University Collections invite you to a Cultural Conversation
Patrick White and Adelaidewith Vincent Plush, PhD candidate at the Elder Conservatorium of Music
1.00 – 2.00 pm Wednesday 16 September 2015 Ira Raymond Room, Level 3 Hub Central The University of Adelaide, North Terrace Campus
Free — all welcome
Adelaide is the most civilized and cosmopolitan town in Australia, also the most beautiful … We feel we would like to live [there].
In March 1953, Patrick White and his partner Manoly Lascaris visited Adelaide for the first time and sent a postcard to his sister back in Sydney, a city which “has been decimated by its inhabitants”.
For the next 33 years, Adelaide would figure prominently in the life of Patrick White, Australia’s most acclaimed writer. Through long-standing friends like Max Harris, Geoffrey Dutton and later Jim Sharman, White’s three early plays enjoyed premiere productions by the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild in the 1960s and, in the 1980s, at the Adelaide Festivals in 1982 and 1986 for the world premiere of the opera Voss.
To White, Don Dustan’s Adelaide appeared as a political and cultural oasis. It seemed a civilized balance to the decline into rampant commercialism of Sydney, his home city.
In this Cultural Conversation Adelaide born musician and scholar Vincent Plush discusses Patrick White’s admiration for Adelaide and its culture.
After an absence of almost 40 years, Vincent Plush has returned to his hometown to undertake a long-delayed PhD in Musicology. His thesis topic is ‘Music in the Life and Work of Patrick White’.
For more information and to reserve your seat please email [email protected] or call 8313 3086
image Berend van der Struik Union Hall Foyer sculpture detail, 1960
photograph by Mick Bradley
University Collections
Cultural ConversationUniversity Collections
With thanks to the Division of the Vice-Chancellor and President and our sponsor the University of Adelaide Club for their continued support.