The Art of the Possible is a two-year partnership between Queensland Performing Arts Centre and Paul Grabowsky, which will feature many incredible shows centred around concepts of collaboration and improvisation.
Grabowsky is well revered within Australian music who, throughout his illustrious career, has worked on many different projects involving some of the brightest stars in Australian music.A lot of his work has had collaboration at the heart of what he does as a musician, so as artist in residence Grabowsky has had a clear intention around this being a key aspect of The Art of the Possible.
"I did question what the artist in residence really meant, whether it was just an opportunity to do a few different gigs, or whether there was something more interesting and perhaps useful that I could do up there to make best use of the opportunity," Paul says.
"So I started to talk about various different ways of approaching that, and I arrived at this idea called The Art of the Possible. . . When I talk about The Art of the Possible, it springs from the notion of a couple of things. One of them is improvisation as being a principle by which we live our lives, but also something that we need to understand is intrinsic to human nature and not to not shy away from that."
Creativity is something that is essential to Grabowsky as a musician, but he believes this extends beyond the stage. "I believe everybody possesses a creative spark within them, and many people never really understand how best to make use of that," he offers, "and in performing arts organisations often the artists are the people of course who are out there demonstrating what the creative means, but all of the support people who are responsible for making sure those people get onstage to do what they do.
"Also of course, the audiences to whom the work is intended are also creative people and they are employing their creativity either in listening or experiencing the work or in helping to make it happen. So the spirit of inquiry and the spirit of being in the moment really is the driver for The Art of the Possible."
Grabowsky is able to exist in many different musical worlds and is able to bring these together in a cohesive way, a lot of this has to do with his outlook on collaboration.
"A lot of my work has been collaborations over many decades now and often collaborations across cultures; and I've learned that art and creativity and particularly music are wonderful and meaningful ways to form bridges between those things.
"You discover in the process of doing these things that the same principles exist irrespective of what the cultures are, whether it's working with traditional First Nations people who are coming out of culture- and language-based traditions or other musicians I've worked with from cultures like Bali or South India."
The first show as part of The Art of the Possible series is The Old Rugged Cross with Emma Donovan, which acts as a continuation of her latest album, 'Til My Song Is Done’, exploring the gospel hymns and other songs that have influenced her and have been passed down through her family.
"Family played a huge role [for Emma]. They had a whole gospel singing thing going on. Her grandfather Micko wrote a couple of songs that we do in this particular project," Paul says.
"It also draws on songs that come from the American gospel traditions. You can hear them in country music, particularly old country music like the Carter Family and things like that, but they run deep into the vein of particular cultures.
"In Emma's case it's very strongly coming out of family. So when she sings these songs which are often sung at funerals in her experience it's incredibly powerful for her and very emotional. It's going very deep inside her lived experience and she gives so much to it. It's almost visceral the way she sings."
Grabowsky sees he has a particular role in collaborating with Donovan. "How it all started with Emma is, we did a series of gigs which were just the two of us," Paul shares.
"Out of that experience I got a real sense of of how she wanted to sing these songs and therefore what might be possible, and there's that word again, in terms of what I might be able to bring to that.
"So the way I've arranged in the band context, is I've dressed them up in slightly different clothes, but still allowed for the way that she interprets these songs in the meaning of them to be the significant driver.
"Every time I do a project like this, I learn a lot because I have to learn what my own relationship to these songs is. I'm not a particularly religious person and I don't think Emma necessarily is either but we do understand that these songs have enormous emotional weight, that they convey experience.
"They convey loss, pain, love, all of these really profound moments of human life in these simple words. A lot of very authentic experiences are conveyed and so, for me, I have to regard my own relationship to what those things mean and try and be true to that in what I bring to it in how I arrange the songs."
There's a spirit of exploration and desire to learn across The Art of the Possible; it is designed to have a deep purpose. If there is a takeaway from putting together different shows that form part of The Art of the Possible', Grabowsky shares: "To heighten people's awareness of their own potential to be part of this. It's easy to talk about it but much more valuable to be able to demonstrate it in the way that you go about living your life.
"Human beings are full of potential, but the potential is not always realised because we live in structures or we live according to various ways of being that preclude us being able to fully unleash the creative force within us.
"I think that there is so much to be achieved by reaching within oneself to be able to find out what it is that really does drive you and what brings passion."
The Art of the Possible with Paul Grabowsky presents The Old Rugged Cross with Emma Donovan at QPAC (Brisbane) on 13 October.
