The City of Sydney Cabaret Convention 2001: The Winners

The City of Sydney Cabaret Convention 2001: The Winners
Sydney Town Hall
Sydney, Australia

And now cabaret enthusiasts, the moment you have been waiting for: the winners of the City of Sydney Cabaret Convention 2001. But hold on a minute. Why are there winners? What sort of festival is this? For a start, it is sponsored and organized by the municipality of Sydney and differs in form and purpose from similar gatherings in New York and San Francisco: our festival of cabaret is designed to assist in the development of Australian (and New Zealand) artists.

The City of Sydney provides a number of awards for those judged most deserving of recognition as an incentive to encourage participation. This year more than 150 individuals applied for inclusion in the convention by submitting performance tapes, discs and videos; forty-two were finally invited to participate. The artists were representative of a broad spectrum of age, cultural background and performance experience. During the convention's four showcase evenings these performers get to "strut their stuff" before an audience of cabaret enthusiasts and two judges. On the basis of their work, the judges select the "winners."

This was difficult work; my co-judge, Margi de Ferranti, who was the winner of the very first City of Sydney Cabaret Convention, and I felt that there were so many talented individuals that making a final selection somehow denied many of the acts the mention they deserved. In a later report, I will name a number of these other deserving artists.

Telling you the names of the winners before fully discussing this year's talent is a little bit like reading the last chapter of a murder mystery before you really know all the suspects. Having attended each year of this musical feast, I believe this year's talent was the finest to have performed during the five years of The City Of Sydney Cabaret Convention.

In past years, three awards have been given. However, because of the high quality of the talentœ and the generosity of one of our cabaret entrepreneurs, we were able to single out five artists for laurels at the final Gala Night of the Convention. I will discuss these two "extra" winners first.

The Cafò Nine Award, providing the winner with two nights at this cabaret venue with the prospect of a two-week season, was given to Cabaret A-Z, a female trio from the city of Newcastle. These three gifted singer/instrumentalists wowed the audience at their showcase performance with a well-harmonized, whirlwind tour of music and styles, ranging from a Shirley Bassey impersonation ("I Who Have Nothing"), Janis Joplin's "Piece of My Mind," the flower duet from Delibes' LAKME and ending with Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi." Though it was difficult to understand the logic of this act, the undeniably fine musicianship and confidence of these three women made them real crowd pleasers.

The other "extra" winner was Sabrina Batshon, a performer who did not fit into any of the award categories, due to her youth - she is only 16 - and relative inexperience. However, Margi de Ferranti and I thought her remarkable talent, poise in front of a large audience and her obvious talent for reaching out to an audience marked her out for distinction and a promising future. To that end, we awarded her with the opportunity to perform at the Gala Evening, during which she sang "A Piece of Sky" (Legrand/Bergman & Bergman). Once again her performance stopped the show. Sabrina Batshon provided us with one of the great moments of this convention week.

The Corporate Gold Award, a cash prize of $500 awarded to the act judged most suited for corporate events, has been provided by Celebration Innovation, a Sydney event company. This year Jenny Vuletic was the winner. Her very amusing performance of excerpts from her cabaret BALKAN AFTER MIDNIGHT was a highly original look at her difficulty in reconciling the culture of her birth-country (Australia) with that of Croatia during a visit to the "old country." Ms. Vuletic has great presence, excellent musicianship and a beautiful voice. In addition, her obvious ability to create special material should prove to be a great asset in meeting the entertainment demands of the corporate sector.

The two most highly prized accolades of The City of Sydney Cabaret Convention are The City of Sydney Award and The New York Award. Both provide recipients with a round-trip ticket to New York City and passes to all sessions of the upcoming Mabel Mercer Foundation New York Cabaret Convention. However, The City of Sydney Award also includes accommodation and the opportunity to perform during New York Cabaret Convention.

In choosing the recipient of The New York Award, Margi de Ferranti and I thought it was important that this prize be a developmental award, not a runner's up trophy. It was our belief that the artist who gained this honor could use the experience of hearing the many talented performers at the New York Cabaret Convention, as well as the chance to attend various other shows to perfect his or her craft. To that end, we selected Meagan Caratti. In her showcase, Ms. Caratti performed "Crossword Puzzle" (Shire/Maltby) and "Storybook" (Wildhorn). Though relatively inexperienced, it was her keen attention to the lyric, her gentle comic delivery and her connection with the audience that impressed us.

Selecting the winner of The City of Sydney Award was not at all difficult. Melissa Langton so completely "owned her space" with the sheer power of her voice and her presence that she left all of us breathless, both at the showcase and at the Gala. Ms. Langton has been a professional performer since 1992, appearing in big shows, as well as cabaret, most notably as a member of the popular girl group "The Fabulous Singlettes." Her work with that group took her to Berlin and Hamburg for three sell-out seasons in 2000, as well as appearances during the Sydney Olympics. Ms. Langton has also crafted a number of cabaret acts which she has performed in Melbourne.

Clearly Melissa Langton is a remarkable and riveting talent to experience in performance. Her act on this occasion consisted of dynamite renditions of "The Money Tree" (Kander/Ebb from THE ACT) and "He Ain't Mr. Right" (Powers/Franzel). With the sort of comic timing that can only be learned from experiencing and studying other great artists, Langton delivered her material with an easy-going irony and lightness of touch that had the audience at her feet in a matter of nanoseconds. Even more impressive than her stagecraft is her voice, rich in color from mocha-rich contralto tones to silvery shimmering top, supple over more than two and a half octaves, it is flexible enough to go from a rocking climax to a tender sigh without ever seeming to "change gears." Melissa Langton sent lightning bolts through the audience here in Sydney and she will certainly have the same effect in New York in October.

In later accounts I will talk about other aspects of The City of Sydney Cabaret Convention. Let me close this report with acknowledgement to the extraordinary team who put together this festival: Victoria Johnstone (Producer, along with a staff including the indefatigable Gabrielle Newington), Ron Creager (Musical Director whose role I will discuss in a later piece) and Steve Griffiths (Production Manager).

David M. Schwartz

Daily Reports of the 2000 Sydney Cabaret Convention

Daily Reports of the 1999 Sydney Cabaret Convention

Daily Reports on the 1998 Sydney Cabaret Convention

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