork/79227/">Rhythm Pleats</a> collection from 1989 was inspired by the French artist Henri Rousseau: Miyake took elements of the colour palette and the strange sculptural shells surrounding women in these paintings, a good example of how his influences were always abstract and suggestive.</p>
<p>His very commercial collection <a href="https://camarguefashion.com.au/blogs/news/introducing-pleats-please-by-issey-miyake">Pleats Please</a> was launched in 1993. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.isseymiyake.com/en/brands/apocable">A-POC (A Piece of Cloth)</a> collection (in collaboration with Dai Fujiwara, 1998) revolutionised clothing design and prefigured anxieties around the unsustainability of fashion and its attendant waste. Clothes were knitted in three dimensions in a continuous tube using computerised knitting technology as a whole and from a single thread. </p>
<p>The garment came in a cylinder and was later cut out by the wearer – there was no waste, as leftover sections became mittens, for example.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/four-clothing-businesses-that-could-lead-us-away-from-the-horrors-of-fast-fashion-165578">Four clothing businesses that could lead us away from the horrors of fast fashion</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Miyake and men</h2>
<p>Miyake’s <a href="https://collections.lacma.org/node/2238481">pneumatic collection</a> in 1991 included knickerbocker trousers for men with plastic bladders and straws – men could inflate or deflate the clothes to suit. </p>
<p>It was the age of the AIDS crisis and attendant body wasting. Calvin Klein had responded with hyper-masculine underwear and hyper-masculine advertising. Miyake, on the other hand, tested the zeitgeist by suggesting we use clothes to make our bodies and appearances suit our needs.</p>
<p>Having worn his clothes myself for some time, I can testify for the liberation they provide. The jackets are unlined and embrace the body in unexpected ways. Sleeves might be manufactured so they create a pagoda shape on your arm and add dynamism to the body. </p>
<p>The colour palette is extraordinary and so different from a diet of sensible woollens or tweeds. </p>
<p>Computer-generated jacquard weaving creates subtle patterns only truly registered by closer looking. The textiles have an unexpected tactility next to the skin. Some of the garments are provided literally rolled in a ball. They weigh virtually nothing, meaning they liberate the traveller. Once unrolled and put on the body, they spring back to life. </p>
<p>There is a real sense that you, the wearer, animate these lifeless things: dressing is a performance and the clothes generate a reality that is both theatrical and practical. Although widely worn (there is a cliche all gallerists once lived in Miyake) people remain intrigued by them, wanting to touch them for themselves. </p>
<p>At the <a href="https://www.travelifemagazine.com/about-issey-miyake-retrospective-a/">Issey Miyake Retrospective</a> in Tokyo in 2016, I saw Miyake and very much wanted to go over and thank him for transforming the potential of fashion for women and men around the world, its material possibility and imaginative possibility. </p>
<p>I’d very much like to thank him for that now.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-japanese-avant-garde-ceramicists-have-tested-the-limits-of-clay-184470">How Japanese avant-garde ceramicists have tested the limits of clay</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188523/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter McNeil does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Issey Miyake’s clothing is both theatrical and practical. The Japanese designer has died aged 84.
Peter McNeil, Distinguished Professor of Design History, UTS, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/175435
2022-01-21T02:44:09Z
2022-01-21T02:44:09Z
Australian art has lost two of its greats. Vale Ann Newmarch and Hossein Valamanesh
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441893/original/file-20220121-8990-1g2vkau.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C191%2C3994%2C1802&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ann Newmarch, born Adelaide 1945, died Adelaide 2022, Self-portrait. 1/60th of a second, 1981, Adelaide, photo-etching on paper, 26.4 x 34.7 cm (plate), Public Donations Fund 2015, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, © Ann Newmarch; and Hossein Valamanesh with his work Untitled, Gallery 6, Art Gallery
of South Australia, Adelaide, 2019</span> </figcaption></figure><p>In the past ten days Australia has lost two important artworld figures. Both were senior artists working in Adelaide but with a reach extending far beyond the city or the nation. </p>
<p>Celebrated feminist artist, Ann Newmarch OAM, born June 9 1945, passed away on Thursday January 13 2022. </p>
<p>Hossein Valamanesh AM, born March 2 1949, died suddenly on January 15, just weeks before he and his partner Angela Valamanesh are due to exhibit their work in the Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art – Free/State at the Art Gallery of South Australia. </p>
<p>Although they work in mostly different genres, a similar sense of restraint imbues the work of each, and both artists are equally celebrated. </p>
<h2>Vale Ann Newmarch</h2>
<p>The life and career of Newmarch was marked by political activism, and her energy in steering community projects such as the anti-rape mural Reclaim the Night (1980) and the Prospect Mural Group’s postcolonial History of Australia (1982). </p>
<p>In 1969, she joined the staff of the South Australian School of Art, and while continuing in the tradition of a long line of women lecturers, her appointment was different. She ushered in the optimism and “voice” second-wave feminism gave women artists and over three decades she mentored female students who in turn have had brilliant careers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441879/original/file-20220121-9349-1n7u28y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441879/original/file-20220121-9349-1n7u28y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441879/original/file-20220121-9349-1n7u28y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441879/original/file-20220121-9349-1n7u28y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441879/original/file-20220121-9349-1n7u28y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441879/original/file-20220121-9349-1n7u28y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441879/original/file-20220121-9349-1n7u28y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441879/original/file-20220121-9349-1n7u28y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ann Newmarch, born Adelaide 1945, died Adelaide 2022. Women hold up half the sky!, 1978, Prospect, Adelaide. Colour screenprint on paper, 91.5 x 65.0 cm (sheet), South Australian Government Grant 1981.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, © Ann Newmarch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1974, Newmarch was a founding member of the politically-active <a href="https://www.artlink.com.au/articles/4198/mother-nature-is-a-lesbian-political-printmaking-i/">Progressive Art Movement (PAM)</a> and, in 1976, of Adelaide’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-our-art-museums-finally-opened-their-eyes-to-australian-women-artists-102647">Women’s Art Movement</a>. In each she pushed the boundaries of the print medium to develop an accessible art form. In PAM, along with <a href="https://australiangalleries.com.au/artists/mandy-martin/">Mandy Martin</a>, Newmarch produced political posters in her Prospect studio advocating for change such as a nationalised car industry and Australian Independence.</p>
<p>As an artist and mother of three young children in the 1970s and 1980s, her work across all media areas epitomises second-wave feminism’s mantra “the personal is political”. Her Three months of interrupted work, shown in WAMs ground-breaking 1977 exhibition, <a href="https://aceopen.art/exhibitions/remembering-womens-show/">The Women’s Show</a>, best describes the juggling act of domestic labour, motherhood and working as an artist. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441880/original/file-20220121-9089-t7yb38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441880/original/file-20220121-9089-t7yb38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441880/original/file-20220121-9089-t7yb38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441880/original/file-20220121-9089-t7yb38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441880/original/file-20220121-9089-t7yb38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441880/original/file-20220121-9089-t7yb38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441880/original/file-20220121-9089-t7yb38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441880/original/file-20220121-9089-t7yb38.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ann Newmarch, born Adelaide 1945, died Adelaide 2022,
Maralinga: poisoned rations, 1988, Adelaide, oil on canvas, 168.0 x182.8 cm, Gift of the artist through Art Gallery of the South Australia Contemporary Collectors, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, © Ann Newmarch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Her children became her subjects, along with pressing social issues such as damage to the landscape from atomic testing and uranium mining as in Maralinga: poisoned rations (1988). </p>
<p>Later in life, she confronted the invisibility of ageing women in a powerful series Risking 50 (1995).</p>
<p>Newmarch’s 1978 print Women hold up half the sky!, the title a riff on Mao Zedong’s famous phrase, was the only Australian work selected for the all-important 2007 Los Angeles exhibition <a href="https://www.moca.org/exhibition/wack-art-and-the-feminist-revolution">WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution</a>. It featured again in the National Gallery of Australia’s 2021 exhibition Know My Name. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beauty-and-audacity-know-my-name-presents-a-new-female-story-of-australian-art-150139">Beauty and audacity: Know My Name presents a new, female story of Australian art</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Her work is held by all major public and private collections, and she was the first woman artist honoured by a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of South Australia in 1997. She was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for her services to the Arts in 1989. </p>
<p>Colleagues have taken to social media with the words: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Rest in Power Ann Newmarch: one of the great Australian second-wave feminist artists.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Vale Hossein Valamanesh</h2>
<p>Hossein Valamanesh, was born in Iran and educated at the School of Art in Tehran, and immigrated to Australia in 1973. </p>
<p>From his initial base in Perth, he travelled to remote Aboriginal communities in 1974 where his brush with an ancient culture resonated with his age-old Persian heritage. He relocated to Adelaide the following year, and attended the South Australian School of Art. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441882/original/file-20220121-9024-1935qkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441882/original/file-20220121-9024-1935qkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441882/original/file-20220121-9024-1935qkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441882/original/file-20220121-9024-1935qkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441882/original/file-20220121-9024-1935qkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441882/original/file-20220121-9024-1935qkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441882/original/file-20220121-9024-1935qkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441882/original/file-20220121-9024-1935qkd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hossein Valamanesh, born Tehran 1949, died Adelaide 2022, Untitled, 1994, Adelaide, lotus leaves on gauze, synthetic polymer paint, 60.0 x 145.0 x 3.5 cm, Faulding 150 Anniversary Fund for South Australian Contemporary Art 1995.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, © Hossein Valamanesh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>By 1997, he synthesised his connection to place in Longing belonging by lighting a campfire on Persian rug placed in the Australian bush. The charred burnt circle of the rug stands testament to his dual identities.</p>
<p>Valamanesh’s work is known and loved for its spare aesthetic sensibility, parred back form and poetic visual imagery. His materials are frequently found natural materials: ochres, sands, stones and leaves, branches and twigs animated by a Sufi philosophy exploring the ineffable and the impermanent underpinned by Persian poetry. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441883/original/file-20220121-9089-i9xt7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441883/original/file-20220121-9089-i9xt7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441883/original/file-20220121-9089-i9xt7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441883/original/file-20220121-9089-i9xt7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441883/original/file-20220121-9089-i9xt7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441883/original/file-20220121-9089-i9xt7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441883/original/file-20220121-9089-i9xt7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441883/original/file-20220121-9089-i9xt7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hossein Valamanesh, born Tehran 1949, died Adelaide 2022, Fallen branch, 2005, Adelaide, bronze, 152.0 x 156.0 x 7.0 cm, Gift of the Art Gallery of South Australia Contemporary Collectors assisted by Jane Ayers, Candy Bennett, Jan Frolich, David and Pam McKee, Jane Michell and Michael and Tracey Whiting through the Contemporary Collectors 2005.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, © Hossein Valamanesh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A shadow of the human form is an enduring theme, as in his wall piece Untitled (1995) consisting in a folded shirt made from lotus leaves set against a Sufi love poem painted in the shape of human shadow (when viewed diagonally). Beneath the philosophy, mathematics is inevitably at play in his work.</p>
<p>Over five decades, in sculpture, painting, installation and video (recently with his son Nassiem <a href="https://buxtoncontemporary.com/exhibitions/hossein-nassiem-valamanesh-what-goes-around-2021/">at Buxton Contemporary</a>) Valamanesh’s work explores the paradoxes of selfhood, existence and being. Collaborative work with his wife Angela Valamenesh includes several public art commissions including the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:14_Pieces.JPG">Fourteen pieces</a> (2005) outside the South Australian Museum, referencing the vertebrae of an extinct marine reptile in the museum’s collection.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441885/original/file-20220121-9047-1ixgp1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441885/original/file-20220121-9047-1ixgp1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441885/original/file-20220121-9047-1ixgp1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441885/original/file-20220121-9047-1ixgp1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441885/original/file-20220121-9047-1ixgp1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=837&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441885/original/file-20220121-9047-1ixgp1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441885/original/file-20220121-9047-1ixgp1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441885/original/file-20220121-9047-1ixgp1s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1052&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hossein Valamanesh, born Tehran 1949, died Adelaide 2022, After Rain, 2013, Adelaide, suspended tree and electric motor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">On loan from the artist’s estate, © Hossein Valamanesh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hossein’s work is held in national and international collections and he was a prolific international exhibitor, with his work currently on show in a major solo exhibition <a href="https://artistprofile.com.au/hossein-valamanesh-puisque-tout-passe/">Puisque tout passe (This Will Also Pass)</a>, at the Institut des Cultures d'Islam in Paris. </p>
<p>His numerous awards include an Order of Australia (with Angela) in 2010 for outstanding artistic practice, and he too was a generous mentor of young artists. His contemplative work will live on, he has been described as “a finder of beautiful things in a world that hides them well”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Speck received ARC funding to research Australian art exhibitions. </span></em></p>
Although they work in different genres, a similar sense of restraint imbues the work of each.
Catherine Speck, Professorial Fellow (Honorary), The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/172768
2021-12-01T01:11:44Z
2021-12-01T01:11:44Z
Stephen Sondheim showed me the beauty, terror and exquisite pain of being alive
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434588/original/file-20211130-21-1vai1dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C4212%2C2477&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nick Simpson-Deeks, Vidya Makan and company in the Watch This production of Sunday in the Park With George, 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Watch This/Jodie Hutchinson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What did Stephen Sondheim mean to me? This is an attempt to bring order to the chaos.</p>
<p>My first encounter with his work is a re-run of the 1962 film adaptation of West Side Story (1957). I am about 7 or 8. It has an immediate effect on me - the lyrics and book especially. The translation of the familial divide in Romeo and Juliet to a story exploring social disadvantage, racial tensions and violence. It is thrilling, young as I am.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434585/original/file-20211129-27-1qguxw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434585/original/file-20211129-27-1qguxw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434585/original/file-20211129-27-1qguxw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434585/original/file-20211129-27-1qguxw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434585/original/file-20211129-27-1qguxw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434585/original/file-20211129-27-1qguxw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434585/original/file-20211129-27-1qguxw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434585/original/file-20211129-27-1qguxw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stephen Sondheim was a titan of the American musical.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>At 16, I see a live performance of Into The Woods (1986). I learn theatre can be playful and cerebral and ironic and emotionally compelling all at once. It resonates deeply with me as a passionate and bewildered teenager aching for guidance. Not only does it frame my understanding of theatre, it shapes the way I think about the human condition.</p>
<p>I am 26 and we are performing Merrily We Roll Along (1981) for our final production at drama school. “How will it all unfold for us?”, we can’t help but wonder. </p>
<p>It is a show I revisit over and over as an artist, including with the company I founded, <a href="https://www.watchthis.net.au/">Watch This</a>, in 2017. When a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic has us all locked inside our homes, I play Sondheim’s incredible overture and soundtrack for my kids. We spend mornings dancing around and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/6oFKPElq4jg7ebjtwHl4Ed?si=1e237e9961614f60">singing along</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some roads are soft<br>
And some are bumpy<br>
Some roads you really fly<br>
Some rides are rough<br>
And leave you jumpy<br>
Why make it tough<br>
By getting grumpy?<br>
Plenty of roads to try<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Sometimes life rolls you into a ditch and you just have to lie there until you can crawl out. I lean on Sondheim’s music and lyrics to convey this difficult truth to my children. </p>
<h2>Realising Sondheim</h2>
<p>In 2011, I embark on the project of establishing a Sondheim repertory company Watch This. It staggered me Australia didn’t have one. </p>
<p>It was a singularly daunting thing to set my cap at realising such a weighty body of work with an independent company and all the constraints that entails. You want to do his work justice.</p>
<p>In inviting an audience to see a Sondheim show, I always try to be clear-eyed about how it speaks to us here and now. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434589/original/file-20211130-14-26p336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434589/original/file-20211130-14-26p336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434589/original/file-20211130-14-26p336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434589/original/file-20211130-14-26p336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434589/original/file-20211130-14-26p336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434589/original/file-20211130-14-26p336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434589/original/file-20211130-14-26p336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434589/original/file-20211130-14-26p336.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrew Kroenert, Noni McCallum, Nick Simpson-Deeks, Elenor Smith-Adams, Leighton Phair and Reece Budin in Pacific Overtures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Watch This/Jodie Hutchinson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2014, when we produced Pacific Overtures (1975), it was an election year and much of the political rhetoric was about “stopping the boats”. </p>
<p>Pacific Overtures is set in Japan after 200-odd years of deliberate seclusion from the world, at the moment of Western incursion. It was important for us to ensure the Japanese characters were centred in the narrative rather than being exoticised, with our audience positioned squarely as “the foreigners”.</p>
<p>We see the story unfold from a Japanese perspective, via our two heroes who are sent to the water’s edge to quite literally stop the boats and hold back the tide of history.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434590/original/file-20211130-25-2uxqab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434590/original/file-20211130-25-2uxqab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434590/original/file-20211130-25-2uxqab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434590/original/file-20211130-25-2uxqab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434590/original/file-20211130-25-2uxqab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=840&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434590/original/file-20211130-25-2uxqab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434590/original/file-20211130-25-2uxqab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434590/original/file-20211130-25-2uxqab.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1056&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tim Paige and Sonya Suares in Company.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Watch This/Jodie Hutchinson</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We staged Company (1970), a musical about relationships and intimacy, during the national marriage equality debate. </p>
<p>In a twist of fate, we programmed Into the Woods, a story about a motley collection of characters who must band together to confront an existential crisis, in 2020. </p>
<p>In 2019, I was lucky enough to co-direct Sunday in the Park with George (1983) with Dean Drieberg and an extraordinary team. It was an absolute career highlight.</p>
<p>It’s worth pausing for a moment here.</p>
<p>Often, people approach this musical as if it is all about George, the auteur-artiste. But Dot, his lover and muse, is equally important. She makes a stunningly difficult decision to prioritise a future for their child. Her choice is what propels us into act two.</p>
<p>George chooses a vertical eternity: he dedicates himself to “finishing the hat” so his experimental masterpiece may be suspended forever in a gallery. Dot’s choice extends horizontally across the axis of time: she lives on in the generations that follow her.</p>
<p>It is a show about legacy and mortality. Children and art. </p>
<h2>An industry in mourning</h2>
<p>It is a strange and disorienting thing to grieve for a person you’ve never met. I didn’t expect it to hit me as hard as it has. When you spend a decade inside someone’s works diving deeper and deeper into different worlds and myriad complex ideas, it is an incredibly intimate relationship.</p>
<p>I know I’m not alone in this feeling. Many people all over the world are experiencing a profound sense of loss. The grief within the theatre community is like an electric current. I cried on the phone to a longtime collaborator, because it is hard to explain to anyone outside our community: it feels so unbelievably personal.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-to-the-ladies-who-lunch-one-of-sondheims-greatest-achievements-was-writing-complex-women-172765">Here's to the ladies who lunch: one of Sondheim's greatest achievements was writing complex women</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In a 1988 interview with 60 Minutes, Sondheim was asked if he would have liked to have children. You can see the regret streak across his face. “Yes” he replies, but adds: “<a href="https://www.vulture.com/2013/12/tv-review-six-by-sondheim-hbo.html">art is the other way</a>”.</p>
<p>It is. There are generations of theatre-makers and audiences who have an immensely personal relationship with Sondheim’s work. That is his legacy. His musicals – even those that are 40 or 50 years old – still speak so directly to my own generation and those younger. His works are porous, allowing constant reimagining and immediate, contemporary connections. </p>
<p>Sondheim revolutionised the American musical and changed us along with it. He absolutely changed me. His career is testament to an artist’s need to take risks and transform, to get “through to something new”. And his works refract the beauty and terror and exquisite pain of being alive.</p>
<p>The fact that we reach for his lyrics and music as the very tools for processing his death points to Sondheim’s impact on the world he has departed. It is a giant’s footprint.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172768/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sonya Suares does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
In 2011, I established a Sondheim repertory theatre company. I didn’t expect his death to hit me as hard as it has.
Sonya Suares, Guest Lecturer, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/147652
2020-10-07T05:58:13Z
2020-10-07T05:58:13Z
With his signature guitar style, Eddie Van Halen changed rock music
<p>The legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-1ttle-with-cancer/127382880-07/eddie-van-halen-dies-aged-65-after-ba">has died</a> aged 65. One of the most influential guitarists of the modern age, Van Halen was known for his mastery of the <a href="https://seeitlive.co/van-halen-guitar-tapping/">two-handed tapping</a> technique and for bringing the virtuosic rock guitar solo back into the popular music mainstream in the late 70s and 1980s. </p>
<p>One of the great innovators, Van Halen formed a bridge between 1970s rock styles and heavy metal sounds of the 1980s. He delivered his best work with a nonchalance that belied the training and dedication driving him and his band to succeed.</p>
<p>Born in the Netherlands in 1955, Van Halen came from a musical family. His father played saxophone and clarinet professionally and ensured Van Halen and his older brother, Alex, started piano lessons from a young age. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1313573192456450048"}"></div></p>
<p>The boys’ training in classical music and theory would influence Van Halen’s guitar playing, particularly the famous two-handed, finger tapping technique, where harmonic ideas derived from the keyboard found new expression on the electric guitar.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/redefining-the-rock-god-the-new-breed-of-electric-guitar-heroes-80192">Redefining the rock god – the new breed of electric guitar heroes</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Young tour de force</h2>
<p>The family immigrated to the US in 1962 and the young Van Halen brothers later discovered rock music, with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton as early heroes. </p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/eddie-van-halen-talks-revolutionary-gear-mods-and-the-death-of-rock-in-his-first-ever-interview-from-1978">first Guitar Player magazine interview</a> in 1978, Van Halen mentioned Clapton as a formative influence, having learnt his solos note for note.</p>
<p>In 1972, while still in high school, the brothers formed the band Mammoth, hiring a public address system from David Lee Roth. Van Halen originally sang as well as playing guitar, but he tired of combining duties so Roth (and his PA) joined the band. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">This recording, live on the Sunset Strip circa 1976, captures the energy of the band.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Mammoth caught the attention of Kiss’s Gene Simmons, who financed an early demo tape, and then producer Ted Templeman who signed the group to a record deal. Their first album, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen_(album)">Van Halen</a> (1978), was recorded quickly, drawing on their live sound and set list. </p>
<p>It was the album’s second track, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI7XiJgt0vY">Eruption</a>, that captured the attention of guitarists.</p>
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<p>This tour de force shows Van Halen had already developed his signature style by his early 20s. Opening power chords signal a call to attention while licks based on blues and rock phrases are transformed through sheer speed and intensity. The tone has a power, presence and clarity rarely heard in rock guitar recordings of the time. </p>
<p>The climax of the piece is the famous two-handed tapping section. With a concluding dive bomb – a pitch descent courtesy of subtle manipulation of the <a href="https://www.sustainpunch.com/whammy-bars/">whammy bar</a>, Van Halen ushered in a new era in electric guitar playing. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Van Halen demonstrating his two-handed tapping in 2015.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>True innovation</h2>
<p>The sounds and techniques used in Eruption seemed to be only possible on the electric guitar, exploiting the instrument’s responsiveness and tactile immediacy.</p>
<p>But Van Halen continued to seek new means of musical expression and on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen_II">Van Halen II</a> (1979), he gave us an example of what was possible when his virtuosic approach was adapted to the acoustic guitar. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Spanish Fly is a great example of his drive to innovate and adapt as a musician.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Van Halen was always modifying his guitars. Early experiments led to him creating his “Frankenstein guitar” in 1974, fusing the neck and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humbucker">humbucker pickup</a> from a Gibson guitar onto a Fender Stratocaster body. He added the stripes that became his signature.</p>
<p>He remained involved in designing new instruments throughout his career, collaborating with makers such as <a href="https://www.guitar-list.com/music-man/electric-guitars/ernie-ballmusic-man-edward-van-halen">Music Man</a>, <a href="https://www.themusiczoo.com/blogs/news/guitar-showcase-ten-eddie-van-halen-signed-charvel-evh-art-series-touring-guitars">Charvel</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT0exTVXIHI">Fender</a>.</p>
<h2>‘The brown sound’</h2>
<p>Van Halen’s sound was loud and distorted but also clear and focused. Often referred to as <a href="https://www.roland.co.uk/blog/guitarists-brown-sound/">the “brown” sound</a> for its feeling of organic warmth, this sound has gone on to inspire generations of guitarists. </p>
<p>The band’s biggest commercial success was the album <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_(Van_Halen_album)">1984</a>, where Van Halen turned to keyboards in both writing and recording.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A good example of the ‘brown sound’ can be heard here on Unchained, live at Oakland Coliseum Stadium in 1981.</span></figcaption>
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<p>On the single Jump, keyboard chords ground the song but an improvised, high energy electric guitar solo reminds the listener of Van Halen’s virtuosity as he leads the band into a Bach-inspired, keyboard fantasy.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Jump showed Van Halen’s skills on both keyboard and guitar.</span></figcaption>
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<p>From 1978 to 1998, the band released 11 studio albums, with their 12th and final album, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Different_Kind_of_Truth">A Different Kind of Truth</a> (2012), appearing 13 years later. But it is the searing lead break on Michael Jackson’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_It">Beat It</a> (1983) that bought Van Halen to global attention. </p>
<p>Jammed into 32 seconds, Van Halen’s solo is a masterpiece of construction, featuring pitch manipulation with the whammy bar, squealing harmonics, rapid-fire two-handed tapping, scurrying scalar licks (or quick scales) and a final ascending <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tremolo">tremolo line</a> that soars to the upper reaches of the fretboard and makes you wonder what just happened.</p>
<p>It is one of the most famous rock guitar solos around.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Van Halen’s work on Beat It.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Van Halen was diagnosed with <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/music/van-halen-1225779">tongue cancer</a> in 2000, and declared cancer free in 2002. In 2019, it was first reported he had been battling <a href="https://consequenceofsound.net/2019/11/eddie-van-halen-hospitalized-report/">throat cancer</a> for five years.</p>
<p>In 2015, Rolling Stone named Van Halen as number eight on a list of the world’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-guitarists-153675/eddie-van-halen-3-159410/">greatest guitarists</a> of all time. But as his career shows, his talent wasn’t simply in his musical virtuosity, but in his innovation: creating a brand new sound for rock music, but also in the design of the guitar itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ken Murray does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Eddie Van Halen has died aged 65. He will be remembered for his virtuoso playing, particularly his groundbreaking, two-handed, finger-tapping technique.
Ken Murray, Associate Professor in Guitar, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, The University of Melbourne
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.