The Impossible Orchestra completes 24-hour musical marathon for Care Aware
At 5pm today, the final note was played by the Impossible Orchestra, a 24-hour musical tribute to the 2.6m carers in Australia who look after their sick, aged or disabled loved ones.
The musical marathon, which took place in Melbourne’s Hamer Hall, was a metaphor for the ongoing sacrifice made by Australia’s carers, for government backed charity CareAware.
The event was performed by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria and the Australian National Academy of Music, with contributions from politicians, actors and comedians including Shaun Micallef, Josh Thomas and Charlie Pickering.
I was there on Sunday morning – 5 am session. There was such powerful energy in the Concert Hall , that everybody forgot about some sleep deprivation. Videos of Carers – such as Martin above – added enormous value to the music.
My greatest respect to our wonderful musicians , who made it possible.
Lech, thank you so much for showing your support!
I was playing in that 5am session you attended.
Cheers!
This was one of the most powerful ‘ad campaigns’ I have ever seen. A compelling message, beautifully delivered. Stirring stuff!
Cheers,
Robin – Mumbrella
I caught half of the 5-8 am session, all of the 8-11 session, and all of the 2-5 session, and was joined by my wife for latter. It was a brilliant effort by all concerned, and the video clips that let us briefly see into the difficult lives of a few carers were excellent, and had the audience (plus some in the orchestra) with tears in their eyes. A nice touch with the video stories was that they appeared seamlessly in the music program where the orchestra could supply some well chosen underplaying music to help tug at the heart strings. A great event, creating a bit of orchestra endurance world history that should have had people queuing into St Kilda Rd to get a bit of the action and sense of occasion, so I was a bit surprised that there were always vacant seats in the sessions I attended – even for the final climactic session that culminated in conductor baton- lashing the orchestra to finish the final musical item (Sousa’ Liberty Bell March) at the very second the 24 hr clock ticked over on the screen – the clock won by just a few seconds!
Amateur contributions from a few carers, audience members, and some funny ones by media personalities such as Charlie Pickering added to the entertainment.
And everything ran in a totally professional manner, and the final congrats should go to the two conductors Brett Kelly and Warwick Stengard who had a nice combination of total professionalism and the common touch. Their marathon efforts deserved medals. However we all came to realise that the people who really deserved the medals were the Carers of this country, and for that matter around the world. Mostly unsung heroes – and of course the point of the whole admirable exercise. Now the powers that be need to do something more concrete than make music to support carers!
Great idea. Great cause. Well done guys.
The most powerful line in an ad that I have seen in ages is “…the biggest fear is, I can’t die…”. A superb heartfelt campaign. Congratulations.