Scribbly gums recently appeared unexpectedly. I went to the Australian Chamber Orchestra concert featuring guest soprano Danielle De Niese. This Australian tour for the ACO featured the World Premier of Carl Vine’s ‘The Tree of Man’, with text from Patrick White’s novel of the same name, sung by De Niese. Toward the end of the piece I heard “As his poem mounted in him he could not bear it, or rather, what was still his impotence. And after a bit, not knowing what else to do but scribble on the already scribbled trees he went back to the house in which his grandfather a had died, taking with him his greatness, which was still a secret.”
Clockwise from top left: A page from the ACO programme showing pictures of Danielle De Niese and ACO Artistic Director Richard Tognetti, the text from Patrick White’s novel and windows of the Opera House through which Eucalyptus can be seen (though not scribbly gum).
Julia Cooke 