SAINT JOHANNA
Radio France 1989
Radio inside a Violin: A gift to Jon Rose by the marketing department of WDR Cologne
  • Produced in 1989 at Le Confort Modern, Poitiers, for Fazette Bordage; edited at Radio France.
  • Text, music, MIDI Keyboard, by Jon Rose.
  • Shelley Hirsch - voice, Peter Hollinger - drums, Jon Rose - violin.
  • Local cast of footballers and crowd by Le Confort Modern.
  • The chronicle of Saint Johanna was sung by boy singers Nicholas Epain and Marc Delors.
  • Les Boyaux Anciens de Poitiers directed by Docteur J. Rosenberg.
  • Later exposed on Radio France by Kaye Mortley (it had been gathering dust).

A tale of two heroines, both with the same name, both play the violin (or Medieval Vielle in the historic case), both sing, both engaged in battle with the English; one is a Joan of Arc archetype from the 14th century and the other is a new wave rock star from the 1980's. The earlier one is probably the most significant, as she references a football match played in 1381... "only used to playing with one ball, the invaders became disorientated when the French started kicking 100s of balls at them, believing the French army to be 22 times as big as it actually was". She seems to have been responsible also for the phrase "The English are coming", used by French women to this day to describe their monthly cycles.

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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