Australian singer-songwriter Lisa Mitchell is set to appear at the iconic Theatre Royal Castlemaine on Thursday June 30 as part of her latest album tour.
Mitchell has just released her new single titled Let Your Body, alongside her highly anticipated fourth studio album ‘A Place To Fall Apart’ via Believe.
The album is a glorious and heartrending tribute to what it means to be alive and learning in the world, having been old enough to feel its bruises and heartbreaks, but also be at the beginning of understanding our own individual insignificance within it.
Accompanied by her beguiling melodies and hushed tones, the lyrics within the album are deeply introspective and impactful, written in the thick of the first year of a global pandemic that forced everyone’s lives and spheres to become very small and very still. See the Mount Alexander Living section of today’s Mail for more…
Lisa Mitchell to hold album launch at historic Theatre Royal
‘Get Together’ to say farewell to the Village Square
Mount Alexander Shire Council is bidding a fond farewell to the Village Square with one last hurrah ‘Get Together’ this Saturday June 18.
The community is invited to join them for a ‘farewell’ smoking ceremony with Dja Dja Wurrung Elder Uncle Rick Nelson before free and family-friendly entertainment including DJs and live music commences at 6pm along Mechanics Lane and at the Phee Broadway Theatre precinct.
This event is also set to help launch the next stage of the Get Lost platform – a website established in 2020 as a place for the shire’s creative community to collaborate, exchange ideas and share content. See the Mail for all the details.
Covid vaccination and testing clinics to close
Castlemaine Health announced this week that its COVID-19 Vaccination and COVID Testing Clinics are set to close this month.
The final day for COVID Vaccinations at the Castlemaine Health based clinic will be Wednesday June 22.
The final day of testing at the drive through Testing Clinic at Wesley Hill Stadium will be Thursday June 16.
Closure of the clinics will enable staff to move back into frontline nursing roles to support the healthcare system.
Castlemaine Health Vaccination and Testing nurse unit manager Shelley Leathem said the local vaccination clinic has played a vital role in our local COVID-19 response and greatly contributed to the high vaccination rates in our shire.
“More than 95 per cent of eligible residents in Mount Alexander Shire have already received their two primary COVID vaccine doses and more than 82 per cent of those aged 16 and over are up-to-date with their booster. We are pleased with the results and feel we have significantly contributed to the safety of the community,” Ms Leathem said. See the Mail for more…
Bust honour for Felix
A bronze bust has been created to honour the late Felix Cappy OAM and will be unveiled in a special event at the Castlemaine Art Museum (CAM) next month.
Felix Cappy was a man who had a great passion and love for the town he grew up in – Castlemaine. He worked tirelessly to preserve its history and goldfields heritage.
This included working to prevent the demolition of several historic buildings including the Former Court House, Chewton Town Hall and Castlemaine Market Building.
The market was in a very poor state of disrepair. Together with his hardworking restoration committee including John Holland, Peggy Smith and many more they raised the necessary funds to restore and preserve this iconic building which is now home to the Castlemaine Information Centre and a real drawcard for the region. See the Mail for more…
Celebrating our women tradies
Eve Lamb
Right now, the foyer of Castlemaine’s Vintage Bazaar at The Mill has a sturdy lineup of women wielding power tools.
Fortunately, the auditory impact is minimal as the women in question are all the photographic subjects of award-winning sharp shooter, Zo Damage, known to many for her work photographing rock stars – often from a mosh pit perspective.
Here however, Damage has applied her talent for powerful image-making to celebrating and acknowledging local women who have chosen to shoulder those trades more traditionally regarded as the bastion of their brothers.
Shoulder to shoulder in her black and white images, here, are women sparkies, mechanics, builders and jills of all trades.
Launched earlier this week, the new Women in Trades exhibition is the result of a partnership between Damage, HALT (Hope Assistance Local Tradies) and Women’s Health Loddon Mallee.
“It makes me feel proud to be part of this group of 12 women,” says one of the central Victorian tradeswomen featured, Jaxx Irwin of Daisy Hill.
“I started my engineering as a navy engineer 20 years ago,” Jaxx told the Mail during… Read more in the Mail
We must do more to support our artists
Suzanne Donisthorpe, Castlemaine
While the people of Mount Alexander are grateful for the $6 million for the State Festival and the other $6 million for the Castlemaine Art Museum granted by the state government – I note that not a single dollar of that money is actually going to artists.
It is all for building improvements which are all fine and good – but the money will go to the building industry – which has flourished for years even during the pandemic when the world decided to renovate.
Artists on the other hand have languished with no Job keeper and no gigs.
So what if the state government or council could find a mere two million dollars to be distributed to the actual arts community? I’ll list them – Fringe Festival, Lot 19, Arts Open, The Newstead Arts Hub and the Red Shed Arts Workshop, C Doc, The Jazz Festival, The Newstead Folk Festival, CASPA, Artpuff, The Cascade Gallery, The Edge Gallery, Castlemaine Press, Castlemaine Clay, MainFM – I’m sure there are others.
If each of those organisations got some real funding – they would really thrive and the results would be transformational.
These organisations struggle on with nothing – or perhaps with a pitiful hard won grant of a couple of thousand dollars and yet have created the enviable reputation we enjoy of living in a vibrant arts community.
I know just how much more vibrant it could be if there was money to pay actual artists and arts administrators to keep the wheels turning.
Giving wages to actual creators would also help with the massive housing crisis we face here as many of the people staring down the barrel of having to leave are the very heart and soul of the arts community.
They are the people doing it very hard and if they leave they take their creative input with them and we are left all the poorer.
The arts aren’t just about bringing tourists to town, although it is a major factor in why Mount Alexander is so attractive as a destination.
The arts are not just there to bring money to small business and the accommodation industry – it’s about the primary producers – the artists themselves – who are always on the bottom of the ladder when it comes to funding.
So if maybe the state government or council could spend a fraction of the money that might be spent on a new roundabout somewhere – and give it to the artists instead.
I promise you the money will be greatly appreciated and the community will blossom.
Art to warm the soul…and more
Eve Lamb
Whether the weather is sufficient to freeze the proverbial – or simply sublime – one top place to be this weekend is the Castlemaine Rotary Art Show.
The heating was merely an added bonus when the Mail dropped in for a pre-show sneak peek as final works were hung earlier this week ahead of last night’s launch event and the show itself that now runs through to Monday.
“You will be blown away. They’re just amazing,” said Rotary Art Show co-director Robert Cordy when quizzed as to the contents of this year’s catalogue.
“We’ve got 465 works and about 150 artists’ entries including 50 or 60 from artists who have not previously entered.
“And our entrants range from well known locals like Peggy Shaw to entrants from South Australia and New South Wales and… Read more in the Mail
Women of wit headed to the ‘maine
Eve Lamb
As a teenager Jude Perl (Comedy Festival Gala) had already unearthed her own unstoppable talent for music and lyric.
Inspired by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Carol King, Prince and Marvin Gaye, it was only in her early 20s that her love of the comedic also began to increasingly infiltrate her live stage performances.
“It was a gradual thing,” says the headliner act for this month’s Women of Wit comedy tour, describing the way that second driver – for making audiences laugh – began to emerge initially through what Jude describes as her “quirky writing”.
That bent for “quirky” lyric increasingly took on a satirical edge, becoming something that today invites the Melbourne-based performer’s audiences to belly-laugh at some of the well-known human foibles of our times – like consumerism.
Numbers she has written and won fans with – like The Label Song, Hungry and Horny and I have a Face also help us to take a good hard look at ourselves and … laugh out loud.
Now with six solo shows under her comedic belt Jude is headlining the Women of Wit Tour that’s set to … Read more in the Mail
MAIN Game returns Sunday
After a two year hiatus, the MAIN Game returns to Castlemaine this Sunday June 12!
A community engagement and major fundraising initiative for local radio station 94.9 MainFM, the day features a game of Aussie rules footy between the Radio Galahs and the Rockatoos at the historic Camp Reserve.
The teams are made up of MainFM presenters, local musicians and other respectable members of the community of mixed ages, all genders and mixed abilities.
MainFM, Sponsorship & Events manager Sue McLennan said they’re hoping the event will help raise awareness and garner interest in the radio station as a lead up to their annual subscriber drive, Radiothon, which begins on June 17.
“We have the Castlemaine Highland Pipe Band, local rockers K5 and dance troupe Lady Fun Times locked in, alongside food stalls, the MAIN Bar, plus there’s a handball competition at half time,” she said.
The MainFM van will be broadcasting live from the event for those listening at home.
Gates will open at midday, with entertainment starting at 12.30pm. Game starts at 1.30pm. Entry $5 for MainFM subscribers, $10 general entry, free for kids under 18. Tickets available at mainfm.net
Jazz Fest this weekend
Queen’s Birthday long weekend will have Castlemaine aglow with sound once more as the town’s jazz festival makes it’s post-covid comeback.
This Queens Birthday festival will be the seventh running of the event which is carving out a niche for itself on the state’s live jazz calendar.
The venues include the Theatre Royal, Town Hall and Phee Broadway with the town’s bowls club and Boomtown winery at The Mill both new additions to the venue lineup.
And organisers are particularly keen to let live music lovers know that the range of ticketing options on offer is nothing if not flexible.
You can buy passes on the door to all venues and you can buy weekend passes, day passes, and evening passes from each of the venues and also from the Market Building-information centre.
The festival gets started this evening with a focus on local talent and organisers keen to encourage those who may not have sampled jazz in its many forms and fusions before to grab the opportunity to do so now.
The festival has big band, New Orleans, swing, contemporary. It isn’t just the one style of jazz.
VIEW Club seeks support
Castlemaine Evening VIEW Club is urging the local community to give generously to The Smith Family’s Winter Appeal to help support thousands of disadvantaged children and young people with their education.
The local club says this year’s appeal is more crucial than ever before with children continuing to deal with the ongoing effects of the covid-19 pandemic.
This year The Smith Family aims to raise $5.4 million by June 30 to provide learning and mentoring support programs to children in need.
VIEW is the largest community sponsor of students through the The Smith Family’s ‘Learning for Life’ program, which is why local members are calling on Australians to get behind the latest appeal. See the Mail for more…
Heritage importance recognised
Colin Moore, President, Castlemaine Society Inc
The VCAT decision this week to reject a permit for two dwellings in the Farnsworth Street heritage precinct proves that the council are out of touch with good planning decisions.
The decision by the VCAT Senior Member stated the design does not respond acceptably to the heritage character of the locality and that he had not been persuaded that the proposed dwellings are an acceptable response to the heritage provisions or the site context.
Have we learnt anything from this? Any future planning applications to council must take into account this milestone decision to conserve the character of Castlemaine, which is currently under threat.