Arts editor HELEN MUSA’s “Arts in the City” column covering the latest arts news in Canberra. 

ISOLATION has brought out talents in unexpected places. Charles Sturt University’s Vice-Chancellor Andrew Vann, turns out to be a mean banjo player, seen in his online rendition of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, recently circulated to cheer up the CSU network from Wagga, Canberra and Bathurst. Viewable at facebook.com/charlessturtuni/videos

EMERGING online, the new director of the Canberra Theatre, Alex Budd and his team have assembled a list of streaming options from arts companies both in Australia and across the world. It’s an extraordinary list, ranging from home-grown products like The Wharf Revue to Shakespeare’s Globe and Joe’s Pub in New York City. Click here for information.

GREENS spokesperson for the Arts, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young believes the half a billion dollars for the Captain Cook celebrations and expansion of the Australian War Memorial should be redirected to arts and culture projects that will benefit Australians now out of work because of COVID-19. You can bet it won’t happen, but any move to employ artists and save endangered arts organisations would be welcome.

CANBERRA Symphony Orchestra has released a video performance of “Dancing on Tiptoes” by Rachel Bruerville, first seen in the CSO’s “Australian Series: Love, Kindness, Decency”, at the National Portrait Gallery on March 12, then recorded on March 16 in the Larry Sitsky Recital Room at the ANU School of Music. Notes for the work are available at cso.org.au and the performance can be viewed at youtube.com by entering “Dancing on Tiptoes”. 

IN a similar initiative, “Tiny Movements” by Gordon Hamilton, with lyrics by Canberra poet Anita Patel, has been performed by The Australian Voices and James Crabb, the accordionist director of the postponed Four Winds Easter Festival. The song’s text was inspired by poems from a book called “Heart Stitched”, a collaboration between Patel and visual artist Annie Franklin. Crabb is planning the first live performance of the song for Saturday November 14 on the Dickinson Oval in Bermagui.