Cabaret Festival review: My Life is a Symphony

With a powder-keg of a voice and distinctive skills spanning jazz, soul and mainstream pop, Kate Ceberano was a phenomenon purely of her personal invention when she burst onto the Australian scene 40 years in the past. All these a long time later, we arguably have nonetheless not seen a extra unique or versatile singer on this nation than she.

So it appears excessive time to have a look again and revisit a few of her glories – which is how My Life is a Symphony is partially conceived. COVID prevented this present seeing the sunshine of day in 2020, however following its launch as an album in Could this 12 months, Ceberano was in a position to deliver it right here for the 2023 Adelaide Cabaret Competition in collaboration with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.

It’s completely becoming, provided that she was this occasion’s creative director in 2012, 2013 and 2014, and is a part of the Cabaret Collective which has programmed the 2023 competition.

Nevertheless, My Life is a Symphony is way over a mere compilation of hits. It’s a private sharing of songs and experiences which have been most significant to Ceberano via her life – reworked right into a symphonic journey. Turbulent however uplifting, melancholic but finally triumphal in its optimism, her present’s distinct message is how pleasure can solely come up out of darker instances.

Telling us that pure sensual want is the place all of it begins, Ceberano turns up the warmth wickedly in “Pash”. However her pleading vocals amid a broiling eruption of orchestral sound instantly plant feelings of doubt and loneliness, even on this opening quantity.

The preparations by Roscoe James Irwin are wonderful and add lushness to every quantity. He’s up there subsequent to her accompanying tirelessly on piano, whereas Vanessa Scammell conducts the ASO behind with certain arms.

Subsequent comes “Candy Inspiration”, cinematic in grandeur and magnified in its inside pathos by a bluesy solo from electrical guitarist Kathleen Halloran. Halloran is certainly one of Ceberano’s trusty three-piece band that be part of the stage for this, along with a quartet of backing singers that features her personal daughter, Gypsy Rogers. The one unfavourable is that they’re considerably recessed within the combine.

My Life is a Symphony – Kate Ceberano with the ASO. Picture: Claudio Raschella

Forces are pared proper again in “Braveness”, which Ceberano explains was a present for her mother and father that takes traces from their marriage ceremony vows. Bathed in heat, this music is just not with out anguish both, calling consideration to the necessity for mutual help via the more durable instances of affection.

The quiet, bewitching pulse of “Earth & Sky” and the nostalgia of “Sunburn” relate additional tales of life’s struggles and the seek for ecstasy. Clearly on hearth with all this orchestral burley behind her, Ceberano’s voice is superb, and the complexity of her songs has completely swept up the Competition Theatre viewers by this level.

Two of her greatest numbers are but to come back, although: “Champion” and, within the second half, “Courageous”. Each are pumped-up songs however much more passionate and darker of their harmonies in these epic preparations with the ASO.

The present’s spotlight is when Ceberano describes how beneficiant and supportive John Farnham was in the direction of her after they met in Adelaide years in the past, after which sings “I Don’t Know Methods to Love Him” from Jesus Christ Famous person in transferring tribute to him. Perhaps such recollections won’t ever occur once more, however she and he starred within the Australian solid for that musical and recorded a chart-topper with “Every little thing’s Alright” in 1992.

Ceberano’s vocals are likewise excellent and tear on the coronary heart in her 1998 music “Sympathy” on the phrases: “So don’t name me in the midst of the night time, and don’t ask me if every part is alright, and I don’t wish to hear an excessive amount of honesty. Your sympathy destroys me.” Halloran’s electrical guitar wails right here like one other voice.

Towards the tip comes the gorgeous, enigmatic “Cherry Blossom Lipstick”, a sensual music about how desires, irrespective of how fervently held, might by no means come true.

There may be an depth about Ceberano’s ventures into the soul: gutsy and poetic on the similar time, they cease the listener of their tracks each time. Her one-night-only efficiency with the ASO will likely be lengthy cherished.

My Life is a Symphony was introduced on the Competition Theatre on June 10 as a part of the Adelaide Cabaret Competition, which continues till June 24. See extra tales and opinions on InReview’s Cabaret Competition web page.