Sapphire LaNeige, zombie Abby Pigden, Eden Honeypot & Frisky Business. The three burlesque girls are performing in Zomburlesue, 15-17 March.

Tonight the Dunedin Fringe Festival programme was released, along with zombies. There was a big box in the middle of the room, and at the moment of release, zombies broke out, shuffling among the crowd, wielding programme books. It was awesome.

I’ve always felt at home in fringe festivals. I did the Wellington Fringe for many years (generally no fewer than 3 shows per fest), although regrettably I’m not at all involved this year since I’ve moved to Dunedin.

However, Dunedin has a Fringe too, which is running from 15 to 25 March. I’ve wasted no time getting involved, and I’m in two shows that you should totally check out.

Zomburlesque. Somehow this is coming together, with over two dozen performers from both Wellington and Dunedin. Just today I finished arranging all the music for the band (I’m so stoked with who I have: aside from me on horns, there’s Emma Wollum on accordion, composer wunderkind Corwin Newall on keys, and Michelle & Maddy from Hunting Bears on bass & drums). Three-sixths of the Capping Show Sexytet make up a trio of backing vocalists, and there are also some local Dunedin burlesque performers taking part. Some were at the programme release – see them on the right.

Thu 15, Fri 16, Wed 17 March – 9pm – Sammy’s – $30/$20 – Ticket bookings – Fringe Fest details – Facebook event here

Song Sale. The first ever Song Sale in Dunedin took place on Monday just gone, and we had a great-sized crowd in The Church and wrote some fun songs. I have out-of-town guests during Fringe – many Wellington Zomburlesque performers, comedian Sam Smith, and just last night I confirmed the multi-instrumentalist awesomeman Adam Page for the Wednesday show. We promise a great time and it’s free entry.

Mon 19, Wed 21 March – 7:30pm – The Church, Restaurant Bar & Cinema – Free! ($5 to commission a song) – Fringe Fest details – Facebook page here

Signing off so I can board the plane.

Free accounts can upload up to 120 minutes of audio, but I’ve just about hit that limit. I’ve parted with €29.99 for a year’s worth of upgrade.

The first thing I get is another 120 minutes of audio. I can start making a dent in that with such things as a uni electroacoustic work, theatre music from shows I’ve done in Wellington (Young & Hungry 2008, German Play 2008, Two Day Plays 2009), and another composition or two.

Additional to that, I’ve got a few songs from old Song Sales to record properly, including The Cheese Doesn’t Go There.

I can also customise my profile page and highlight certain items – what I’ve done is to sort my items into Sets. I can embed said sets onto webpages in a variety of styles:

Beats & Remixes by Robbie Ellis

Radiophonic and Electroacoustic

Incidental Music for Theatre

Previous Fellow Chris Adams put my name on the door. Ah, bless.

On 1 February 2012 I began my time/term/tenure as Mozart Fellow at the University of Otago.

I ran the numbers a while back looking at the list of all previous Mozart Fellows – at 27 years, 1 month and 19 days, I am the second youngest to take up the position. That’s cool.

Rather awesomely, I get my own office. In contrast to Radio New Zealand House in Wellington, you can actually open the windows and have contact with fresh, outside air. In fact, there are eight such openable windows. Rest assured, I can close them when it gets cold in winter.

My swipe card doesn’t seem to work yet… slightly concerning. That could require repeated phone calls. I hope not.

So what am I going to work on? Gigs and pieces!

Gigs:

- Song Sale. Monthly gigs where a collection of songwriter-performers is on call to compose brand new songs, commissioned by audience members on their chosen themes/topics/genres etc. First gig is Monday 13 February 2012 at The Church, 50 Dundas St. Tomorrow night, we Song Salers have a meeting/test session.

- Zomburlesque. We did the show in Wellington, the Dunedin Fringe saw the review, they offered assistance in doing another production, and it’s happening. The core crew and performers are coming from Wellington; I’m co-ordinating the venue, the tech and the band in Dunedin. The first season was one of the most fun shows I’ve ever done; I anticipate the Dunedin season being the same.

Pieces:

- Reworking the 3rd movement of Three Sibilants for Eb clarinet for violin and beatbox. The violinist is Sarah Claman, the beatboxer is me. This will be performed at a Chamber Vulgarus gig in early March. You can hear the movement from 7:42 in the below SoundCloud embed:

Three Sibilants for Eb clarinet by Robbie Ellis on SoundCloud.

- A 4-5 minuter for the St Peter’s & St Mary’s Sinfonia, the senior orchestra of two Auckland Catholic high schools combined. Their conductor Antun Poljanich arranged to commission me. It’s going to be a bit of a percussion feature – I get three percussionists plus a timps player and a pianist. This’ll be in their 2012 repertoire, including at ASSBOF. (KBB Music has had naming rights on the event since 2002, but old high school habits die hard.)

- Something super secret squirrel which I will blog about in more detail later on.

- Something for Saxcess, New Zealand’s oldest saxophone quartet. Debbie Rawson has been great at getting my name out there as a composer, so I wanted to use the Fellowship to write something for her. Saxcess is doing a tour for their 20th anniversary, under Chamber Music New Zealand’s Encompass series. They’re hitting a motley collection of towns in June & July, including Cromwell (the closest to Dunedin).

- Something for the Estrella Quartet – four players, eight hands, two pianos. They’re all students at the University of Auckland under the tutelage of Stephen De Pledge, who contacted me about a piece. They won the 2011 Royal Overseas League Chamber Music Scholarship, which means they go to the UK in July/August to see a bunch of concerts, play a bunch of gigs (including at the Edinburgh Fringe). I’m thinking of calling my piece The Piano Tuner’s Performance Appraisal.

- A new piece for Auckland Youth Orchestra, an ensemble I played double bass in from 2003 to 2005. I’m currently reading Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks (my neighbour is a Masters student in Psychology and she regards Sacks’ writing as pop psych, but at least I can understand it). There’s a story about what sounds Robert Schumann was hallucinating near the end of his life… there could be something in that. This is for their September & October tour, with rehearsals beginning in early August.

The geekily insightful web comic xkcd has done a great job of covering Wikipedia’s influence on modern life:

http://xkcd.com/333/ – Getting Out of Hand
(Used under CC BY-NC 2.5)

Thankfully Google isn’t participating in the blackout, so a quick search for “site:xkcd.com Wikipedia” is not only possible, but fruitful. Here’s a collection of xkcd episodes about Wikipedia:

• http://xkcd.com/214/ – The Problem with Wikipedia
• http://xkcd.com/285/ – Wikipedian Protester
• http://xkcd.com/333/ – Getting Out of Hand (above)
• http://xkcd.com/446/ – In Popular Culture
• http://xkcd.com/545/ – Neutrality Schmeutrality
• http://xkcd.com/547/ – Simple
• http://xkcd.com/739/ – Malamanteau (itself a neologism)
• http://xkcd.com/843/ – Misconceptions
• http://xkcd.com/906/ – Advertising Discovery
• http://xkcd.com/911/ – Magic School Bus
• http://xkcd.com/978/ – Citogenesis

Have I missed any out?

• Tue 10: the last time presenting Sound Lounge.
• Wed 11: my last day at work for Radio New Zealand Concert; after-work drinks.
• Thu 12: packed up all my belongings in my flat in Wellington; parents flew into town.
• Fri 13: movers arrived to take half of the belongings in a truck; big karaoke-filled farewell party at The Fringe Bar (with a superbly varied cross-section of Wellingtonians)
• Sat 14: tetrised the remainder of my belongings into my car; sailed from Wellington to Picton; stayed overnight in Kaikoura.
• Sun 15: drove from Kaikoura to Dunedin; stopped in Christchurch to walk the perimeter of the Red Zone (more on that later); unpacked my stuff into my new flat.

I have a lawn.

In true awesome Dunedin fashion, my wall-mate (i.e. I’m in 12A, she’s in 12B) helped me unload a car’s worth of stuff, suggested the best Indian restaurant in town (Little India, 308 Moray Pl, for the record) and gave me a brief tiki-tour of the university campus.

After that, I’ve taken the chance to unpack and find a home for many items. It’s not yet perfect, but it’s coming along. Amusingly, the best place to store my musical instruments is in the kitchen. This beat is cookin’.

Also, I have a lawn.

And I’m missing an office chair. My acquired-from-previous-tenant desk is pretty useless without something to sit on – should have thought of that maybe.

Also, I know it’s supposed to be the middle of summer, but I’m regretting sending my two heaters with the movers instead of packing one in the car. If this is the middle of summer…

Follow the progress as I update the webpage here: http://www.radionz.co.nz/score - better yet, listen live (how to listen, live audio stream here).

Five New Zealand pieces before lunchtime! That’s quite cool.

Also this:

Yesterday was the broadcast date for my final piece for Upbeat, a show I’ve moved up the ranks with. Starting as fill-in assistant producer (for a day or two at a time), I eventually became fill-in producer (for a day or two at a time) and once or twice even fill-in presenter (for a day or two at a time). Along the way I supplied them with plenty of extra packages here and there – all sort of in addition to the job I’m actually employed to do.

This is audio about beer. I visited Brewery Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY as part of the Glimmerglass Festival.

(Upbeat, 22 December 2011)

The second piece I did live-to-air tonight, pre-show at Q Theatre before An Instant Kiwi Christmas. It’s great to work with all the Auckland improv crew again, and some new crew too. New musician Alika Downie and I combined for some double-muso action – she brought wind instruments, I brought a trumpet and a guitar, and we swapped keys duties.

Earlier this week, Bryan Crump from Nights on Radio New Zealand National put a call out to RNZ employees who were travelling at Christmas time, interviewing some of us for a segment called “Christmas Rush”. Bryan and his producer Rockin’ Robyn were good enough to schedule me first up, at 7:20pm. (My show started at 8.)

(Nights, 23 December 2011)

And if you don’t fully comprehend the reference in the title of this blog, watch this:

(Design thiefed from mrvintage.co.nz)

The programme for the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival has been released. The whole festival runs from 17 February to 1 March 2012, and it’s held within the grounds of the best thing Hamilton has to offer. There are so many beautiful areas, especially the themed gardens (Chinese, Japanese, Indian, American modernist, etc), and many of the shows take advantage of those onnections.

For instance, in 2010 I performed inside the Victorian Garden Conservatory as the pianist in Austen Found: The Undiscovered Musicals of Jane Austen – a slight anachronism in name (Jane Austen being from the Regency period some decades earlier), but very similar in culture and setting.

In 2012, I’ll be playing keys in two further shows in that same venue:

The First Asian A* B*. A two-hander comedy by Renee Liang about growing up in New Zealand, which I first performed at BATS Theatre in Wellington during the Rugby World Cup. Does Willy Long become the first ever Asian All Black? Well, you’ll just have to see the show to find out.

Four performances (Wed 22 Feb x2; Thu 23 Feb, Sat 25 Feb), $20/$15/$10 – book here. I’ll be wearing my 2009 North Harbour rugby jersey.

Holmes Alone. Greg Ellis from The Improvisors creates a Sherlock Holmes story in the character of Dr Watson. He goes to the audience for suggestions and it’s freakin’ amazing how he ties all the strands together in the end. I provided his musical accompaniment in a season at Circa Theatre during the 2010 New Zealand International Comedy Festival.

Two performances (Fri 24 & Sat 25 Feb), $20/$15 – book here. I’ll be wearing something appropriately late Victorian.

You should come see these shows. Waikato? Why not!

I’ve also uploaded the demo I made for the singers:

Sorry, I meant to see your show (demo) by Robbie Ellis

Some lyrics changed in the rehearsal process (and we certainly slowed it down from my speed-demon intentions), but most remained the same. Forgive my falsetto for soprano parts.

“Sorry, I meant to see your show” was performed last night at the Wellington Opera House by MC Emma Kinane and the Shoreline Cab Savs (Carmel McGlone, Bryony Skillington, Jess Robinson, Martyn Wood, Nick Dunbar & Gareth Farr/Lilith La Croix), with me (Robbie Ellis) on piano.

–

Wellington, you capital of culture!
We love you and we love your theatre scene.
There’s BATS for all the crazies, and Circa for old ladies,
And Downstage, where the finances are lean.
Pōneke, we welcome you this evening (haere mai!)
To a ceremony honouring success. (tino pai!)
With 108 shows eligible, from the tame to the unpalatable,
We’re giving props to just the very best.

It’s the critic’s job to say they’ve seen every blessed play
But I can’t come to everything, you know (bro you know!)
You simply can’t be thorough in Te Whanganui-ā-Tara
So sorry, but I meant to see your show.

I thought that your season was four weeks long,
But it was only three weeks, I got that one wrong.
I missed your presentation cause of my procrastination,
Sorry, I didn’t see your show!

I wanted to see it, don’t think I’m a jerk.
It started at 8:30 but I was at work.
No time for relaxin’, had to meet with Peter Jackson!
Sorry, (sorry!), I meant to see your show!

I’d never lie to you, I truly wish I could have seen it,
But The Hobbit made me sign a Don’t-See-Other-Shows agreement.
I booked my place for Tuesday night, I told you in a tweet,
But I got distracted up the Coast when I met Happy Feet!

The Cap Times, they loved it, Dominion Post too,
But I shouldn’t have logged on to read Theatreview.
My need to see it got away once John Smythe gave the plot away
So sorry (sorry!),
I really truly honestly no-shit sorry-my-cat-was-sick meant to see your show!

Ladies and gentlemen, your MC for the evening, the lovely Emma Kinane!

You scheduled your new play for during the Cup
But I was over rugby and I live in the Hutt.
C’Mon Black! and Nepia, nothing makes me sleepier,
So sorry, I didn’t see your show.

I heard that The Engine Room was awesome for sure,
But I was sick and tired of the ’81 Tour.
I’d beaten you to get a wage when we were on the set of Rage
So sorry (sorry!), I didn’t see your show.

You invited me on Facebook and I hit “Maybe Attending”
But Maybe’s really ‘No’ and that’s the message I was sending.
I’ve blocked your status updates so you might call me a wanker
But I’ve got so sick of theatre spam I’ve also blocked Brianne Kerr! (Sorry Bri…)

So… welcome to theatre’s Christmas work do
Just sit back, relax, as we congratulate you!
We’ll now get off the stage as this song’s lasted fucking (Os-)ages!
(Fuck me that was a long play…)

But… sorry, (sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry)
Sorry (sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry)
I really truly honestly no-shit don’t-you-believe-me dog-ate-my-homework had-to-wash-my-hair-that-night
Meant to see your show!