Roland Peelman by Anthony Browell and Antony Jeffrey

Roland Peelman by Anthony Browell and Antony Jeffrey

Hardback, 110 pages, $39.95

Published in July 2021 

ISBN: 9781922449597

Roland, thanks for your generous spirit, your embracing heart, and your ever-exploring mind. We are blessed to have you with us! -- John Davis, CEO Australian Music Centre

“Anthony Browell's photographs are not just striking in themselves, they also tell you so much about the subject, Roland Peelman: his passion, commitment, sense of fun and ability to be fully in the moment when making music. This perception is amply supported by Antony Jeffrey's words, which provide insights, anecdotes and highly engaging snippets of history tracing the career of an exceptional musical mind”
John Shand, Walkley Award-winning music writer, The Sydney Morning Herald.

“This portrait ... captures the many complex facets of one of Australian music’s most important living artists, ... whose diverse roles as a cultural custodian enrich the world, and our understanding of it"
- John Davis, former CEO Australian Music Centre

"A beautifully written coffee table book and a valuable way of getting to know a man we all would like to get to know better. [The] ...testimonials give thoughtful third person insights into the man who is passionate about Australian music, women composers, Indigenous culture and the technicolour social fabric that makes up how we live as Australians"
- Clinton White, Limelight Magazine

Anthony Browell and Antony Jeffrey have long been friends and admirers of Roland Peelman  and his work. Anthony Browell has photographed him in and out of the Canberra International Music Festival many times, while Antony Jeffrey has worked with him at the embryonic Loud Mouth Music Festival in Newcastle in 2001/2 and subsequently as manager of The Song Company.
Their collaboration in this book is intended to give a portrait of Roland Peelman as he is today in the middle of an incredibly rich and varied life as musician, festival director and friend of many. Antony Jeffrey explains: “This is a book about Roland’s wide-ranging achievements from the perspective of friends and creative people he has worked with. Roland has such vision and passion for helping create and perform music at the highest level, yet he lacks the ego that usually goes with success. Our hope is that his achievements can be celebrated by the widest possible audience.”
“I have photographed many artists and musicians,” says Anthony Browell, “but rarely anyone as expressive as Roland. There is a quality about his gestures, his movement and his facial expressions that seems to embody the music he is performing. I know of no musician with quite his intensity.”

Anthony Browell  lives in Sydney, and has spent a life in and out of photography. Working in portraiture, advertising, editorial, architectural as well as personal photography, has enabled him to experience being around a wide variety of amazing and talented people. Recently this has included musicians of many genres. His other interests include inland paddle-steamers of Australia, his family, and large format pinhole cameras.

Antony Jeffrey has enjoyed a long career in the arts. He was the first director of the Australia Council Music Board, and first general manager of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He has worked in senior roles for many other arts companies and in the corporate sector.  He has recorded over 100 interviews with artists and people associated with the arts, many  of which resulted in his book Many Faces of Inspiration (2011). These days he organises and leads music tours abroad as well as indulging in writing when he has time.