‘Whispering Walls’ on Tour

Media release – Van Diemen’s Band, 5 May 2023

TASMANIA WHISPERS IN MULTIMEDIA MAGICAL MUSIC SHOW

Van Diemen’s Fiddles captures the sounds, stories and visions of our unique island in a dazzling concert

If the walls could talk, what would they tell us?

On an island, the ‘walls’ are really the coastline that makes up its edge. And on this island, they enclose a unique web of stories and experiences woven in one of the most ancient inhabited landscapes on the planet. Our surroundings whisper their secrets to us if we care to listen.

Van Diemen’s Fiddles gives voice to those messages in a dazzling journey through sight and sound that explores the stories of place and its people. In Whispering Walls, baroque violinist (and VDB Artistic Director) Julia Fredersdorff, klezmer/folk fiddler Rachel Meyers, and experimental/folk fiddler Emily Sheppard mix traditional tunes and their own original music with beautiful poems and stories, plus breathtaking visuals filmed by Caleb Miller.

“Whispering Walls evokes that indescribable feeling we have when we visit places that quietly and endlessly resonate with the spirits of people and times past: places of meeting, talking, and community,” says Fredersdorff. “In a sense, those vibrations are always there; we’re merely tapping into them for an hour or so and holding that magical seashell to the audience’s collective ear.”

The concert’s program draws upon traditional music from 19th-century Tasmanian songbooks, original compositions inspired by Tasmanian rivers, mountains and caves, and the community networks embedded within. Accompanied by exclusive drone footage in spectacular visual projections, the music alternates with readings by Tasmanian poets Daniel Townsend, Adrienne Eberhardt and Jim Everett/puralia meenamatta together with tales by local storytellers from past times.

The instruments themselves speak to the past and the primeval. Fredersdorff’s violin dates from the 18th century and features gut strings made from sheep’s intestines. Meyers plays on both the deep octave violin and the viola, and Sheppard’s collection includes a Tasmanian version of the two-stringed erhu, fashioned from eel skin – one of the most plaintive and eerily beautiful sounds ever heard.

Previous audiences have described the combined effect of music, speech and vision as both subtle and deeply moving. “I’ve had people come up to us afterwards in tears,” Fredersdorff adds. “The concert speaks to them so directly because in a sense everything in it is about them. It can only come from here.”

Whispering Walls casts a unique spell on Tasmanian audiences; creating a compelling evocation of the island’s presence and ultimate mystery while convincing each audience member of their special place within it.

Performance dates:

Wynyard, The Watershed, Friday 12 May, 18:00

Queenstown, The Paragon Theatre, Saturday 13 May, 14:00

nipaluna/Hobart, The Barn, Rosny Farm, Sunday 14 May, 15:00

Australian Digital Concert Hall, Wednesday 17 May, 19:00