Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) will bring history to life with the premiere of newly-formed baroque music ensemble, Van Diemen’s Band (VDB) as part of the Ten Days on the Island Festival in March this year.
On site at QVMAG today was world-renowned violinist and VDB Creative Director Julia Fredersdorff who said the group is very much looking forward to coming to Launceston to for its début series of concerts.
‘The acoustics in the colonial gallery will provide the perfect accompaniment for this elegant and sensuous music, as we take the audience on a journey back to Naples in the eighteenth century. We’re so excited to be performing on these ancient instruments amongst all of this history, in particular some of the paintings by John Glover that showcase stunning Italian vistas.’
The works created in Van Diemen’s Land are a combination of memories of Italy with inspiration from Australia, and this could not more perfectly complement our soloist, Australian- born and Italy-based cello virtuoso Catherine Jones.
Ms Fredersdorff’s violin is almost as old as the music in the programme – an eighteenth-century assembly of ‘acquired’ parts from other violins made by the finest Cremonese luthiers of the period. ‘It’s a Baroque Frankenstein beauty queen older than white settlement in this country,’ said Ms Fredersdorff, ‘with one of the most stunning Italianate sounds in the world.’
Bridget Arkless, Collection Officer Visual Art and Design, Queen Victoria Art Gallery said of the work:
‘When he emigrated from the United Kingdom in 1831, Glover bought with him numerous sketchbooks filled with English and Italian landscape scenes. This painting is a hybrid of Italian landscape memories; in this case the temples at Salerno and notations from his sketchbooks, whilst also being a celebration of the Tasmanian landscape and our vast deep blue skies.’
‘The painting was first exhibited in London in 1835, having been painted in Van Diemen’s land and then shipped to England. It was gifted to the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in 1905. It is a treasure of our nationally significant Tasmanian colonial Art Collection.’
Ten Days Artistic Director David Malacari said, ‘Everyone who has made Tasmania home has brought with them their own stories and treasures of the mind. We have always loved to explore these stories and to polish these treasures. They used to tell us who we were and where we came from, now they are part of our history and tell us something of our ancestry. Through these stories we discover more about modern Tasmania and what it’s like to live on an Island with an Island history.”
Van Diemen’s Band will perform in QVMAG on Saturday 18 March at 2pm. Tickets are available online at www.tendays.org.au or by phoning 6210 5700.
Tanya Hussey
