day forty-six - prep day — kilt life crisis

Tomorrow is going to be be a big day. Starting way too early, is the City2City Fun Run/Walk&Talk event where participants walk from Albury to Wodonga in support for a mental health inpatient service at the local hospital, Nolan House. Shortly after finishing, I’ll need to race home, become half-human again, and get down to perform in a Bushfire Benefit gig starting at 2:30pm at St Matthews, Albury.

Irrespective of the very little planning I’d done coming into this year, I’ always had the thought to combine the project with various charity events, and having the proceeds go to Nolan House made this one the perfect first event of the year.

I’m extremely lucky to have a really great friend come with me for the (very small) Kilt Life Crisis team. Kim is an incredible person; warm, funny, disturbingly intelligent, and has always been amazingly supportive, even when I’ve been really struggling. Thanks mate!

We’ll be wearing the first properly printed KLC t-shirts (but I’ll absolutely need to tweak the design somewhat!)

Some 10kms, a good shower and a change later, I’ll be heading down to play a piece that my father and I composed. Dad is my musical hero, and I can’t express the excitement and honour I felt when he asked me to co-compose this work last year. It was commissioned by Charles Sturt University to commemorate the centenary of the beginning of construction of the the Hume Dam.

Working together like that was wonderful, and though we have very diverse musical styles and influences, the final work (a three movement suite) is one of the things I’m most proud of musically.

Often, commissioned works such as this are only performed at the event, and then assigned to history, so to get another chance to perform, another chance to work so closely with my Dad, is a sensational feeling.

That said. I’m really nervous. Up until about 3 years ago, I rarely ever performed in public, save for Big Band or Orchestral concerts where you are one of many and can blend into the ensemble. It was the kilt and a great friend that gave me the courage to start playing in front of people and we’ve probably done 200-300 shows together.

It’s been a little while though, and this is a different kind of gig. One of Australia’s top singers, Sally-Anne Russell will be singing, and is accompanied by some of the regions top classical performers, many of whom are old teaching colleagues. Our piece, ‘Water Music’, is going to be a very different performance entirely, not the least due to the amount of gear I require for both my guitar and bass. It’ll be interesting to see how it fits into the programme, but nerves aside, I’m still tremendously proud and excited to be able to work with Dad again.