Music
Press
The title, The Villainelles, is a pun taken from a fiendishly difficult poetic form, the villanelle, (invented, like tennis, by those sadists the French). The villanelle is a 19-line poem which uses only two rhymes and in which lines are repeated as refrains: the most famous English example is probably Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night". It's an appropriate title for a series of songs in which passion and attention to form are driving preoccupations.
The show demonstrates Greenwell's versatility and theatrical flair. The music draws on an eclectic range of influences from contemporary rock to cabaret to folk, and each song musically responds to each individual poem. It makes what could be potentially an earnestly feminist piece into a rich work, musically and emotionally complex, excavating the darkness, scandal and various passions of individual women.
- Alison Croggon - Theatre Notes
Discography
DREAMING TRANSPORTATION: Voice Portraits of the First Women of WHite Settlement at Port Jackson, ABC Audio. CD.
LAQUIEM: Tales from the Mourning of the Lac Women.CD.
PASSION, Newmarket Music. CD
THE HANGING OF JEAN LEE a music-theatre work about the last woman to be hanged in Australia will be broadcast on ABC Radio National, April 11 - 83 mins. For 4 singers and 7 musicians.
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Bio
Andrée Greenwell has performed and composed many scores for theatre, opera, film and symphony, including co-productions of her music-theatre works with the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Festival. She has worked with Oz-famed rock, folk, indie, opera singers and musicans. She recently won a Green Room Award for her much raved about score for the Malthouse/Bell Shakespeare co-production of Venus and Adonis. "Venus and Adonis", featuring Melissa Madden Gray (aka Meow Meow) and Susan Prior, was performed at Malthouse Melbourne, at Sydney Theatre Company and at the Auckland International Arts Festival. Outside of her composing gigs, Andrée loves songs and to sing. "The Villainelles" is her new outfit in which she performs a striking array of songs that cross over many styles, all hinging on captivating melodies.
Influences: Michel Legrand, Lee Hazelwood, Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk, Nick Cave, The Residents, Ed Kuepper, Burt Bacharach, Bjørk, Charles Fox (Pufnstuf), Satie, The Carpenters, Kurt Weill, Tom Waits, Danielle Dax, Michael Nyman Band.
Andrée regularly brings together musicians from classical, jazz and popular music worlds to topple music conventions in refreshing and highly expressive ways. People that would not ordinarily play together in this town do in this band, to make a unique and colourful music experience.
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