Latest news with #VirginiaTrioli
ABC News
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Violinist Richard Tognetti tells Virginia Trioli there's a fine line between success and failure
For the virtuoso violinist Richard Tognetti, the difference between success and failure is as fine as a single ridge of his fingerprint. He demonstrates, as I sit with my nose to his violin bow, trying to detect on the strings a finger movement that could be measured in microns. Richard's compelling performances have earned him an impressive international reputation. ( Supplied: Aaron Smith ) He begins to climb the daily music scales that he can never afford to shirk, talking me through each picked out note — good and bad. He starts playing: "Flat! Start again," he barks at himself. A good note, a good note and then … "Bad string crossing!" Another note: "Sharp!" Then … "Flat! Bad shift! Squeaky!" I'm laughing now — this is a pitiless performance, Richard's dread of scales just as alive for him today as the leader of the acclaimed Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) as it was when he was a seven-year-old "street urchin". Photo shows On pink background, Virginia Trioli faces side and smiles, with text: Creative Types with Virginia Trioli. Richard finds the problem: "Now this is what I was talking about," he says waggling his little finger at me. "That's out of tune — and you can't even see the finger moving!" No, I really can't. And to be honest, I can't even tell the notes that Richard says were bad — they all sounded superb to me. But the line of work that first called to Richard as a child in Wollongong is one that requires a measure of exactitude that is shared by precision engineers and the Baroque geniuses who carved the violins he plays. It's the key to his success: that the work, the very hard work of remaining exceptional, is what he wakes to do. Loading Instagram content In conversation with me for an episode of Creative Types, Richard is playful but fractious, expansive in his thoughts about the antique classical music that he makes so vividly current with his ensemble, and yet still a little defensive about the battle to maintain the excellence it requires. I can hear that there is still a prickle under his collar. "Every idea that I've had and that I've implemented has been met with a big thick wall and a bunch of naysayers," Richard tells me. "You asked me about what I learned at the beginning? I was very defensive and argumentative, maybe a bit aggressive. Now I just go about my business and wait … I play more the Pied Piper … they all come around the wall, eventually." The ACO has been described by some of the world's leading music critics as the best chamber orchestra alive. But it's clear that's never going to be enough for Richard. He seems to need to share his restlessness with others, casting for provocative and stimulating collaborations with filmmakers, artists, contemporary, classical and rock musicians like Jimmy Barnes to see if there's anything else on the other side of that wall that's worth sharing. "Why the collaborations? Because our repertoire is about that big," Richard says, his fingers a millimetre apart. "People have earmarked a date … and paid money … and I want to give them an experience that astral travel takes them on — an extraordinary trip." Photo shows Virginia Trioli and Kate Ceberano stand together smiling in a room with art on wall behind them. In the 1980s, Kate Ceberano was experiencing the wrong kind of recognition: backlash for snide comments she'd made about Kylie Minogue. When I visit him, the orchestra is rehearsing in collaboration with the mesmerising Scottish guitarist, Sean Shibe, for a sequence of old and new Scottish music. In a wildly beautiful piece, incorporating spoken word and electric guitar, Richard, Sean and the players read each other just as they do the music on their stands. As ever, there is no conductor, but they respond to each other like the surface of skin. " People look at it as being magic … They're just really subtle nuances that we read from each other. It's not just a sonic transmission. " It's also a kind of confidence game, an enmeshed state of skill and instinct. But even so, Richard says that when he is in the thick of it, playing perhaps a Bach fugue and producing several voices at once from the one strike of the bow, he can't think about it too much: "It's a bit like the story of the centipede who is asked, 'Which foot do you move first?' and could never walk again." Watch Creative Types with Virginia Trioli: Richard Tognetti on Tuesday May 6 at 8.30pm on ABC TV, or stream the whole series now on .
ABC News
02-05-2025
- ABC News
Osaka's green spaces should inspire Australia's urban renewal plans
There's something very charming about a pram jam: a jangle of buggies, yawning wide without their usual wiggly passengers, neatly lined up at the edge of the park and inviting a curious question — so, where did all the babies go? Over there! A convention of kids stretching along the edge of a new, green park, sitting neatly on blankets, nibbling decorously on the exquisite little snack boxes their mothers have made them as they all chat in the half-light of a cloudy Osaka morning. Does anyone picnic as elegantly as a Japanese child? I stumbled on this scene on a recent trip as I went in search of what had been described to me as a near perfect example of an urban green development in one of the most green-starved cities in the world. (Yes, I like to look at infrastructure while I'm on holidays. I blame my engineer father, and the summer holidays spent visiting hydroelectric plants.) There's something very charming about a jangle of buggies neatly lined up at the edge of the park. ( ABC News: Virginia Trioli ) The sprawling metropolis of Osaka, which has one of those obscure "sister city" relationships with my city of Melbourne, partially opened a large urban park late last year near the busy centre, which takes in nine hectares divided by a busy road, with a curving elevated pedestrian bridge uniting the two parts of the park. Loading Instagram content There are water features, and grassed open spaces, cherry blossom trees of course, amphitheatre seating and an exhibition space designed by one of the greatest living architects, Japan's Tadao Ando. The second part of The Grand Green Osaka and Umekita Park opens next year. It is a very beautiful space. You come upon it with relief as you escape the grey intensity of the city's largest rail station, and it opens up for you as a wandering path through lovely trees and around a calm open green that faces onto a curved covered event space. Walking into it, the impulse to sit and simply gaze on the green was overwhelming: like everyone else, we grabbed a (bad, sorry) coffee, found little chairs and simply sat and breathed. Culture is the canary in the coalmine: the designers, artists and writers always get there first, so it makes sense that the magazine Time Out opened a new iteration of its celebrated city markets underground at the Grand Green, featuring the best of Japanese food at a series of elegantly designed cafes and restaurants. Yes, it's a food hall with, of all things, a Melbourne coffee-inspired cafe. Maybe this sister city thing does work. The area that is now The Grand Green used to be the old Umeda freight station before the city partnered with the private sector to create an urban space that includes commercial and incubation facilities as well as the park, hotels and residential units. I think that might explain all those prams. The magazine Time Out opened a new iteration of its celebrated city markets underground at the Grand Green. ( ABC News: Virginia Trioli ) Now, the moment I mention old freight yards, I'm sure your mind has turned to the one nearest you: that ugly abandoned or under-used pile of old tracks, rolling stock and buildings, an eyesore on prime land usually right near the centre of town. You're right to think of it, because not only is it wasted, unsustainable space, your city now has an obligation, like every other one around the country, to turn it into small-scale residential housing sustained by open green space. Many cities are trying for something like this. Of course, everyone I stumbled on this scene on a recent trip as I went in search of what had been described to me as a near perfect example of an urban green development. ( ABC News: Virginia Trioli ) I've always found it impressive and deflating in equal measure that this celebrated project is almost entirely supported by a volunteer army of locals who green and garden on roster. What disappoints me is that while the City of New York owns the High Line and the underlying viaduct, the Friends of the High Line manage and operate the park, largely funding it through private donations. So, the city gets the greening, tourism and livability benefit without any ongoing project funding. That's just mean. Where's the state and federal money for something everyone benefits from? I live near the oldest city park in Melbourne, and it is now surrounded by residential units in the same way, and I am always amazed and delighted to see how intensely Flagstaff Gardens is used: by mums and their babies, young couples and their small dogs, city workers and their take-out lunch. Every city wants something like the High Line park in Manhattan. ( Getty/AFP: Spencer Platt ) It's the social exchange that as a country we have been lousy at making and offering: we will build homes for you, on a smaller and denser scale than you originally had in mind, but we will provide a beautiful and accessible green space that we will maintain well and that will connect you much more strongly with your community than any outer-suburban new tree-less mega-home could. It's a proposition that requires the inclusion of the wonderfully talented architects, urban planners, landscape designers and sustainability and housing experts that I know we have in this country with a private sector that needs to be persuaded that their profit margin isn't the highest priority in a major project of urban and green renewal. Photo shows Virginia Trioli in a stylish suit on a set with lighting behind her Start your weekend with the best of the ABC's journalism, presented by Virginia Trioli. Discover compelling features, big ideas and revealing analysis to understand the stories that matter to Australians. The proposition needs close and careful design of smaller scale homes within residential units that meet a family's real needs. And then, it requires very persuasive and credible people to communicate this idea to people and families who still resist giving up their dream of a stand-alone home on a quarter-acre block. It is no longer fanciful to argue for this. In the face of entrenched political resistance to the taxation reforms that have put housing beyond many Australians' reach, then re-shaping how we build and develop, and the roles that city councils and state governments must play in that, seems more necessary than ever. And it is being done well elsewhere. You really can build it, and they really will come. This weekend you have your choice of What to read this weekend: Have a safe and happy weekend. Don't forget to tune into the ABC's election night coverage from 5:30pm AEST, on ABC TV and iView and hopefully we'll have an early enough result that you'll be able fit in The last episode of this series, on the brilliant Richard Tognetti, goes to air next Tuesday, and thank you for all your lovely comments on the shows so far. I hope I get to do it all again for you. And if all the political noise around the TV gets too much for you tonight, whack in the ear buds and turn this up, and the world should disappear — just for a bit. Go well. Loading YouTube content Virginia Trioli is presenter of Creative Types and a former co-host of ABC News Breakfast and Mornings on ABC Radio Melbourne.
ABC News
24-04-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Coalition's campaign lacks good planning and enough elbow grease
Whatever the result on May 3, even people within the Liberals think they have run a very poor national campaign. Not just poor, but odd. Nothing makes the point more strongly than this week's release of the opposition's defence policy. As events played out, its Wednesday launch in Perth was overshadowed by the death of Pope Francis on Monday. But regardless of that unforeseeable event, the timing was extraordinarily late. Early birds had started voting at pre-poll places on Tuesday. The popularity of pre-polling means that, for many voters, the tail end of the formal campaign is irrelevant. Catch the latest interviews and in-depth coverage on The Coalition regards defence and national security as its natural territory. It is pledging to boost defence spending to 2.5% of GDP within five years — $21 billion extra — and to 3% within a decade. The policy set up a contrast with Labor. So why leave its release until the campaign's penultimate week? The opposition's line is that it wanted to see what money was available. Dutton said, "It would have been imprudent for us to announce early on, without knowing the bottom line". The explanation doesn't wash. If defence is such a priority, it should have been towards the front of the queue for funds. That wasn't the whole of the problem. The announcement consisted literally of only these two figures, wrapped in rhetoric. It didn't come with any meat, any policy document setting out how a Coalition government would rethink or redo defence. Photo shows Virginia Trioli in a stylish suit on a set with lighting behind her Start your weekend with the best of the ABC's journalism, presented by Virginia Trioli. Discover compelling features, big ideas and revealing analysis to understand the stories that matter to Australians. Shadow minister Andrew Hastie was at the launch, but he has been hardly seen nationally in recent months. He says he's been working behind the scenes, and also he has a highly marginal Western Australian seat (Canning) to defend. But Hastie, 42, has been underused. From the party's conservative wing, he is regarded as one of the (few) bright young things in the Liberal parliamentary party. He has been touted as a possible future leader. Given the general weakness of the Coalition frontbench, wasting Hastie has been strange. A captain in the Special Air Service Regiment who served in Afghanistan, Hastie has seen his share of combat. In 2018, he expressed the view that women shouldn't serve in combat roles, saying "my personal view is the fighting DNA of close combat units is best preserved when it's exclusively male". This week he was peppered with questions about his opinion (questioning triggered by a similar view being expressed by a disqualified Liberal candidate). But the issue is a red herring. Hastie, a former assistant minister for defence, says he accepts the Coalition's position that all defence roles are and should be open to qualified women. In the Westminster system, the obligation is for ministers to adhere to the agreed policy — that doesn't mean someone might not have a different personal view. Read more about the federal election: Want even more? Here's where you can find all our 2025 Putting together an election campaign requires judgements at many levels, ranging from how big or small a target to be, and the balance between negative and positive campaigning, to candidate selection and which seats the leader visits. The length of the formal campaign is in the prime minister's hands. Anthony Albanese has sensibly kept this one to the typical five weeks, but a couple of past PMs made bad decisions, by running very long campaigns: Bob Hawke in 1984 and Malcolm Turnbull in 2016. Both lost seats, while retaining power. While keeping the formal campaign short, Albanese was canny in hitting the road as the year started with a series of announcements. That gave him momentum and some clear air. This also became more important when Easter and the Anzac holiday weekend intruded on the formal campaign. The Coalition looked dozy in January. Photo shows Dutton election campaign Tasmania Peter Dutton said some of the 41,000 cuts would be achieved by not proceeding with unfilled vacancies, but political opponents and experts say the numbers don't add up. In the event of a Coalition loss, the nuclear policy will be seen as a drag. In campaigning terms, it has been a bold throw of the dice, although admittedly not nearly as bold as the Coalition's sweeping Fightback blueprint for economic reform in the early 1990s. That looked for a while as if it might fly, but was eventually demolished by Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating. Elections are not conducted in vacuums. Context can be important, and it has been particularly so in this campaign. As has repeatedly been said, Donald Trump hovers over these weeks, and it's the Coalition that is disadvantaged. This is not just because Dutton struggles to deal with the government's barbs that he is Trump-like — more generally, some voters who might have been willing to change their vote appear to be thinking now is not the time. If the Coalition defies the current apparent trend to Labor and scores a win in minority government, critics of its campaign will be eating humble pie. Seasoned election watchers remember the salutary lessons of 1993 and 2019, when the polls were wrong. In those elections, the government was returned. Loading Dutton and Nationals leader David Littleproud have both suggested the Coalition's internal polling, which concentrates on marginal seats, is better for it than the media's national polls. If Labor loses this election, it will be left wondering how an apparently textbook campaign failed to nail the votes. If the Liberals lose, their post-mortem reviewers will home in on various faults. One will be the policy lateness (not just the defence policy), meaning voters didn't have time to absorb the offerings. Another will be the fact some policies were not fully thought through, or road tested. The consequences of the foray on working-from-home should have been anticipated. "Shadows" have often put policy preparedness behind going for a political hit on the day. Photo shows Brett Worthington looks at the camera wearing a blue blazer and glasses Sign up to the ABC Politics newsletter with Brett Worthington Even now, the opposition is struggling when quizzed about its plan to cut 41,000 from the public service. Dutton says the numbers will only go (by attrition or voluntary redundancy) from those working in Canberra. The Coalition also says frontline services and national security areas will be protected. A source familiar with the public service points out, "If you sacked 41,000 in Canberra, you would decimate the national security bureaucracy and if you exempted national security you would barely have 41,000 public servants to sack". If the Coalition has a disastrous loss, with few or no net gains, the criticism of its campaign will be scarifying. If it loses by only a little, the critics will say that a better planned and organised campaign, preceded by a lot more policy work, might have pushed it across the line. To be successful, an opposition needs a great deal of elbow grease, and so far the Coalition doesn't look as though it has used enough of that. Michelle Grattan is a professorial fellow at the University of Canberra and chief political correspondent at , where this article first appeared.
