Lot's and lot's of things to mention!!! The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, The Police, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Oasis, Nick Cave, Bjork, Peter Gabriel, Patsy Cline, Roy Orbison, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, The Jackson Five, Marvin Gaye, Terence Trent D'Arby, Chain, Neil Young, The Zombies, Radiohead, Coldplay, Midnight Oil, Silverchair, Pheonix, Johnny Cash, U2, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, Queen, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Chopin, Mozart , Bach), Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Carl Vine, Schubert, Rachmaninoff.
Hello! I'm Gareth and I get up to a lot of funky stuff here in my hometown Newcastle. At the moment I'm working with another ginger (although he thinks he's a brunette), Matt Aubrey. He plays cello and he's fantastic!! We're recoding an album at the moment - it may be done by the end of the year if we can get better at organising rehearsals!! I love to travel so we're going to tour the US and Europe when we've finished recoding - fun!!
I am also a fan of writing music for the stage. At the moment I'm writing a musical about Captain James Cook and his interaction with the people of the Pacific. The librettist is Nick Higginbotham, with who I wrote "The Shining Isle: A Rock Opera", which was staged at Newcastle's Civic Playhouse in October 2006. I was a part of the SPARK national youth mentoring program this year, run by Youth Arts Queensland and the Australian Arts Council, and was lucky enough to meet and work with 11 other emerging artists from round the country. I was mentored by Art Phillips, a fantastic film and screen music composer as part of this program, who gave me great guidance in relation to orchestration for the Cook musical. Another exciting project to come from my SPARK experience will give me the opportunity to compose music for dancers at the upcoming "Underbelly New Music Festival" in Sydney in July. Very exciting!
I'm currently doing my Masters of Philosophy (Music and Orchestration) through Newcastle University, supervised by Richard Vella, a fantastic musician and composer and am producing a lot of up and coming bands around the Newcastle area in my home studio. Drop me a line to say G'day!
Man, the pleasure was all mine. And yes, we should definitely work together again! For sure, I will give you a buzz when something comes up in Newcastle. Make sure you let me know if something brings you to Sydney! Take care
Not much, but been listening to different musics for inspiration. Did Mum show you the song I wrote for her, Quarralia and me? If not, it might not be a good time for her at the moment.
blimey its been quite reasonable over here haha But i'll have to get over sometime and sample some Aussie sunshine!!!
Ninja's are going great, played a gig at Whitby last night which was fun. Recording at home on Friday so hopefully have some new stuff on the myspace soon, will let you know!
Mate I have been practicing hardcore for the ginga ninjas. "One day" I keep saying to myself, "one day, I will get that call". And then I cry for hours...
