| John Joseph Jones |
1930 - 2000
Poet, playwright, lyricist, singer, composerCreator, builder & manager of the Parkerville Amphitheatre
My father, a well-known West Australian poet and playwright, trained as a journalist with the Albany Advertiser newspaper, and for twenty years lectured in English and Communications at TAFE. Five recordings are available of his poetry and folk-style music (he had a lovely tenor voice), including all of the songs he performed at the 1964 Adelaide Festival of Arts.
Most of his major plays address Australian themes. They include The Hamburger Man, The Undivided (about the Berlin Wall), Harvest, Bitter Grapes, Sturt, and Loving Lady. Nearly all were produced at the Parkerville Amphitheatre, which he built in 1966-69 with the inspiring help of many volunteers, including aboriginal and white prison inmates, and university students. The amphitheatre, which he operated until his death, was the first built in WA and incorporates five stages and two theatres.
John staged the first open-air rock shows, wine festivals, children's creativity weeks, and environmental creativity weeks in WA. A major preoccupation towards the end of his life was an opera, based on an idea of mine (his composer child Margaret), concerning the construction of the Eastern Goldfields pipeline by C. Y. O'Connor. John's libretto for Pipedream was set to music by another WA composer, Kevin Fenner.
Three Poems of Celebration were written for the occasion of Kevin's marriage to Fumie Koike.
John passed away in August 2000 after a brief illness. He is survived by his wife Derry and four children.
Works by John Joseph Jones published by Hovea Music Press
- Poetry As Such No.1 and No. 2
Three Poems of Celebration
Summertime Poems
- ...where eucalypts green-tip the sky: musical settings by Margaret Dylan Jones
Tuart Forest, Ludlow
Interceptor
Yellow Tingle Tree
- Synopsis of Pipedream, the opera about C.Y. O'Connor.
- How did the idea of Pipedream originate?
My page About John Joseph Jones
- Samples from Mutatble Moods of Love Sonnets
Other sites with more information about John:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Joseph_Jones_(writer)
http://wapedia.mobi/en/John_Joseph_Jones_(writer)
© Hovea Music Press 2002 & M D Jones 2010
Contacts for Margaret Jones:
Mobile phone: 0414 374 701
(Outside Australia: +61 414374701)
Email: see contact page
