Gates and food/wine stalls open at 5:30pm
The concert will commence at 8pm and conclude at 10:30pm with
one 40 minute interval
Roxane Hislop Mezzo-Soprano James Egglestone Tenor Slava Grigoryan Guitarist Benjamin Northey Conductor
Opera in the Alps Choir and Orchestra
Australian Music Events is proud to present ROXANE HISLOP, JAMES EGGLESTONE, and SLAVA GRIGORYAN. They will be joined by 100-voices and 50-piece orchestra led by one of Australia's most exciting conductors, BENJAMIN NORTHEY.
Enjoy a relaxing evening of fine food, wine and classical favourites under the stars, in the picturesque grounds of LaTrobe at Beechworth.
Premium Packages are also available, comprising a three-course dinner accompanied by fine wines from Brown Brothers. The pre-concert dinner and dessert at interval are held on the lawns of the Pines Convention Centre, which commands a breathtaking veiw of the concert setting and is, surely, the ultimate way to experience Opera in the Alps
General ticket sales from Monday 15 September 2008
Ned Kelly enthusiasts from around the country are set to flock to Beechworth in the North East of Victoria for the historic gold-era town’s celebration of its links with Australia’s most notorious bushranger fromFriday 1 to Sunday 3 August.
This year’s packed program, taking place in the 150 year-old Historic & Cultural Precinct, has attracted bookings from as far afield as Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.
Many Ned Kelly Weekend visitors are regulars at the annual event, and include direct descendents of some of the principal players in the Kelly story. This year they include Nola Love, the great granddaughter of Constable McIntyre who was the sole survivor of the police shooting by the Kelly Gang at Stringybark Creek and Leigh Olver, a direct descendent of Ned’s mother, Ellen Kelly.
Now in its fifth year and regarded as Australia’s most significant annual celebration of the Ned Kelly story, the Ned Kelly Weekend commemorates the anniversary of the outlaw’scommittal hearing held in the historic Courthouse from 6 to 11 August 1880. Sentenced to death and hanged later that year, the bushranger’s celebrity shows no sign of fading nearly 130 years on.
This year’s Ned Kelly Weekend offers a lively and entertaining program to suit all tastes and pockets and includes new events as well as old favourites.
New this year is the Ned Kelly Weekend Heritage Market on Saturday 2 August. From 10am until 2pm, the Historic Precinct area of Ford Street will be closed to traffic and transformed into a colourful market square featuring delicious, good old-fashioned food such as soup and damper and tea and scones, as well as traditional crafts including spinning and weaving, knitting, demonstrations of wood crafts, blacksmithing, coopering and whip making, along with live music and buskers.
And back by popular demand is the Ned Kelly Weekend opening event Ned at the Nic – a traditional Music Hall ‘knees up’ at the Nicholas Hotel, featuring a sit-down three course dinner, entertainment from another local legend, Lazy Harry and his sensational band, dancing until late and the hugely popular Ned Kelly trivia quiz.
Also featuring across the weekend are theatre productions, a fabulous Kelly-themed art show, the unveiling of a new display of one of the four original Ned Kelly death masks at the Burke Museum, talks in the Historic Courthouse by Ned Kelly experts, the re-enactment of the Committal Hearing on Saturday and Sunday, the new Best Beard competition, The Great Fight commemoration and Ned On the Big Screen in the historic Town Hall.
Full weekend passes or tickets to individual events are available at www.beechworthonline.com.au
or phone the Beechworth Visitor Information Centre on 1300 366 321
The response to this years Kerferd Oration in Beechworth by Professor Tim Flannery has been so strong that organisers have enlarged the seating capacity from 300 to 450 seats.
The oration is being held at the Kerferd Conference Centre at the Beechworth campus of La Trobe University on Sunday, July 27, at 11am.
Kerferd Oration committee member Joan Simms said the response this year had been “quite overwhelming”
“So many people want to hear from someone like Professor Flannery.His oration on The Climate Change Challenge is more topical than ever.There’s been the recent draft Garnaut report, various local moves towards forming sustainability groups and a growing awareness of the need for all of us to do our bit for the environment,” Ms Simms said.
“We’ve had to increase the seating in the Kerferd Conference Centre to 450 seats and we have provision to stretch that a bit more to the deck outside,” Ms Simms said.
“We have advertised that doors open at 10.15am and the feedback we are getting is that some people are coming quite early to queue up before that.One group has told me they are bringing their breakfast to have in the grounds while they keep an eye on the length of the queue.
“And I know of another group from Melbourne who are extending their holiday at the snow, and staying in Beechworth overnight to attend the Oration.”
Ms Simms stressed that no booking was required for this free community event, however only the first 450 people at the door would be certain of getting a seat inside the conference room.
Students from Year 7 at the Beechworth Secondary College will have artworks and installations on the theme of sustainability on display inside the conference centre.
Parking is limited close to the conference centre and Ms Simms advised people to park in nearby streets and walk in to the venue.
Beechworth businesses have offered their shop windows for the month of July to display the work of dozens of regional artists taking part in tread softly, an exhibition focusing on environmental issues relating to climate change, global warming and loss of habitat and biodiversity.
The exhibition is being presented in the lead-up to the 2008 Kerford Oration which will be delivered by Professor Tim Flannery on ‘The Climate Change Challenge’ at LaTrobe University’s Beechworth campus on Sunday 27 July at 11am.
tread softly, which includes works on paper, photography, paintings, objects, jewellery and sculpture, celebrates the environment and draws attention to environmental issues as well as provides a showcase for the ideas and work of regional artists.
A diverse range of subjects tackled by artists featuring in the exhibition include a commentary on the impact of domestic pets on native wildlife, declining river systems, salinity, drought, the massive and mounting global problem of waste disposal and the warming of the planet as a result of human impact.
But while many of the themes are both confronting and alarming, the work Milagros for Beechworth by gold & silversmith, Rose Wedler, on display in the Pots of Thyme window, tells a good news story. The work celebrates the small miracle of the rediscovery near Beechworth a few years ago of a plant previously thought extinct – the Swainsona recta or Purple Pea.
Catalogues for this intriguing and innovative exhibition are available from the Beechworth Visitor Information Centre at 101 Ford Street. In keeping with the theme of tread softly, collection points for recycling the catalogues are available around the shopping precinct.
Beechworth’s annual salute to its Celtic heritage, now in its 14th year, is set to be the best yet.
This three day event set in Historic Beechworth celebrates all things Celtic, with a full program of live music, theatre, dancing, comedy, pipe bands and a street parade. The Celtic Festival is a diverse event with something to offer every age group.
Highlights of the 2008 program include a Gala Celtic Dinner to open the weekend on Friday evening and the Official Celtic concert to be held on Saturday evening. The concert evening will feature a night not to be missed, with live music, dance, comedy and a theatrical performance from the renowned Celtic group Braemar. The theatrical production, Lochaber No More, outlines the history of the Jacobite Rebellion in narrative and song.
Ticketed live music venues will be located throughout beautiful Beechworth, in its historic hotels and halls, with a free chalkboard stage to be located in the heart of town. The street parade, a great event for families, will feature a number of pipe bands, dancers and other performances.
The Celtic Festival is truly a festival of fun, entertainment and celebration in the celtic spirit. So put on your favourite kilt and get yourself up the hill to Beechworth this November to celebrate all things Celtic.
For further information or ticket enquiries visit http://beechworthcelticfestival.com.au or phone the Beechworth Visitor Information Centre 1300 366 321 for accommodation and other enquiries.
Renowned scientist and climate change expert Professor Tim Flannery will deliver the annual Kerferd Oration in Beechworth, in North East Victoria, next month.
Professor Flannery, Australian of the Year in 2007, is well known around the world for his position on global warming and environmental issues. An internationally acclaimed scientist and conservationist, Professor Flannery has published more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific papers, but it is his landmark book The Weather Makers that sets him apart. This bookhas received widespread praise for its informed and balanced approach to climate change and has been translated into more than 20 languages. In 2006 it won the NSW Premier’s Literary Prizes for Best Critical Writing and Book of the Year.
In 2007 Professor Flannery co-founded and was appointed Chair of The Copenhagen Climate Council, a coalition of community, business and political leaders who have come together to confront climate change.
Professor Flannery will deliver the George Briscoe Kerferd Oration at 11am on Sunday July 27, at the Beechworth campus of LaTrobe University.
Past orators at this free community event were the then Deputy Premier of Victoria the Hon John Thwaites (2007); Cathy McGowan AO (2006); Professor Henry Brodaty AO (2005); Barbara Holborow OAM (2004) and the then Chief Justice of Victoria the Hon John Phillips AC (2003).
This annual oration, now in its sixth year and jointly sponsored by Indigo Shire Council, Latrobe University and corporate sponsor WAW Credit Union, is named after one of the founding fathers of Beechworth. George Kerferd was a very public minded man. In 1857, just five years after gold was discovered at Beechworth, he was a member of the Beechworth Municipal Council and later its president for some years. He helped establish the Ovens District Hospital and was involved with the establishment of the Ovens Benevolent Asylum. In 1864 he entered Victorian Parliament as the Ovens District representative, holding portfolios in six ministries before becoming Premier in 1874.
re-enactments, theatre, art, music, displays, market stalls, competitions and talks by leading authorities on the subject of the life and times of Australia’s most notorious bushranger.
Now in its fifth year and widely regarded as this country’s most important annual celebration of the Kelly legend, the weekend event commemorates the anniversary of the outlaw’scommittal hearing held in the historic Beechworth Courthouse from 6 to 11 August 1880.
This year’s Ned Kelly Weekend has the added significance of the 150th anniversary of the Beechworth Historic & Cultural Precinct, being commemorated throughout 2008. This year for the first time, tours of the Courthouse will be available across the weekend in recognition of the sesquicentenary.
Among the many highlights of the 2008 program are:
·Introduced by Australia’s foremost Kelly biographer, Ian Jones, a critically acclaimed theatrical staging of The Jerilderie Letter in the historic Courthouse. Devised and performed by Peter Finlay and with music and vocals by Malcolm Hill, this fine production has received rave reviews since its debut performance at the 2007 Melbourne Fringe Festival
·From Sidney Nolan to Norman Lindsay, Ned Kelly has long provided inspiration for artists. One of the most popular events of the 2007 Ned Kelly Weekend, Framed, returns to Beechworth’s Historic Precinct in 2008. This sensational art exhibition is again expected to attract entries from regional, metropolitan and interstate artists. This year the general public will have the chance to vote for their favourite work with the new FramedPeople’s Choice Award.
·The Ned Kelly Weekend Heritage Market in Ford Street, outside the Historic Precinct, featuring a host of good old-fashioned food stalls, buskers, games for children and demonstrations of traditional crafts such as shingle and whip making, wood working, blacksmithing, spinning, coopering, quilting and weaving
·The Ned Kelly Trial Re-enactment, including Ned’s arrival at the Beechworth Historic Courthouse and his subsequent committal hearing based on actual court transcripts.
·A crowd favourite in 2006, The Great Fight returns in 2008, commemorating Ned Kelly’s marathon bare-knuckled 20-Round stoush with Wild Wright. The warm-up bout for this rollicking event will see the Judging of the Great Ned Kelly Weekend Beard Competition which will see a gathering of the finest beards in the north east vying for the inaugural Best Beard Trophy.
MEDIA INQUIRIES
Ned Kelly Weekend and Beechworth Cultural precinct co-ordinator, Noelene Allen is available for interview. Contact Indigo Shire Tourism Officer, Sue Couttie, to arrange. Phone (03) 5728 8061 or email scouttie@indigoshire.vic.gov.au
Kelly Country Pick is a Bluegrass and Old time Country Music Convention based in the Old Priory for the weekend of 15-17 August 2008.
The event incorporates, concerts, workshops, jam sessions, instrument displays, a Sunday morning gospel singalong and an open stage. The festival is growing each year and we are aiming to attract more people from the local region and visitors.
The event features established bands from Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and regional Victoria. It is open to all public and is not just for musicians. It is based at the Old Priory with a Saturday, evening concert at the Hibernian Hotel.
Two out of every three mouthfuls of food you eat is pollinated by bees and we need to protect and promote the value of Australian agriculture.
An exciting new direction at Beechworth Honey
Beechworth Honey Pty Ltd, Australia’s largest independently owned specialist honey packaging company, will open the “The Beechworth Honey Experience”. The Experience will comprise of an interactive, state of the art virtual tour, live bee display and concept store. It will showcase how honey is produced, the story of Beechworth Honey past and present, and educate people on the diversity of uses for honey. It has been developed inhistoric Beechworth, in North East Victoria where the family have produced honey for four generations. Live bees can be viewed and visitors can watch bees at work producing honey and tending to their everyday hive activities.
A broadened selection of “Beechworth Honey” branded products and goods related to bees, honey and the unique Australian environments that produce these wonderful natural products will be available. After two years in the planning there is much excitement within this busy company as we now open the Beechworth Honey experience to the public and share the passion for the amazing insects that bring us natures perfect food.
Grand opening Wednesday 12th March, 2008 at 11.30am.To be opened by Ed Halmagyi (Fast Ed) from Better Homes and Gardens.
From strength to strength…
Beechworth Honey began as a small primary production partnership producing bulk honey. In 1993 Steven and Jodie Goldsworthy undertook the packaging and marketing of Beechworth Honey, including the development of the existing Beechworth Honey label. Beechworth Honey has been marketed through the Australia’s major retailers, food service and industrial markets since this time and has emerged as Australia’s largest independently owned specialist honey packing company.
Beechworth also has a growing export market with product going into the Middle East, China, Singapore, Indonesia and the US.It is a rare example of a small family company who has made a big name for itself in the tough Australian retail market, and yet still retains its producer roots and small company values.
To survive and grow Beechworth Honey has had to be innovative. Renowned for its quality, the operation is supported by a knowledge of Australian honey and the Australian apiculture industry only possible due to the family’s involvement in the industry for over one hundred and twenty years.
Cabinets of Wonder: Treasure from the Beechworth Community 21 February – 30 June
Thursday 7 February 2008
Oak souvenired from the hull of Nelson’s ship HMS Victory, a prison-made knuckle-duster, perfume bottles and a collection of beer coasters are among the dozens of weird and wonderful artefacts to be shown in the Cabinets of Wonder: Treasurefrom the Beechworth Community exhibition officially opening at the Burke Museum on Thursday 21 February.
Visitors will be able to peek into the drawers, cupboards, nooks and crannies to view the private collections – from the everyday to the bizarre – of individuals and local organisations who responded enthusiastically to the Burke’s invitation to offer their treasured possessions for public display.
“The exhibition offers fascinating insights into the nature of collecting as well as the community from which the collections have come to light,” says Burke Museum Collections Officer, Linda Peacock.“It’s very much about reflecting the interests and passions of local people and gives them the chance to involve themselves directly in the process of curating their own exhibition.”
Highlights of the Cabinets of Wonder: Treasure from the Beechworth Community exhibition include:
A collection of ingeniously crafted contraband made by inmates of the Beechworth Prison
From the eminent historian, Ian Jones, a Beechworth local, a collection of HMS Victory memorabilia from his great-grandfather, a naval man who trained on the ship in the 1840s
Historic trophies from the Beechworth Football Club
A collection of postmarked letters from Beechworth and Stanley dated between 1855 and 1875
A collection of porcelain containers and bottles unearthed from the Chinese camp area of Beechworth’s Spring Creek goldfields
Historic items from Beechworth’s Lodge of St. John
The idea of Cabinets of Wonder is centuries old. The original Wunderkammers – Cabinets of Wonder or wonder-rooms boasted intriguing collections belonging to those aristocrats, monarchs or merchants who could afford to create and maintain them. They were usually made from exotic and expensive materials and often filled with contents and ornamental details intended to reflect the entire cosmos on a miniature scale.
Beechworth’s historic Burke Museum could be described as a Wunderkammer in its own right, with its extraordinary collection of Aboriginal artefacts from the early to mid-19th century, an amazing natural history collection including an extremely rare stuffed Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) as well as thousands of artefacts, journals and photographs from Beechworth’s heady gold rush days to the present.
The Patron of the Indigo Tourism Board, Hon. Tim Fischer, will officially launch Beechworth’s own Wunderkammers at 6pm on Thursday 21 February. The Cabinets of Wonder exhibition runs until June.
For more information, please contact Indigo Shire Tourism Officer, Sue Couttie,
phone (03) 5728 8061 or scouttie@indigoshire.vic.gov.au
Cabinets of Wonder: Treasure from the Beechworth Community Where: Robert O’Hara Burke Memorial Museum
Address: Loch St, Beechworth
Dates: 21 February – 30 June 2008
School’s in for a group of talented artists and artisans from the Beechworth area who have joined forces on an exciting new venture launched this month.
The Old Schoolhouse Gallery is a fascinating new showcase of jewellery, paintings, ceramics and textiles as well as second hand books and collectibles housed in the 1863 Common School in Loch Street, one of Beechworth’s many notable historic buildings.
The initiative is the brainchild of Sandra and Robert Godfrey who lovingly restored the building five years ago as an exhibition space for Sandra’s silk painting.
More recently, their idea of using the building to house a retail gallery for a variety of local artists from the Beechworth area was enthusiastically embraced and within a few short weeks The Old Schoolhouse Gallery was open for business.
“We wanted to have something for everyone to enjoy and at the same time provide encouragement for local artisans to keep creating,” Sandra Godfrey said.
Indigo Shire Mayor, Cr Vic Issell, will officially launch the co-operative venture on 25 January.
Joining forces with Sandra Godfrey are:
Jan Clements (felting, leather and metal)
North East Yarns (natural coloured wool and woollen garments)
Tania Magennis and Janine Delves (artists specialising in quirkiness and colour)
Wendy Stephens (visual artist)
Frances Macdonald (potter)
Ali Rowe (textile artist)
Robyn White (glass bead jewellery)
Claire Shearman and Ken Young (second hand books specialising in arts, crafts and local history)
Schoolhouse Collectables
Judy Hawking-Burnett (paintings, jewellery and cards)
Celebrating its 145th anniversary this year, the Common School No. 36, known as the BeechworthAcademy, was the town’s first school. The first Australian-born Governor General, Sir Isaac Isaacs, taught there from 1872 to 1874, and for 100 years of its history the building housed the office and press of the Ovens & Murray Advertiser.
The Old Schoolhouse Gallery, 17 Loch St, Beechworth.
Phone (03) 5725 1342. Email wandanagallery@bigpond.com
Open seven days a week from 10am to 4pm.
Beechworth quilter, Yelena Elliott, has become the first international designer to feature in You’re Invited, the prestigious American publication for the quilting sorority produced by Blackbird Design.
Blackbird chiefs, Barb Adams and Alma Allen, whose company also supplies designs for the US fabric giant, Moda, handpicked the exquisite work In Mollie’s Garden, on their visit to Australia last year.
The subject of a major feature in the latest edition of the quarterly journal, the work was also exhibited this year at the world’s biggest annual celebration of quilting, the Houston Quilt Fair.
Mrs Elliott took up quilting 13 years ago after completing a Fashion Technology course at Albury TAFE. She drew inspiration for In Mollie’s Garden from memories of her grandmother, Marie (Mollie) Bloxsom, whose beautiful garden in Albury featured the latticework, red roses, magnolia blooms and blue sage represented in the quilt. Serendipitously, she included an affectionate nod to Mollie’s daily battle with foraging blackbirds, making the work a natural choice for Blackbird Design.
In Mollie’s Garden is now on display alongside other original Mill Lane Designs by Yelena Elliott at the Beechworth Quilters Cottage, the business she co-owns and runs with her aunt, Leonie.
The Beechworth Quilters Cottage was recently relaunched and expanded, reflecting the steady growth in quilting as a leisure pursuit in Australia.
Busloads of enthusiasts from across Victoria and NSW are regular visitors to the Cottage and both Yelena and Leonie are in constant demand as tutors for quilters of all ages. They present regular workshops and quilting retreats, including a weekly group project, which is currently replicating a quilt from 1863.
The Blackbird Design publication featuring the story of and pattern for In Mollie’s Garden has just been released in Australia.
Yelena Elliott is available for interview. Contact (03) 5728 2399.
More information at www.beechworthquilterscottage.com.au
Beechworth’s Burke Museum is on a treasure hunt for weird and wonderful local collections to showcase in the Cabinet of Curiosities, on loan from the National Museum of Australia from January to June next year as part of a national tour.
The museum is keen to hear from any individuals or local organisations with a distinctive, bizarre, ornamental, sentimental or just plain ordinary collection of objects small enough to fit into one of the 35 drawers of the Cabinet.
Burke Museum Collections Officer, Linda Peacock, said the exhibition would provide a fascinating insight into the nature of collecting as well as the community from which the collections will be drawn.
“The items maybe as everyday as a collection of ballet shoes from a local dance company or decks of cards from a local Euchre club. The Cabinet of Curiosities is very much about reflecting the interests and concerns of the community and offering local people the chance to involve themselves directly in the process of curating their own exhibition.”
She said that one of the more unsettling inclusions would be a collection of contraband seized from former inmates of the historic Beechworth Prison. Mostly homemade weapons, these sinister objects are remarkable for their simplicity and sheer ingenuity.
The Cabinet of Curiosities was originally developed for a major exhibition at the National Museum in Canberra. An eccentric pyramid of 35 drawers jutting out at odd angles, it was inspired by the original Wunderkammers - Cabinets of Wonder or wonder-rooms, whose intriguing collections belonged to those aristocrats, monarchs or merchants who could afford to create and maintain them. They were usually made from exotic and expensive materials and often filled with contents and ornamental details intended to reflect the entire cosmos on a miniature scale.
In the 17th Century a Cabinet of Curiosities could contain specimens collected during exploration and trading voyages such as preserved animals, tusks, skeletons, botanical and cultural artefacts.
The Cabinet of Curiosities arrives in Beechworth in January after a successful season at the Albury Library Museum, and ahead of a tour to the Tasmanian Museum and Gallery in Hobart(July – December 2008) and the Pioneer Museum in Zeehan, Tasmania (January – July 2009).
For more information about including a collection in the
Cabinet of Curiosities exhibition in Beechworth, contact
Linda Peacock, Burke Museum, phone (03) 5728 8067
Cabinet of Curiosities
Where: Robert O’Hara Burke Memorial Museum
Address: Loch St, Beechworth
Dates: January – June 2008
Visitors to this new www.beechworthonline.com.au website can now book their entire stay in our beautiful region. Book accommodation, tours, and events in Beechworth and other nearby holiday destinations. To make a booking and research your holiday, click on accommodation or tours, define your search criteria (including your dates and number of people) and hit "Check Availability and Rates". You can then compare properties or tours, rates and availability. When you have made your choice you can make a payment through our secure payment gateway. Have a fabulous stay!!!
