NEWS DESK

Futureroo scores spot for Australia MENTONE hockey player Gracie Geddis will take on some of the world’s best junior hockey players in Cape Town, South Africa next month. The Mentone Girls’ Secondary College student was chosen by School Sports Australia to represent the country on the two-week international tour after a stellar performance at the Pacific School Games in December last year. Geddis, 16, was in disbelief when receiving the news via text message from a friend. “It was incredible,” Gracie’s mother, Wendy, said. “It was all a bit of a surprise as one of her friends texted her the news when she came across it online. “It was one of the goals that she wanted to achieve, and I think she’s pretty keen to get over there now.”

The “Futureoo” defender is one of two Victorian girls selected to join the under-17s side and is set to fly out on Friday 29 June. “She’s extremely excited and a little nervous now that she knows how far away it is,” Wendy said. “Playing with the best players in Australia gives her another level experience – I think she’ll love it.” Playing since the age of five-yearsold, Gracie has represented Victoria at state level since she was 11 and currently plays in the Mentone women’s premiership team which finished runners-up in last year’s competition. Gracie also recently competed at the 2018 National Championships, held in Launceston, as part of the Victorian under-18 Women’s team and was an-

nounced as a “Futureoo” by Hockey Australia – a title recognising up-andcoming hockey talent in Australia. Gracie also received a $500 Local Sporting Champions grant to assist her on her trip to South Africa. “We have some wonderful sporting clubs in the City of Kingston and Gracie, her family and the Mentone Hockey Club should be very proud,” federal Isaacs Labor MP Mark Dreyfus said. Gracie is also raising funds to help cover the costs of her 2018-19 hockey journey which donations can be made at asf.org.au/donate/Gracie-geddis online. Ben Triandafillou South Africa bound: Gracie Geddis congratulated by Isaacs MP Mark Dreyfus. Picture: Gary Sissons

Composer seeks backing for historic opera Keith Platt keith@baysidenews.com.au CLASSICAL musician, Sean Ross, echoes claims by the Spanish artist Salvador Dali that his art was influenced by memories from before he was born. Part-raised in Frankston and a onetime boarder at Peninsula Grammar, Mt Eliza, Ross credits his then-pregnant mother’s playing of Tchaikovsky on a cassette player with his “destiny” to write an opera about the Russian composer’s life. “I truly believe my opera was conceived with me, in my mother’s womb, and that it was therefore my destiny to write it. I’d even go so far as to say it was written on the very blueprint of my soul,” he says. “Listening to Tchaikovsky’s music [when studying the composer at Melbourne University] was like remembering a language I had once spoken, long ago. “It resonated with me in a unique way, and I just felt I understood it intimately, in a way I can’t claim to comprehend the music of other composers.” Although a man whose work composing, conducting an orchestra, or accompanying singers at the piano – is steeped in the classics, Ross is using very modern methods to raise money. Whereas in the past artists looked for a patron, they can now look to many sources for patronage, or audience sourcing. Ross’s efforts to raise money to pay for rehearsals and Melbourne concert

COMPOSER Sean Ross with his nephew, Caleb McDonnell, at the workshop of Act Two of his opera in January 2017 and, above, as depicted by Melbourne artist, Paul McCluskey in 2001.

performances of Act Three of his opera, Tchaikovsky, Angel of Music with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic choir and orchestra, with Opera Australia soloists have ranged from radio interviews to Facebook, inserting flyers into concert programs and the online Australian Cultural Fund. Although Tchaikovsky, Angel of Music won the Director’s Choice

Award for opera in the 2014 Boston International Contempo Festival, that is no guarantee of having it performed on an ongoing basis. “We have raised about one third of the money needed to finance the [$110,000] project, but need a further $40,000-50,000 by mid-year if we are to be able to go ahead and plan the rehearsals and performances for

as early as March or April, 2019,” he told The News. Now based in Brisbane, Ross has “plastered a media release all over Facebook”, spoken on several radio programs and received endorsement from conductor and music director Andrew Wailes, who spoke at length about the Tchaikovsky to the audience at last August’s RMP Aria Final. A

flyer about the project was included with the evening’s concert program. “A similar flyer was also included in the programs of audience members attending the RMP's performance of Messiah last December, so the target audience has been targeted on several occasions,” Ross said. He is also anticipating article in a Melbourne daily newspaper “in the next month or two, which will no doubt help us enormously, in terms of generating wider publicity”. “I’m deeply flattered that Maestro Wailes has chosen to support my opera, for it means I’ll have at my disposal the combined forces of one of the finest musical ensembles in the country,” Ross says. “With the added interest from great singers including Guy Booth, Sally-Anne Russell, and Andrwew Jones, it would be such a shame if we weren’t able to raise sufficient funds in time to present the concerts in 2019. “Naturally, I’ve applied for numerous government and family foundation grants to date, … but, sadly, with very little success. “Even the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic has failed to receive support from prominent funding bodies in recent years, so we really are reliant on the generosity of opera and new music lovers of means if we’re to see this project go ahead next year.” Details: www.seanpeterross.com or donate at australianculturalfund.org. au, under Sean Ross’s opera’s name, Tchaikovsky, Angel of Music.

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Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News 9 May 2018

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