Follow the Music

Songs for the season

Sunday December 8, 6.00 p.m.              

Manning Clark House, 11 Tasmania Circle Forrest

Join us for an enchanting evening filled with beautiful music, delicious food and drinks. The event features performances by talented music students from CITSol and CIT, joined by The MC Singers and Sam Row on piano, all set in the charming house and grounds of Manning Clark House. Inspired by the journey of the Magi, this concert is led by MCH Music Director and CITSol Vocal Teacher, Fleur Millar.

As you follow the music, enjoy champagne and canapés in the front courtyard, immerse yourself in the artistic ambiance of the living room, relax in the peaceful Zen courtyard, and conclude the evening with mince pies and a glass of mulled wine beneath a tree planted in honour of Dymphna Clark in the back garden as the sun sets.

By attending, you'll be supporting a new generation of musicians while experiencing the transformative power of music across all ages and genres. This inspirational musical journey promises to touch the soul and celebrate the joy of the season.

 Performers:

• Thompson Quan Wing, Tenor – O Holy Night and The Little Drummer Boy.

• Jonathan Boscarato, Saxophone – Bessie's Blues and more.

• The Other Secculls, Vocal Guitar Duo – Joni Mitchell's California, Florence and the Machine's Cosmic Love, and more.

• Phoebe Acton, Contemporary Vocals – Adele’s Make You Feel My Love and more.

• Sam Row, Solo Piano – Walking in the Air.

Additionally, Fleur Millar, Karol Andrzejewski, and The MC Singers will perform a selection of carols, African American spirituals, and pieces from The Messiah.

 MCH members $15; concession (Gov’t Support and full-time students) $15; Non-members $20 

Bookings at https://www.trybooking.com/CWLQT

Kathy Kituai: Poet, diarist has been an assistant editor for The Institute of PNG Studies, creative editor for Muse and tanka editor for Cattails, facilitated creative writing courses in Scotland, SA, NSW, and ACT since 1990, and is published in Japan, UK, USA, Canada, India, New Zealand, PNG and Australia. She served as a host for Poetry at Manning Clark House and as vice president for FAW,, founded and facilitated Limestone Tanka Poets (10 years), was on the Lake George (Weereewa) festival board, received ARTS ACT Funding (twice), and two Canberra Critic awards. The Art of Catching Jam Before it Burns, (new and selected poetry, 1992 --- 2023) is her latest publication. 

Kerrie Nelson is a Canberra poet who writes as K A Nelson. She is a former Australian Public Servant who spent most of her career working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, organisations and communities. She came to poetry early in her life and then came back to it much later, winning the Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets in 2010. 

In 2015 Nelson’s first pamphlet of printed poems, A Chosen Life, appeared with Cait Wait’s paintings in an exhibition and reading at The Residency in Alice Springs. Two full-length collections published by Recent Work Press followed:  Inlandia (2018) and Meaty Bones (2023), both were highly commended in the ACT Writers’ Centre publishing award (now Marion). Meaty Bones also received a Canberra Critics Circle Award late last year. Geoff Page reviewed Meaty Bones for Quadrant in April this year and Kimberly Williams and ArtSound FM interviewed Nelson for their ‘Poets on the Radio’ series. 

Publications of poems have appears in Best Australian Poems, Mascara Literary Journal, Rabbit Literary Journal, Not Very Quiet, Arena among others. Poems have been included in many anthologies too. 

In 2021 K A Nelson graduated from the University of Canberra’s Masters by Research degree. Her exegesis explored white privilege and its legacy in Australia. The creative component, a memoir with poetry, is entitled Searching for the Glad Tomorrow, focused on lessons from her working life. 

Kerrie coordinated the poetry readings at MCH for a year, inheriting that honour from Kathy Kituai and handing it on to Hazel Hall. She says it’s always a pleasure reading at MCH because it was the first place she read her work in 2013 as a novice, with her mother and daughter present.

Tickets - https://www.trybooking.com/CWWOW

2024 Manning Clark Lecture

Simon Holmes à Court

The Politics of Energy Transition

Tuesday 10 September at 6.00pm

Coombs Lecture Theatre, ANU, Canberra

As the transition to a global economy based on the sustainable use of low emission energy proceeds, Simon Holmes à Court will speak about the forces shaping the political debate, policy-making, investment decisions and delivery that are critical for achieving the rate and scale of energy transition needed before the middle of the 21st century.

Simon Holmes à Court is an energy analyst, clean technology investor, climate philanthropist and a director of the Smart Energy Council, The Superpower Institute and the Australian Environmental Grantmakers Network. He was the driving force behind Australia’s first community-owned windfarm and is the founder of Climate 200, a community crowdfunding initiative that supports political candidates committed to a science-based response to the climate crisis. He writes regularly about the transformation of Australia’s energy sector.

There will be a Q&A session following the address, then light refreshments

MCH members $20; Concession $25; General admission $30

https://www.trybooking.com/CTMUZ

Music and Words - The Art of Song

A vocal concert with Fleur Millar, Soprano, Richard Orchard, Baritone, and Thompson Quan Wing, Tenor and guest artists. With Colin Forbes, piano and Sam Row, Piano

Sunday August 11 at 3.00 p.m.

Manning Clark House, 11 Tasmania Circle, Forrest

This concert will explore the work of Schubert and his great muse, the poet Goethe, by celebrating the union between words and music - the art song. Goethe’s poems were a great inspiration for art song of the 19th century and in this concert, they provide a springboard for singing beautiful art song throughout the ages. This concert will include professional, semi-professional and advanced students of classical voice, singing mainly art song repertoire, accompanied on piano by Colin Forbes and Sam Row. Music includes Fleur Millar singing Schubert and Goethe’s song, ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’. Richard Orchard and Colin Forbes will interpret Beethoven’s ‘An die Ferne Geliebte’, with poetry by Wilhelm Muller, illuminating how Schubert, a contemporary of Beethoven, was influenced by the great artist and made the style his own. There will also be some early Italian bel canto song of Bellini – in which words and music flow together, sung by Thompson Quan Wing, the Italian bel canto being an inspiration for the German artists.

Future MCH Music concerts may include students from CIT and The Canberra School of Music; a concert of 18th Century vocal music by Rameau including excerpts of the work ‘Les Indes Galant’; a concert show-casing Canberra Chamber Music and finishing the year with a concert of Canberra’s ‘Rising Stars.’

Fleur Millar holds a BMUS Music Perf in Voice, VCA Melbourne University and is Director of Music at MCHI, her work includes, Canberra School of Music, CIT, The Canberra Street Theatre. A music graduate of Sydney Con, Colin Forbes work includes with Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra and Essen Hochschule Germany. Sam Row is a Graduate of the Queensland Con, and work includes for National Opera and Art Song Canberra. Richard Orchard was Cantor at St Saviour’s Cathedral, Goulburn and currently studying for LMus in voice with Colin Forbes and Thompson Quan Wing returns to singing having sung with companies including Canberra City Opera and lessons with David Parker.

There will be a discussion after the concert followed by refreshments.

MCH members $15; concession (Gov’t support and full-time students) $15; Non-members $20

https://www.trybooking.com/CTMUP

Profits over people: Australia’s housing crisis (and what we can do about it) - Richard Denniss

Wednesday, 17 July, 6pm

Australian Institute of Architects - 2a Mugga Way, Red Hill, Canberra

Australia is in the grip of a housing crisis, with rents and house prices soaring increasingly out of reach. The debate over what to do about it has been mired with obscurity, and for the most part, Government response has been piecemeal at best. How did we get here? And what can be done?

Join Richard Denniss as he unpacks the simple solutions at the disposal of governments, and why we haven’t done it yet.

This event is a collaboration between Manning Clark House Inc., The Australia Institute and the Australian Institute of Architects. It inaugurates a program of activities on housing issues Manning Clark House will be offering through the second half of 2024.

 There will be a Q&A session following the presentation, then light refreshments

 MCH members $15; concession (Gov’t Support and full-time students) $15; Non-members $20 

Tickets:  https://www.trybooking.com/CTEIJ

In the third presentation of the Energy Transition 2024 series, David Glynne Jones will report on the current status, trends and outlook for the key technologies enabling transition to a global low emission energy economy. His report will focus on low emission generating technologies including solar, wind, hydroelectric and nuclear energy, and enabling technologies including batteries, solid state electronics, electric motors, heat pumps and hydrogen. Future presentations in the Energy Transition 2024 series will include transport electrification, land use and environmental impacts, energy resource stewardship and the circular energy economy, and the politics of energy transition.

David is an independent advocate for the adoption of renewable energy and electrification across all sectors of the Australian economy. He is currently assessing the implications of emerging advanced battery technology for electrification of the Australian transport sector.

There will be a Q&A session following the presentation, then light refreshments.

MCH members $15; Concession (Gov’t support and full-time students) $15; Non-members $20

https://www.trybooking.com/CSEKV

Bestselling author Siobhan O’Brien discusses

her novel All the Golden Light with media personality Genevieve Jacobs

Friday, 24 May, 5.30pm

Manning Clark House, 11 Tasmania Circle, Forrest

Siobhan O’Brien discusses her sweeping work of historical fiction All the Golden Light with Genevieve Jacobs. O’Brien’s stirring, dramatic novel has been described as ‘Australian storytelling at its best,’ by Samuel Bernard, literary critic for The Weekend Australian. Publishers HarperCollins refer to the book as ‘a moving, uplifting story about love, trauma and addiction, with echoes of Birdsong, My Brilliant Career and The Light Between Oceans.’ The novel - set on the south coast of New South Wales - explores WWI Australia and how we find connection, meaning and beauty in a time of darkness.

Siobhan O'Brien is an author, journalist and communications professional. She has written a number of books, including A Life by Design: The Art and Lives of Florence Broadhurst, and has worked for many media outlets including the Sydney Morning Herald, Vogue and Indesign.

Genevieve Jacobs has been a journalist for 30 years, working in print, radio and digital media. She was a longtime ABC Canberra presenter, the Group Editor for Region Media and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Genevieve is a director of the Cultural Facilities Corporation, the Conflict Resolution Service and the Australian Center for Christianity and Culture. She chairs the Canberra International Music Festival and has an enduring interest in building and strengthening community engagement. In 2021, she was made a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of her services to broadcasting and the community. 

There will be a Q&A session following the presentation, then light refreshments. Signed books are available for purchase. 

MCH members $15; concession (Gov’t Support and full-time students) $15; Non-members $20

https://www.trybooking.com/CRGIS

Energy Transition - A Status Report

In the first of a series of presentations during 2024 on the Energy Transition issue, David Glynne Jones will report on the current status, key trends and outlook for the global transition to a low emission energy economy. His report will focus on energy transition at the global level and in Australia, as well as key high emitting economies including China, USA, India, Europe and Russia.

David will outline the Energy Transition series, which will include presentations on Australia’s National Electricity Market, low emission energy technologies, transport electrification, land use and environmental impacts, energy resource stewardship and the circular energy economy, and the politics of energy transition.

David is an independent advocate for the adoption of renewable energy and electrification across all sectors of the Australian economy. He is currently assessing the implications of emerging advanced battery technology for electrification of the Australian transport sector and, together with his colleague Derek Woolner, publishing articles on the implications of emerging energy technologies for defence policy, strategy and future acquisition programs.

Download flyer here

Book here

Meeting Ice & Rising Seas - How Much? How Fast?

For millions of years Earth’s climate has been dominated by ice with the last Ice Age ending only 12,000 years ago (in very recent geological time). Currently we enjoy an “interglacial period” called the Holocene.  Much is known about why ice ages and interglacial come and go on Earth. The drivers of these changes come from orbital dynamics: specifically changes in orbital eccentricity, axial tilt and axial precession. So where to from here? Scientific observations show us that the climate is warming and that the seas are rising. Measurements of harbour water levels confirm the latter and modern satellite data prove the point even more precisely. However, while much is known about the past, the way ahead is obscured - principally because of human interventions in the climate system. Humanity currently injects 37 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases per year into the narrow band that is Earth’s atmosphere. 

In this talk Dr Chopra will discuss the uncertainties of the future paths of ice volume and sea level, the machinations of the imperfect IPCC process and the likely consequences for us all.

Dr Chopra is a geologist and geophysicist and before retirement was a well-known Reader in Geophysics at ANU.  In 2000 he co-founded Geodynamics Ltd, the world’s first publicly listed hot rock energy company and served as a director for more than a decade. He has a longstanding interest both in Earth’s climate and Earth’s internal heat providing opportunities for green energy.

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Political lives: do they matter?

Date and time to be confirmed in 2024 - watch this space

Dr Wallace's latest book, Political Lives: Australian prime ministers and their biographers (UNSW Press, 2023), was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Prize in History. 

Professor Chris Wallace works in modern and contemporary political history and public policy with special reference to leadership, gender, transnational lives, and transformational change and the information strategies underlying it. Her book on Australian Labor's shock 2019 election loss, How To Win An Election, (NewSouth, 2020), contextualised it against the backdrop of the last half-century of Australian federal elections. Previous books include The Private Don (Allen & Unwin, 2004), an exploration of the intense 30 year-long relationship between cricketer Don Bradman and his confidante, journalist Rohan Rivett; a biography of maverick Australian feminist Germaine Greer, Greer, Untamed Shrew (Pan Macmillan, 1997; Faber & Faber, 1999); and a biography of the then crusading neoliberal policy exponent John Hewson during his Opposition leadership in the early 1990s, Hewson: A Portrait (Pan Macmillan, 1993). She was the National Archives of Australia Cabinet Historian in 2020 and 2021 for the release of the 2000 and 2001 Cabinet papers. 

AUKUS – Expensive Folly?

Allan Behm, Head of the International and Security Affairs program at the Australia Institute, will discuss AUKUS, and whether nuclear submarines and increased defence spending will deliver increased national security. He will also consider Australia’s cultural and historical experiences that have shaped our security thinking.

As well as being head of the International and Security Affairs program at The Australia Institute Allan Behm spent 30 years in the Australian Public Service, as a member of the Australian diplomatic service, the Prime Minister’s Department, the Department of Defence and the Attorney General’s Department.  Allan specialised in international relations, defence strategy, counter-terrorism and law enforcement policy.  He was Chief of Staff to Minister for Climate Change and Industry Greg Combet (2009-13) and senior advisor to the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Penny Wong (2017-19). He is a sought-after public speaker and media commentator, has authored a number of books, and has lectured on strategy and policy at universities and the Australian Defence College.

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The circular economy and sustainable fashion

Rae's journey into sustainable fashion formally began in 2019, when she embarked on a mission to share the environmental impacts of fashion with the world. Rae’s commitment to sustainable fashion has been evident throughout her career with the goal to bring all Australian discarded textiles into the circular economy. She has gathered thousands of followers through her platform, by sharing captivating stories of fair fashion. Her approach is unique, centering feminism, personal style, and circularity. Through her community, people have discovered their personal style, felt inspired to make the most of their existing wardrobes, and learned the art of consuming less. This marked the inception of her mission to enact change within the fashion industry.

Rae Knopik is a feminist, author, and founder of several award-winning organisations. She currently holds various titles: Young Canberra Business Woman of the Year 2022, an inductee into the ACT Women's Honour Roll, Finalist for the ACT Woman of the Year 2021 award, GREN-Director of Quality Assurance and Sustainability, and Director and Founder of the Canberra Gals Network.  In addition, Rae's advocacy has reached the global stage as she collaborated with Bogal Local Aboriginal Land Council at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Twenty-second Session in April 2023. There, she addressed the health impact of floods in Northern New South Wales on First Nation communities.

As a sought-after speaker and writer, Rae has been featured in local and international media, discussing circular fashion systems, fashion's effects on climate and gender inequality, and the importance of connection to land, air, seas, and people.

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In Large Numbers and on Purpose

A study team has established that the peopling of Sahul, the mega continent that included Papua New Guinea, mainland Australia and Tasmania, was not a random event but a well organised maritime migration. After considering many scenarios for the numbers that would have to arrive to be able to survive on the continent, the team concluded that 1,300 people arrived either in a single migration event or in smaller groups over a seven-century period. The study reveals that Australia’s first settlers had a highly sophisticated knowledge of watercraft building and navigation and were able to plan and execute complicated ocean voyages.

The study’s author, Flinders University Professor Corey Bradshaw, is Director of the Global Ecology Laboratory and a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage.  He will explain the study’s methodology and its game changing revelations, and then join a Q+A session.

Manning Clark House gratefully acknowledges the significant financial contribution of Richard Barnard of Brisbane to the expenses of this event.

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