JUDITH Clingan is one of Canberra’ most enduring arts figures, so no one is surprised to learn that she’s just spent a week heading up performing two shows in the St Mark’s Unitarian Church Artspace at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Announced as the first ever Canberra Artist of the Year in 1991, the composer/conductor/singer/playwright/designer has received an AM for her services to the arts and many other honours during her long career.
In recent years she has been working with her ‘Wayfarers’ group of young vocal artists. The ‘Waldorf Wayfarers’ who went to Scotland were 28 performers drawn from as far afield as Australia, Taiwan, Italy and Scotland. They did everything, in a mighty group effort, several of them also playing in the small orchestra.
Critic Thomas Moore described her production of “The Little Prince” as “wonderful performance… great use of puppetry and live music,” singling out Siggy Nock (who studied at Orana School in Canberra) for his performance as the prince as “a highly gifted young actor”.
The script was Clingan’s, translated and turned into a script by her from the book by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. She wrote new music for the show, including songs for the Aviator, the Prince, the Roses and the Fox. She also designed “The Little Prince”, and shared the direction with Rohan Vicars from Melbourne, who has been performing with her since he was a boy and who also played the Aviator.
The puppets (Birds, Snake, Rose and Fox) were made by Raphaela Mazzone, an Adelaide artist now living in Melbourne, who has also been working with Clingan for many years. Lighting was by Gawain Davey, another Melbourne Wayfarer.
Of the second performance, “So Good a Thing”, hard-to-please Fringe reviewer/blogger, Mark ‘Divine’ Calvert, wrote, “The performance held me in its entirety, I closed my eyes and meditated bringing full attention to my sense of hearing. With Judith Clingan explaining each piece before it was performed. the evening proved educational and lush ear candy. The acoustics of Saint Marks perfectly complimented and enhanced what was being presented. Demonstrating how versatile the human voice can be, from a traditional choir to being surrounded by tropical birds in a rain forest. There was also a piece inspired by the witches of Macbeth which was both disturbing and beautiful.”
As Clingan told “Citynews” in the understatement of the season, “I haven’t yet retired to my rocking chair.”
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