THE Third Australian International Chopin Piano Competition will run at venues in the ANU School of Music from September 10-17. The gala opening features one of the judges, Prof Ewa Pob?ocka from the National Institute of Fryderyk Chopin, who will be performing on the piano, at Llewellyn Hall, 7pm, Sunday, September 10. Program details, together with individual and package bookings, to aicpc.org.au

Events:

THE National Eisteddfod’s Speech and Drama Competition offers sections covering speech choirs, group drama, poetry, prose, reading at sight and various other sections across both age and grading classifications. It is running at Ainslie Arts Centre, Elouera Street, Braddon from 9am this Saturday, September 9. Bookings to nationaleisteddfod.org.au/tickets/

Workshops and classes:

CIT Adult Short courses are held every first weekend of the month all year round at Canberra Glassworks. Costs apply and to find out more by emailing education@canberraglassworks.com.au

Arts Business:

DESIGN Canberra, supported by Radford College and the University of Canberra, is staging a photography competition on Instagram celebrating Canberra’s mid-century modernist architecture. To enter, follow @designcanberrafestival on Instagram and upload your photo with the hashtags #designcanberra #dcphotocomp and either #student (Years 7-12) or #open (Over 18). The competition closes on October 12.

CHRIS Latham’s “Flowers of War” project continues, with “Monet’s Flowers of War”, featuring Jane Rutter, flute, and projections of Claude Monet’s WWI paintings, coming up at the NGA on September 29 and 30, and much more in following months. Bookings to theflowersofwar.org

MEMBERS of the public are invited to join Canberra Choral Society for its “Come & Sing” Handel’s “Messiah” event on Saturday, November 25, at Llewellyn Hall, with Leonard Weiss conducting. Applications to trybooking.com/book/event?eid=309662

SOUTHERN Tablelands Arts is running a “Website Building for Creatives” course on practical web building skills for artists, creatives and NFP arts organisations, in local government areas including Queanbeyan-Palerang, September 9. Bookings to trybooking.com/QXYT

GARY France’s Groove Warehouse in Hume is expanding its percussion business and now offers daytime adult classes and keyboard lessons at 5/1 Sawmill Circuit, Hume. Information and enrolments to groovewarehouse.com.au

“MAMMA Mia!” The musical, inspired by ABBA’s classic songs, has seen over 60 million people all around the world pack in for the show. Tickets are now on sale for a new Aussie production that will premiere at the Canberra Theatre from November 24 to December 10. Bookings to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.

ENTRIES are open for the Digital Portraiture Award 2017, to go on show at the National Portrait Gallery from December 1. Entrants have until midnight on September 17 to submit their digital portraits. The winner of the award will receive $10,000 cash and an artistic residency valued at $15,000 at State Library of Queensland’s community makerspace, The Edge. All details at dpa.portrait.gov.au

THE 10th Queanbeyan Art Society’s Charity Fine Art Show will take place in City Walk Canberra between King O’Malley’s Pub and the merry-go-round, from September 23 to October 2. Entries are now welcome, inquiries to the president of the society, Barry Cranston, at 0439 392709.

AINSLIE and Gorman Arts Centres offers supported office accommodation for artists, creatives, as well as arts organisations and music-based organisations and individuals. Inquiries to agac.com.au

Literature:

POETS Tahi Atea, Sarah Rice and Joshua Bell will perform their work in The Salt Room, hosted by Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres with BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! Main Hall, Gorman Arts Centre, 7.30pm, Friday, September 8. Bookings to agac.com.au or tickets at the door.

IN “Poetry and Place”, leading Canberra textile artist Dianne Firth has been inspired by works poetry from 2016’s “Poetry on the Move”, where poets wrote about their experience of nature and landscape in Canberra. Belconnen Arts Centre, to September 17.

Film:

THE National Film & Sound Archive, in partnership with the Embassy of Italy, will be celebrating Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller, the first female director to be nominated at the Oscars, screening five key films, until September 16. Bookings to trybooking.com/RIBB

THE National Film and Sound Archive of Australia has “Strictly Ballroom: Behind the Curtain”, a new online exhibition to celebrate 25 years since the release of Baz Luhrmann’s debut film in August 1992. Visit nfsa.gov.au/collection/onlineexhibitions

Dance:

THE 2017 “Ralph Indie” program kicks off at Gorman with a show by dance artist Jack Riley and sound artist Alexander Hunter, who collaborate on “Fuse”. Guided by sound, the dancer will perform a series of “tasks”, loosely based on the ancient Greek myth of Heracles. Ralph Wilson Theatre, Gorman Arts Centre, 7pm, Thursday to Saturday, September 7-9, 7pm to 8pm, with a matinee at 3pm on Saturday. Bookings to agac.com.au

THE Monaro Folk Society Kids Bush Dance will be held at the All Saints Hall, 9-15 Cowper Street, Ainslie from 2.30pm-4pm this Saturday, September 9. An experienced caller will teach kids (and parents) a number of dances such as the “Brown Snake”, “Caterpillar”, and the “Bunny Hop”, and Live music will be provided by the Tin Mugs bush dance group. Admission by gold coin.

MARKO Panzic’s The Dream Dance Company is touring to Canberra for one night only with “Enter The Vortex”. It features a cast of 16 of top Australian dance artists in. At the Playhouse, 8pm, Sunday, September 10, bookings to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.

AUSDANCE ACT Open Class is continuing with advanced to professional level classes on Wednesdays from 10am-11.30am at the Belconnen Arts Centre and an evening class on Thursday from 6.50pm-8.20pm at QL2’s Dance Studio, for intermediate to professional level dancers of all genres. Thursday’s class is “Lyrical” with Genevieve Chan. Inquiries to 6247 9103.

Concerts and Gigs:

IN “Dreamers of the Day” The Song Company will take audiences on a dream-like musical journey, which will challenge their awareness of time, tempo and rhythm. The journey will take place at The Street Theatre, on Friday, September 8, from, 7pm. Bookings to thestreet.org.au or 6247 1223.

FLAGS and streamers are strongly recommended when you attend Canberra Choral Society and Canberra City Band’s joint night of the proms-style event, “POMP”, featuring soprano soloist Livia Brash and works by Verdi, Aaron Copland and Elgar. Donations will go to the Alzheimer’s Australia ACT Dementia & the Arts Program. At Albert Hall, 2.30pm, Sunday, September 10.

SOPRANO Yvonne Kenny, patron of Art Song Canberra, will give a masterclass for six advanced singers and accompanists from 2pm on Saturday, September 9, and audience members are welcome. Bookings to trybooking.com/PPYL or tickets at the door.

THE Austrian Choir is presenting a Spring Concert featuring choral music, duets and instrumental items at the Austrian Australian Club, Heard Street, Mawson at 2pm on Sunday, September 10. Guest artists are Capital Folk. Bookings to 6288 7884, 0405 712502, or tickets at the door.

HUGO Race (founding member of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds) and Michelangelo Russo will be at Smith’s Alternative, 76 Alinga Street, Civic, 9.30pm, Saturday, September 8. Bookings to smithsalternative.com

CHOIRS of the South Coast will welcome in the Spring in “Spring Sing”, at Four Winds’ Windsong Pavilion, from 4pm-5pm, Saturday, September 9. Tickets at the door, with 16 years and under free.

STRANGE Weather Gospel Choir will forces with Sydney’s “aChoired Voices” from Castle Hill in Sydney for a concert at the High Court of Australia at 1.30pm on Sunday, September 10. Free, but registration essential to hcourt.gov.au/about/concerts

BLUES-rock group Chase the Sun will be in town as part of their “Ain’t No Love” single launch tour at the Harmonie German Club. Jerrabomberra Avenue, Griffith, 8pm, Friday, September 8. Bookings to harmonieclub.com.au

PHOENIX Pub in Civic has as follows: Thursday, September 7 at 9pm, Piss Weak Karaoke; Saturday, September 9 at 9pm, Helena Pop, Slagatha Christie and Lost Coast.

Theatre:

Lexi Sekuless is presenting a new version of her cabaret show, “Some Like It Marilyn”, with Helen McFarlane, Tim Sekuless and Zach Raffan onstage at Old Parliament House, September 10-12. It will be dinner and a show. Bookings to eventbrite.com.au

BRISBANE physical theatre company Circa is back in town, collaborating with Merrigong Theatre Company on “Landscape with Monsters”, which tells the story of post-industrial cities now in decay, as metal and wooden objects intersect with fast-paced acrobatics. At The Playhouse, 8pm until September 9. Bookings to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.

“THE History Boys”, Alan Bennett’s hit play set in a boys’ school, is at the Courtyard Studio, to September 16. Bookings to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.

Exhibitions:

GROUND-BREAKING Australian audio-video artist Angelica Mesiti will launch an exhibition of five major works, including the National Gallery of Australia’s most recent acquisition, “The Calling”, at the NGA, this Saturday, September 9.

FOUR new exhibitions are opening at M16 Artspace, 21 Blaxland Crescent, Griffith, at 6pm today (September 7), and will run 12pm-5pm, Wednesday to Sunday until September 24. They are as follows: Gallery 1, “Internationalist”, curated by Kirsten Farrell, in which three Canberra artists are paired with an international artist to test their ideas; “The Unconscious is a Rectangle”, by Tony Curran, who explores the digital-organic; “Empty Vessels and Full”, by Kerry Shepherdson and Georgina Leith and In the “Chutespace”, “City to the Suburbs”, by Kristina Neumann.

“REVERSE Archaeology”, art by Jacqui Malins, looks at how the layers of life stick to humans, and how their identities are formed through the accumulation of experience. CCAS Manuka, 19 Furneaux Street, Manuka, Thursday to Sunday, 11am-5pm until September 10.

IT’S magpie season at Strathnairn Gallery, where “Songbirds”, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Anne Balcomb continues at 90 Stockdill Drive, Holt, until to September 17, Thursday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm.

“ANIMASTRUCTIONS” brings together work by staff, current students and graduates from ANU School of Art & Design. From sculpture to animation, furniture design to ceramics, the works consider humans complex relationships with animals. The exhibiting artist are: Ashley Eriksmoen, Ceilidh Dalton, Dean Cross, Emilio Elmowy, Erica Seccombe, Gosia Pilat, Jeremy Brown, Kate Nixon, Katie Hayne, Mahala Hill, Michele England, Nathaniel Kempton, Rebecca Selleck, Rhiannon McGuiness, UK Frederick, Yonghun Nate Lee. At Tuggeranong Arts Centre, September 7-30, opening by Amanda Stuart 6pm, September 7. All welcome.

ENCUENTRO Inc., the Ibero-Latino American community organisation of Canberra, is presenting an art exhibition of paintings, ceramic and drawings by Celia Gallardo, Robert Buratti and Ana Gallardo at the Theo Notaras Multicultural Centre, until September 22, with the official opening (all welcome) this Thursday, September 7 at 6pm, with drinks and live music by Los amigos del Tango.

THE National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition of 28 portraits by Nicholas Harding includes three works from the collection and 25 works on loan, now at Gallery One, NPG, to November 6. Free entry.

AARWUN Gallery is transforming itself into a Parisian café for its coming exhibition, “Paris and Other Stories”, which features works by former director of the Sydney Art School, Bernard Ollis. At the gallery, Federation Square, Nicholls, September 9 to 31, daily 10 am to 5pm.

THE Brazilian Embassy in Canberra will open its doors for the exhibition “Contrasts in Brazilian Art”, with about 30 works by the artists Alemão and Sebastião Mendes and designer Parma Júnior. At the Embassy, 19 Forster Crescent, Yarralumla, 9am to 5pm September 8-17.

“WE Collapse, We Build New Cities”, curated by Angus McGrath, features work by artists Emma Caskey, Zoë Croggon, Spencer Lai, Sarah McCauley, Liam O’Brien, Julia Thwaites and Madalyn Trewin that deals with the intersection of the human. The exhibition be held at ANCA Gallery from Wednesday to Sunday, 12pm-5pm until September 10.

“A Brush with Colour and Light” is an exhibition of watercolours and pen and ink works by Nell Anderson, to be opened by Sandra House at 5.30pm on Friday, September 8 at Wattle Park Uniting Church, Barton Highway, just past the village of Hall. The show continues 10am-4pm on Saturday and Sunday, September 9 and 10.

“NEIL Roberts: chances with glass” is an exhibition focusing on the much-missed late artist’s relationship with glass as “object, medium and signifier”. Curated by Barbara Campbell and Jane Cush, it runs at Canberra Glassworks until October 15.

ARTIST, arts administrator, curator, educator, researcher and consultant, Brenda Croft, is the newest recipient of an ACT Arts Residency at the Glassworks. Croft descends from the Gurindji/Malngin/Mudpurra peoples of the Northern Territory and is also of Anglo-Australian/German/Irish heritage. Members of the public can catch her working at the Glassworks until September 29.

“S.W.A.K” (Sealed with a Kiss) is a mixed media exhibition by artists from the Belconnen Artists’ Network, who were asked to submit ideas for a stamp design with no other specific theme. At gallery@bcs, Belconnen Community Centre, Swanson Court, Belconnen, September 4–15.

“JUDE Rae, A Space of Measured Light”, is the newest exhibition at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery. It’ll be launched by gallery director Terence Maloon at 6pm, this Friday, August 18. There will also be an in conversation session with the artist at noon on Saturday, August 19. The exhibition runs at Kingsley Street, Acton, until October 15, from 10 am–5pm, Wednesday to Sunday.

NEIL Sloan is a Queanbeyan printmaker and collage artist, whose  first solo exhibition of collages created from cardboard boxes is at the Cork Street Gallery Café in Gundaroo until October 15. He used this same technique for my winning entry to the recent Molonglo Catchment Group’s annual Queanbeyan exhibition.

“DEFYING Empire: 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial” brings the works of 30 contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists to the National Gallery of Australia until September 10.

PHOTOACCESS has two exhibitions: “Next Generation: Solomon Islands, After RAMSI” by Sean Davey and “Provenance” by Geoffrey Dunn. The shows will continue until September 10, where they will be “In Conversation with Sean Davey and Geoffrey Dunn”.

THE Photography Room has “Flatbed Suburbia” by Mac Nichols, “Molded in Mud” by Parisa Applegarth, and “Inside Outside” by Aishah Kenton. The work will be featured in the Old Bus Depot, 21 Wentworth Avenue, Kingston Foreshore, open Sundays 10am-4pm and by appointment to mail@thephotographyroom.com.au or 0408 662996.

“FRUIT, Flowers, Fungi and Feathers”, is an exhibition of botanical and wildlife paintings, and drawings from specimens found in the Australian National Botanic Gardens. At the Gardens’ Visitors Centre to October 1.

TWO exhibitions are opening at Watson Arts Centre. The first, “Light and Heat” is a collaboration between two sisters – photographer Jane Kelly, a Sydney based professional photographer, and Canberra ceramicist, Josephine Townsend, a Canberra based ceramicist. The second, Janet Fieldhouse’s self-titled show, is an exhibition of the work of Canberra Potters’ current artist-in-residence. Both will be on display at Watson Arts Centre, Aspinall Street, Watson, until September 10, 10am–4pm, Thursday to Sunday.

BELCONNEN Arts Centre has as follows: “The Art of Nature 2017 Wildlife and Botanical Artists; “Flights of Fancy” by Gillian Wilde; and “Poetry and Place”, by leading Canberra textile artist Dianne Firth who has been inspired by works from 2016’s “Poetry on the Move”, at Belconnen Arts Centre until September 17.

IN “Tolwong Road : A story of fire”, Stephen Hartup’s black and white photographs tell the story of bushfire, recovery and regeneration as observed and captured over a three-year period. At X Gallery, 32 Gibraltar Street, Bungendore, opening hours, 11am to 5pm, Friday to Monday until October 8.

A RARE collection, which features 52 portraits of British street people will be on display for the first time in “Dempsey’s People: a folio of British street portraits 1824-1844”. Curated by David Hansen, the exhibition will bring together 51 works painted by little-known itinerant portraitist, John Dempsey. National Portrait Gallery, King Edward Terrace, Parkes, from 10am–5pm daily, to October 22.

 

“ONLY Flowers” is Roger Beale’s new solo exhibition at Form Studio and Gallery, 1/30 Aurora Ave, Queanbeyan East. As the title suggests, it’s spring-related and his painting of flowers are huge.  Opening  today, Thursday, September 7, by Emily Casey, then the show continues to September 26. 

CRAFT ACT has a solo exhibition by South Australian designer and maker Christian Hall, which includes furniture, sculpture and jewellery. Craft ACT will also feature “Emerging Contemporaries”, the Craft ACT National Award Exhibition for early career artists. At Craft ACT: Craft and Design

MEREDITH Hinchliffe has curated an online exhibition of work by tapestry exponent Belinda Ramson, who died in 2014. This exhibition was mounted at the American Tapestry Alliance, visit americantapestryalliance.org/exhibitions/tex_ata/belinda-ramson/

“IN Residence 16” is an exhibition showcasing work produced by the 2016 Megalo artists-in-residence, now showing at Megalo Print Studio + Gallery, 21 Wentworth Ave, Kingston until September 16. The exhibiting artist are Bruno Vandenberghe from Belgium, Ellis Hutch and Jessica Anderson from the ACT and US, Geoff Farquar-Still from the ACT, S.A. Adair from the ACT, Surya Bajracharya from the ACT Region and Trent Walter from Victoria.

“FINDERS Keepers: Collectors and their Stories MoAD at Old Parliament House runs from 9am-5pm, daily, until the middle of 2018. Entry is free after museum admission.

THE Australian War Memorial has as a permanent exhibition “The Holocaust: witnesses and survivors”, which includes over 85 collection items.

SECOND World War veterans —6500 of them—are showcased in a unique photography installation at the Australian War Memorial, “Reflections – honouring our WWII veterans”. The images will be archived and made accessible to the public as part of the Memorial’s online collection.

“A Change Is Gonna Come” is an exhibition focusing on the 1967 Aboriginal Referendum and the 1992 MABO land rights decision by the High Court. At the National Museum of Australia, until January 30, 2018.

SYDNEY artist Ingrid Bowen has a solo exhibition at Suki & Hugh Gallery in Bungendore. The exhibition entitled “Vast” presents a series of whimsical watercolour landscapes that should resonate with viewers from our region. 38A Gibraltar Street, Bungendore until October 1.