From the collection of The Rosenberg Museum – a fictional museum and brain child of musician and composer Jon Rose, The SUBSTATION presents the Melbourne premiere of The Violin Generator on display 4 – 13 April 2019
The Rosenberg Museum is an unstable mixture of factuality, false attribution, music history, twisted aesthetics and humour. It blurs the lines between reality and fiction that even direct participants in this project are at times unable to discern.
The title of the exhibition, The Violin Generator nods to the ideas explored throughout the exhibition and performances, that the notion of the violin as an instrument is open to interpretation, has a rich history, and is created from artists whom interact with it. This icon of music, is at it turns out, not all it seems to be.
With associate artists Biddy Connor, Brigid Bourke, Chloe Smith, Erkki Veltheim, Ernie Althoff, Rachael Kim, Judith Hamann, Jozef Cseres, Lizzy Welsh, Maria Moles, Michael McNab, Rainer Linz and Robbie Avenaim, you are invited to view these improbable instruments in action in a series of performances. See The Rosenberg Museum activated in a new way and explore the boundaries of the violin musically, aesthetically and functionally.
With an expansive background in a large variety of music genres, from country and western to Bebop and everything in between, Jon Rose has become to be known as the central figure in the development of Free Improvisation in Australia.
Giving up a formal music education at the age of just 15, Rose has been featured in over 90 records, performs in over 50 concerts a year and was awarded the Don Banks Prize in 2012 from the Australia Council for lifetime achievement.
“Rose is a virtuoso of violinistic perversity, undertaking eccentric excursions into worlds of sound where glaring exceptions shed light on the inadequacy of rules and regulations.” – The Wire, London (2014)
The Violin Generator
The SUBSTATION, 1 Market Street, Newport
Exhibition: 4 – 13 April 2019 (free entry)
Performances: 5, 6, 12 & 13 April: 7.00 – 10.00pm (ticketed)
For more information, visit: www.thesubstation.org.au for details.
Image: Jon Rose with violins (1994) – photo by Konstanze Binder
Note: Jon Rose will not be in Melbourne for The Violin Generator due to illness.