29 EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA presents:
AMAZING SPACE 2
CONCERT 12
WEDNESDAY MAY 14
Sounding Nishi
11.00AM
NISHI BUILDING, NEW ACTON
This concert is supported by Margaret and Peter Janssens Portrait concert of composer-in-residence Nigel Westlake Speakers: David Clarke MC, Ann Cleary, Rodney Eggleston (March Studio) and Nigel Westlake
Nishi Grand Stair:
Nigel Westlake Fabian Theory J.B. Smith MARIMBA
Nigel Westlake Omphalo Centric Lecture Nigel Westlake Kalabash for percussion quartet Uncut Percussion: Stephen Fitzgerald, Charles Martin, Christina Hopgood and Veronica Bailey PERCUSSION
Hotel Hotel Mosaic Room:
Nigel Westlake Songs from the Forest Callum Henshaw and Andrew Blanch GUITARS
Nigel Westlake Beneath the Midnight Sun Nigel Westlake The Hinchinbrook Riffs Alice Giles ELECTROACOUSTIC HARP
Nigel Westlake Quicksilver Light for clarinet, cello, marimba and vibraphone Desert’s Edge: Robert Spring CLARINET, J.B. Smith PERCUSSION with guests David Pereira CELLO and Charles Martin MARIMBA
The Nishi Building Located in NewActon, a diverse new precinct in Canberra, Nishi Commercial is a major new development housing government departments, private offices, a cinema and cafes. The lobby, designed by March Studio, projects a unique identity through thousands of lengths of repurposed timber, blurring boundaries while directing views and movement. A grand stair - the stage for performances as much as idle procrastination - leads up to the HotelHotel lobby and bar. In the stair the timber is heavy, grounded, a stacked agglomeration. Freed to scatter up the walls and across the ceiling, the suspended timber filters exterior light and views into and from internal spaces. Spidery, pixellated shadows are cast on the floor and bare walls. The stair links Nishi Commercial to Nishi Residential, a multi-storey apartment building, housing 2 floors of hotel rooms, wrapped around a
central courtyard and light well. The ground floor contains HotelHotel's lobby, reception, concierge and bar, as well as retail and hospitality tenancies. On the ground floor of the boutique hotel, March Studio was engaged to create spaces which encouraged residents, guests and visitors to linger in what can often be a transient space. The walls in the hotel lobby - and the seating, the benches, the counters - are an attempt to bring the handmade into the rigorous, polished building around it. Materials - custom gluelam timber, precast concrete beams - are allowed to sit, unadorned, stacked in a simple manner, overlapping, their joints overrunning and poking out. The singular system - the same for both materials - is stretched where needed, opened where useful, broken where forced. A large space is enveloped in this manner and then diffused, variegated by operations within these rules, to