Not Quite Cricket
BBC 2012
Radio inside a Violin: A gift to Jon Rose by the marketing department of WDR Cologne
  • Produced for BBC Radio 3 Between The Ears by Somethin'Else
  • Written, composed, and produced by Jon Rose
  • Texts spoken and sung up by Richard Kennedy, Warren Foster, Andrew McLennan, and Jon Rose
  • Hollis Taylor - violin, Anthony Pateras - piano, Rishin Singh - trombone, tuba, Laura Altman - clarinet, Jon Rose - violin, piano.
  • Special thanks to Jane Ulman, Julie Reid, Nick Shimmin, Corinne Vernizeau, Adam Mountford.
  • Executive producer - Joby Waldman
  • A radiophonic intervention by Jon Rose: In 1868, the first Australian cricket tour of England took place; the team was made up of Aboriginal men from the western plains in the state of Victoria. Although a punishing schedule of Cricket matches were undertaken, there were other more sinister motives at play in the trip.

Based on historical documents, 'Not Quite Cricket' aims to tell the story from the Aboriginal team's perspective, in particular through the experience of Yanggendyinanyuk - a Wotjobaluk warrior (named Dick-a-Dick by the colonial management). Richard Kennedy is Yanggendyinanyuk's great great grandson, and it is through him and his family that some of the text was translated and spoken (by Richard) in the Wergaia language. This language is currently being reconstructed from 19th century sources; over 100 years of silence marks the destruction of the Wergaia peoples and their culture.

Are the patronising racist attitudes heard in 'Not Quite Cricket' a distant harmless memory of the 1860s, or were they inherent in the development of the pseudoscience of Eugenics and its aftermath? The listener's attention is drawn to the popularity of Blackface Minstrelsy (white people corking up to parody black entertainers) that flourished right through the 1960s and beyond with The BBC's very own Black and White Minstrel Show and the appropriation of Blackface Minstrel ecstatic song and dance though the antics of white pop stars such as Mick Jagger.

What's New

April 2023
'Rock/Paper/Scissors' - first performance of a radical new interface between violin improvisation, composition, orchestra, and conductor. Highlights here.
KNM, Berlin
March 2023
'Beak' - Kronos Quartet plays the world premiere, a composition based on the song of a Pied Butcherbird by Jon Rose and Hollis Taylor.
Adelaide Festival
March 2024
'Night Songs' celebrates an interspecies multi-media engagement between the ancient music of a uniquely Australian songbird - Cracticus nigrogularis (the Pied Butcherbird) and Australia's premiere new music group Ensemble Offspring. Documentation here.
The Adelaide Festival
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