Name: A Portrait of Bob Brown
Start: 2025-08-29T03:00:00+10:00
Location: Ian Potter Recital Hall, The Hedberg, entrance at 19 Collins Street Hobart

We all make music whenever we speak, says composer Robert Davidson; in fact, we're all composers without even realising it. We make melodies with our words.
Bob Brown is certainly no exception. Robert interviewed him at his office in Hobart and has spun Bob's distinctive way of speaking into a song cycle of twelve compositions, each taking their melodies directly from Bob's speech with the video of Bob answering Rob's questions closely integrated into this performance.
Arabella Teniswood-Harvey and Michael Kieran Harvey perform virtuosic piano music in tight synchronisation with the video, weaving a kind of musical picture frame around Bob's speech, enhancing perception of his inherent melodies. Robert's music reinforces narrative and emotional traits of Bob's stories about his life and passions.
The piece aims to be a portrait of the man, rather than a political piece.
Bob tells stories about people who have inspired him, about how he found himself entering public life, about his experiences in the UK as a young doctor, and the encouragements he had from friends to "just be who you are" when confronted with entrenched homophobia in the 1970s, about his love of the Franklin River and the extraordinary planet we inhabit.