Adelaide Contemporary Music Festival

The focus is showcasing Australian works alongside international works. As a performer myself I've drawn on my relationships to bring this festival together and to make it a reality," says Gabriella Smart, the Director of the inaugural Adelaide Contemporary Music Festival, which kicks off later this week on Fri 4 April. It's a short event, packing quite a bit of a punch into it's three days of activity.

I put Smart on the spot a little with some (I thought) tough questions... what is 'contemporary music', and does Adelaide really need another festival?

"Does Adelaide need another festival?" she muses. "Probably not, but the key word is celebration, and while this is the inaugural event it's quite a small one, but I intend to make it an annual event, and Adelaide's a great place to have one."

From the first then, the Adelaide Contemporary Music Festival is a focus on current composers and performers who often work on the fringe of their art, being neither classical music nor what Smart might consider 'pop'. This is a dedicated and small enough field, lacking in real profile and real support and therefore, real punch when it comes to 'bums on seats'. It's still a vital artform.

Gabriella Smart works and performs all over the world, a composer and performer herself, and she's passionate about the fledgling festival.

"The composers with whom I work are those I enjoy being friends with, and I work with a lot of musicians and it's very fluid. For example, I saw the Telesto Duo in Amsterdam, and they began their performance with the song they'll start with here, so I invited them to part of the festival."

Her focus, and her reason for pushing the festival is simple, her vision clear.

"I performed more outside Adelaide than I did here, and the more that happened then the more I started to question it. As an educator I feel really passionately about wanting to plant the seed," she begins.

"As humans going to concerts is just another thing we do, and in this day and age I think it's the dumbing down factor at work when we say humans can't sit down for two hours. My solution really is about speaking from the heart, and giving people an evbent of fantastic music they can be passionate about. As passionate as I."

A compact event featuring the likes of the Grainger Quartet, Roger Smalley, Anne Cawrse, Andrew Ford, Constantine Coutias and John Adamson; and a performance of Tristam Cary's 'I Am Here' performed by Greta Bradman, the event runs across a single weekend.

"It's my vision to have done this for years, to clelebrate this for years, the celebration is in immersing yourself, and I'm just going to see what's out there," she says. " I'm thrilled by the support the Festival Centre have given me to make this happen, and so grateful. I may come away feeling inspired..."

Alex Wheaton

The Adelaide Contemporary Music Festival runs from Fri 4 April at the Festival Centre