Adelaide Pageant chief government Kath Mainland and her companion Ray Anderson introduced a contact of Scotland to the desk after they hosted a country banquet for mates, who additionally simply occur to be a few of Adelaide’s most outstanding arts identities.
As she bustles about her kitchen making ready connoisseur choices for company, it’s simple to decipher that Kath Mainland hails from Scotland.
If the Scottish songs taking part in within the background don’t give it away, the large bowl of haggis on the kitchen counter may do the trick.
“Have a strive,” says Kath, passing a teaspoon of the well-known Scottish dish. “I’ve obtained haggis on the menu as a result of I used to be in West Lakes Purchasing Centre lately and there’s a bit of cheese deli there they usually had a haggis! We couldn’t imagine it, so we purchased it and it was actually good.
“Haggis will get a nasty rap as a result of it’s fabricated from all of the leftover bits, what Heston Blumenthal would name the entrails, after which it’s wrapped within the lining of a sheep’s abdomen. Nevertheless it’s scrumptious.”
Kath and her companion Ray Anderson moved to Adelaide final 12 months after Kath was appointed new chief government of the Adelaide Pageant.
The couple had been dwelling in Melbourne, the place Kath held different high-profile arts roles together with the manager director and co-CEO of the RISING cultural competition and CEO of the Melbourne Worldwide Arts Pageant.
Nonetheless, common visits to Adelaide for varied arts occasions over the previous 20 years have seen Ray and Kath make lifelong mates right here, a few of whom are on tonight’s visitor checklist.
“Maybe it was inevitable that we’d find yourself right here in Adelaide, it was meant to be,” Kath says. “After the pandemic hit, we may have gone again to Scotland, however we thought we’d preserve shifting and Adelaide is the large one in the case of festivals; if you find yourself abroad that is the one everybody talks about.”
In actual fact, tonight’s visitor checklist may double as a roll name for a few of South Australia’s most outstanding arts leaders.
They embody Adelaide Pageant’s new creative director Ruth Mackenzie, who’s in excessive spirits tonight as she chats with SA’s Minister for the Arts, Andrea Michaels, discussing a beachside condominium she’s simply made a proposal on.
There’s additionally Slingsby Theatre Firm’s creative director Andy Packer and actor Edgell Junior, who stars within the newest Slingsby manufacturing The River that Ran Uphill premiering at this 12 months’s Adelaide Pageant.
Different company embody Nick Hays, government director of the Australian Dance Theatre, whose present The Tracker is one other Pageant spotlight, plus Clare Watson and Kaye Weeks, each from Windmill Theatre, whose newest providing Hans & Gret can also be a centrepiece of this 12 months’s program.
Unsurprisingly, as company get pleasure from pre-dinner drinks and canapes of salmon blinis, there’s quite a lot of chat round rehearsals, opening nights and manufacturing schedules.
Ray and Kath look calm and organised, chatting as they proceed handing out nibbles and keeping track of the oven, as their canine Jarla mingles and takes in all of the motion.
“We’re competition folks,” Kath says, unphased. “We’re used to placing on massive occasions.”
One other component of Kath’s Scottish heritage is mirrored in tonight’s menu – Highland Park whisky. The humanities identification grew up on Orkney, a windswept archipelago off the northeast coast of Scotland.
The primary island attracts 1000’s of tourists annually due to its thriving meals and drinks tradition, together with a few world-famous whisky distilleries. A type of is Highland Park whisky and tonight it not solely options within the entree (mushrooms with haggis and gruyere with a whisky sauce), but in addition on the drinks menu for these company wanting a wee whisky tipple.
Rising up, Kath used to assist in the kitchen together with her mum Bertha and grandmother, Barbara, whom the household lived with.
“Mum had a stress cooker and sluggish cooker and granny would assist, as would my older sister Babs,” Kath says. “It was a fairly conventional meat-and-veg menu, however Orkney has superb beef, lamb and fish. It’s very self-contained so it appears like a small rural group.
“Everybody’s door is all the time open for a cup of tea and a home-baked scone. We might get a ‘piece and jam’ after faculty, which is a jam sandwich principally, bread with selfmade rhubarb jam.
“It’s a bit like South Australia in that Orkney has superb produce on our doorstep. A few years later everyone appreciates that, however I grew up within the ’70s and we didn’t discuss concerning the provenance of our meals again then.”
The notion that meals brings the household collectively was crucial within the Mainland family and Kath’s dad and mom ensured all of them sat down collectively every evening to benefit from the night meal. Neglect the concept of consuming in entrance of the tv – dinnertime was about being on the desk, being collectively and sharing tales of the day.
“That was very a lot handed right down to us and the concept it’s not nearly meals and cooking, it’s the concept meals is a means of exhibiting love, and whenever you spend time with folks and break bread with folks that’s how you actually get connections and take care of one another,” Kath says.
“I like when folks come to remain and also you feed them, you do residence baking and you’ve got a scone or a biscuit. It’s not essentially about entertaining, it’s about, ‘You’re in my home, are you hungry?’ and taking care of folks and exhibiting love.”
There’s quite a lot of love within the room tonight as company make their strategy to an previous corrugated iron shed within the yard. The tough and prepared surrounds have been miraculously remodeled into an intimate, rustic eating area, full with draped white cloth, lights and candles, flowers and napkin holders fabricated from rosemary sprigs.
“Wow, who’s getting married,” says Andy Packer.
Earlier than meals is served, Kath does a fast speech, welcoming everybody and commenting on the world-class creative expertise that we’ve right here in South Australia, which is nicely represented across the desk.
Kath’s personal creative journey started as a baby when she learnt to play the piano and received the junior musician of the 12 months award in Orkney when she was 12.
Music runs within the household – her father Tommy is a fiddle participant and composer, and her sister Babs and nephew additionally play the fiddle.
“Orkney has a tremendous custom of classical music and holds a competition known as St Magnus Pageant, which our dad and mom would take us to as children,” Kath says.
“Once I was rising up the entire nationwide arts firms, so the Scottish Opera, the ballet, all of them toured all over the place together with Orkney, so we had this superb entry to what was happening in the remainder of the nation and, specifically, the performing arts, which is fairly particular.
“The humanities and going to the theatre and music, it’s like anything, should you be taught to do it whenever you’re younger, you kind the behavior and also you’ll have that for the remainder of your life.”
After ending faculty, Kath tossed up college choices, and “laboured beneath the phantasm” that she may examine music and change into a performer.
She talked about this to her piano trainer who mentioned, “No, don’t do it, you’re not ok”.
“God love her, she was proper, however I didn’t pay attention,” Kath says. “I obtained to Glasgow and did music with all these individuals who had been extremely proficient and pushed and ready to place in an enormous period of time. And I used to be not.”
Kath then realised that there was nonetheless a life to be made within the arts by serving to others.
She majored in English and did a post-graduate course in accountancy to create foundations as an arts administrator. Her first job was in 1991 as an administrative assistant on the Edinburgh Pageant Fringe.
Years later, Kath ended up as chief government of the Edinburgh Pageant and she or he has held many different high-profile arts roles over the previous 30 years. She was awarded a CBE for providers to tradition in Scotland in 2014 and may be very vocal concerning the significance of the humanities, its place in society, and the way in which it brings folks collectively.
“The humanities are excellent at reflecting what we’re all anxious about or what society is aware about, what’s exercising us for the time being,” she says. “A competition has a capability to carry folks collectively in a means in that second in time. Festivals are about pilgrimage and congregation and being collectively in a sizzling room with individuals who could not assume the identical as you, however you’re all swapping concepts and ready to be satisfied.
“There’s this concept that it’s a secure place the place we are able to discover concepts or be uncovered to concepts that we’ve by no means heard earlier than and have a dialog about it and are available to a spot of settlement or mild disagreement.
“However festivals could be enjoyable, too, so you will have your respectful change of concepts, however it’s also possible to have a proper good snicker as a result of there’s an entire lot of individuals having the identical expertise as you. It’s similar to a cocktail party, actually.”
Concepts are actually being explored tonight and there’s loads of laughter across the desk because the Sidewood wines stream and the primary course of beef wellington with potatoes and greens are served.
Kath chats with good good friend Christie Anthoney, head of public affairs on the Adelaide Pageant Centre, whom she first met again in 1992 after they each labored on the Edinburgh Pageant.
“We’ve been mates ever since and Christie is certainly one of my oldest mates,” Kath says.
Kath’s companion Ray, an electrician by commerce, has additionally labored on the earth of music for a few years within the UK, primarily on massive outside festivals and rock concert events. Nonetheless, since shifting to Adelaide he has arrange his personal handyman enterprise known as “Ray Helps” and he’s dwelling as much as his enterprise identify tonight, not solely as an important chef but in addition, with a tea towel over his shoulder, serving to clear dishes away and maintaining proceedings shifting at tempo.
Christie Anderson, creative director of Younger Adelaide Voices and Adelaide Chamber Singers, can also be a visitor at tonight’s soiree and one of many creative forces behind the Messa da Requiem extravaganza.
The dessert, after-dinner mint mousse, is served and the gang devours it and appears round – hungry for extra.
This text first appeared within the March 2023 subject of SALIFE journal.
