Wednesday, February 20, 2008

And I haven't even heard it yet

Although the common ancestor hasn't yet been tracked down, I've always claimed kinship with concert pianist Anna Goldsworthy and her father Peter (the Australian poet and novelist), as who would not. I've been mates with the family, who also live in Adelaide, since Anna was about seventeen and have heard her play on a number of occasions since then. She's now a concert pianist (with a PhD) as well as a longstanding member of the Seraphim Trio, currently Artist-in-Residence at Janet Clarke Hall and teaching piano at the University of Melbourne.

This is her first CD, which I've just got wind of. Characteristically she and her photographer partner Nicholas Purcell, who took this beautiful shot, have made it a thinking person's album and it looks quite wonderful, as you can see here.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Although the common ancestor hasn't yet been tracked down, I've always claimed kinship..." I imagine everyone round these parts assumes it's there anyway, so you may as well.

Ampersand Duck said...

I'd always assumed it, so thanks for the clarification. Maybe its a spiritual connection?

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

It's partly because we grew up ten miles from each other in the bush, though that in turn was partly because his father was a teacher and moved around a lot. (Sorry, alot.) (See now if I were Thirdcat I just would've written alot in the first place, and let those who would get the joke get it.)

Nobody who's ever actually seen Peter and me together doubts that we are related, however distantly, and despite the fact the he is tall and lean and I am, well, you know. But we share freckles, irony, childhood asthma and an earnest but doomed desire to be better pianists, and his father looks like a slimmer version of what my grandfather Goldsworthy used to look like.

fifi said...

I actually assumed you were related too. I am sure you are! It's not as if it is a common name, and given your field (s).

(And what would I know? Nuthin').

A question, if you've a moment:
How long can a short story be until it turns into something else?

just wondering.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of questions, whatever happened to those Bronte girls? Have they returned to the Bahamas for good?

Mark Lawrence said...

And Anna's also a damn fine writer – I loved her essay on chamber music competitions in The Monthly, which had such a strong sense of drama and characters. It was collected in the Best Australian Essays 2007 (with good reason).

I also liked her recent short essay on resisting the need to sexy-up classical music, and yet work to create a younger, newer audience for it, in the most recent Sunday Life magazine, which accompanies the Sunday Age.

Thanks for the link to the ABC site, Dr P. Their online shop has finally introduced audio samples so you can hear the music from CDs too. She also sounds like a damn fine pianist! Of course.