Illuminate
Council’s City Events team is calling on schools and community groups to participate in Illuminate (formerly known as the Parade of Light). This event will be held in 2021 during SPARK Ipswich (the reimagined Ipswich Festival).
Building on previous events, Illuminate will be the culmination of a new community arts project delivered throughout Ipswich from February – July 2021.
The project will offer free arts, music, choral and dance workshops to the community. Workshop scheduling is negotiable and can occur during or outside of school/group regular rehearsals.
The community arts project will be led by acclaimed Artistic Lead, Andrew Veivers, during Terms 1 & 2 (February – June 2021) and will include:
- Artist led lantern making workshops
- Music and choral workshops led by professional orchestra director and choir director
- Dance workshops led by a professional choreographer
Illuminate will feature a pedestrian procession followed by a community concert and celebration including:
- Indigenous dance performance
- Lantern parade and installations accompanied by music ensembles and choirs
- Featured guest artist/s
- Local bands, dance groups, choirs and music ensembles
Note: Schools and community groups with suitable existing dance, music and choral works/repertoire will be considered for inclusion in the program. In collaboration with the Artistic Lead, it is possible for these groups to participate in the performance without committing to the workshop series.
To express your interest or to find out further information contact the City Events Team via email [email protected].
Andrew Veivers - Artistic Lead
Photo by Trevor Worden
Over the past twenty-five years Andrew Veivers has established himself as a musician, teacher, director and composer of the highest calibre – touring, recording, composing, and arranging extensively for solo projects, his groups Flamenco Fire and The Saruzu Quartet as well as for great Australian artistic institutions such as The Sydney Theatre Company, Opera Queensland and Woodford Folk Festival.
Andrew’s recent commissioned compositional credits include: a major community orchestral work for 2018 Fires on Top of Mountains (Scenic Rim Regional Council); a new translation of Garcia Lorca’s ‘Blood Wedding’ (Sydney Theatre Company 2011); major community orchestral works for the Woodford Folk Festival (2011-2020); an orchestral work commissioned by Sunshine Coast Council celebrating life on the Sunshine Coast (2015); and community orchestra works for Cygnet Folk Festival, The Festival of Voices, Festuri Multicultural Celebration, Floating Land Festival and Cairns Festival.
The People’s Orchestra Model
Andrew Veivers has been developing a community music model based on inclusive and sustainable arts engagement practices. Participation is open to musicians/singers/dancers of any age and ability with orchestration/choreography centreing on the project participant’s stories, performance ability and creative interests.
The People’s Orchestra model is suitable for use in high profile and demanding performance settings and was instigated through Andrew’s work with the Woodford Folk Festival to establish an orchestra comprised of festival patrons, rehearsed daily throughout the festival and providing the musical score for the annual Fire Event on New Year’s Day. The Woodford People’s Orchestra has since become a festival mainstay with performances at every festival including over 120 patrons providing the musical accompaniment for a 300 strong choir, professional guest performers and a spectacular theatre / puppetry / fire performance to an audience of over 18,000.
The model has also been used in other communities throughout Australia with performance outcomes at Fire on Top of Mountains (Scenic Rim – Commonwealth Games Celebrations), Floating Land (green arts festival), Cairns Festival, Festuri (multicultural festival), the Festival of Voices (TAS) & Cygnet Folk Festival (TAS). Each community music project has required compositional processes that respond to event theme, cultural content, instrumentation and the demographics of the musicians involved. This has required the ability to work across diverse cultural musical forms including the composition of works based in gypsy, Balkan, contemporary classical, choral accompaniment, operatic and Australian folk. As well as major performance presentations, The People’s Orchestras have been part of processional activities, ceremonies and pop-up /flashmob appearances.