Multi-instrumentalist coming to Wanaka
Adelaide-based Adam Page is set to perform as part of the upcoming Festival of Colour. The musician, composer, music educator and producer is is well-known for his critically acclaimed solo multi-instrumental performances. He will take the stage at the Pacific Crystal Palace next week.
Adam will bring his show, The Colours of Grief, down to Otago for the first time. Adam lived in Wellington for a few years before returning across the ditch and will be performing alongside a specially-curated ensemble of Wellington’s finest musicians. The performance is named after his 2020 APRA/AMCOS Jazz Work of the Year nominated album. The album was written by Adam when he was dealing with emotions he experienced with processing his own grief.
“The music came out in about a day-and-a-half on the piano and it just really seemed like it needed to come out in that way,” says Adam. “It was a very cathartic experience – composing it – and it’s very thoughtful music, very deep, very slow and extremely emotional.
“It seems to have taken on a power of its own and a voice of its own as well. A lot of people have contacted me, from both listening to the album or seeing the music live, and just say that it really kind of opened up some things for them and made them deal with some sort of deep grief that they hadn’t quite managed to get around to dealing with. I didn’t expect that to be a by-product of me. Processing my own grief – I guess when the music comes from such a deep place of honesty, it’s going to have a deeper purpose for other people.”
Adam says for him it’s all about writing and recording the music. It’s surprised him that it’s taken on a life of its own. “I really wanted the music to have a raw beauty about it as well and a lot of that comes through in the way that it’s performed.” He will be playing tenor saxophone as well as piano on one piece.
“The Festival Director, Sophie Kelly, is just such an amazing woman and warm person as well, and so I’m really looking forward to seeing what else she’s programmed for the festival, too. I’ve been involved in a few of her festivals now and they’ve always been a really lovely occasion. I’m stoked to be back in her universe and part of her greater vision for this festival. I’m really looking forward to it,” says Adam.
The Colours of Grief is set to be a lovely evening that will see Page in a space of deep reflection, anguish, and eventually, hope. It will take place at the Pacific Crystal Palace on Wednesday 29 March – tickets and more information can be found at festivalofcolour.co.nz
