Mandoline Affaire is a duo consisting of Penny Ross on Mandolin and John Jooste on classical guitar. Penny and John are both professional musicians who divide their time between teaching and performing. They have been playing together for the past 8 years during which time they have appeared at countless weddings, corporate functions, dinner parties etc.

Penny and John prefer to present their music in a concert situation and they have made regular annual concert appearances in Perth and Fremantle as well as various country centres such as York and Denmark. In 2003 and 2004 they appeared to high acclaim in concerts at The Fairbridge Music Festival.

Individually they have both appeared in concerts in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and overseas in South Africa, Germany and Singapore.

Mandoline Affaire have two CDs (‘Summer Nights’ and ‘Eclipse’ ) available. Both Cds were launched to capacity audiences at the Cygnet Cinema in South Perth in 2001 and 2003. A third CD will be launched in early 2005.

Penny Ross began studies on the mandolin at Fremantle Music School at the age of seven. After winning many first prizes at The Fremantle Eistedfod she was invited to teach at the school. She went on to study at the WA Consevatorium and is the only person to have graduated from that institution on mandolin. Penny regularly performs with Stringy Bach and the Bakkerus Quartet. She has made frequent appearances with The WA Symphony Orchestra as well as mandolin orchestras from around the world and was leader of the WA mandolin Orchestra for many years. In May 2004 she was invited to appear with The Singapore Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s 8th Symphony and she will be returning to Singapore to perform again in November 2004, this time in Mahler’s 7th. Symphony.

John Jooste migrated to Perth from South Africa in 1974. Since then he has performed in numerous concerts both as soloist and in various ensembles. His experience ranges from stints with dance and rock bands in the seventies to classical concerts in Perth and all over Australia .He spent three years as leader of the guitar section in the WA Mandolin Orchestra during which time he composed several works for them. He makes regular appearances with the Bakkerus Quartet and is director of the “Highly Strung” Classical guitar Ensemble. In 2000 he co-wrote and performed the music for Barking Ghekko Theatre Company’s production of the play “Tiger Tango”. Nearly all of the music which Mandoline Affaire performs is arranged especially for them by John.

MANDOLIN…FLAT OR ROUND BACK? FOLK OR CLASSICAL?

Whenever we perform whether it be in concert or for private functions such as weddings or similar, someone is bound to come up and ask the question "what is the instrument Penny is playing?" When we tell them it is a mandolin they say "I thought so but why doesn't it have a rounded back?" The answer is that there are two types of mandolin and the one Penny plays is a more modern version made by Gibson in 1924.

Whilst the round back mandolin is undoubtedly a more romantic looking instrument, the flat back version has a much stronger sound and projection. We prefer to perform without amplification whenever we can and this instrument is more conducive to allowing us to do that.

The other commonly held belief about the mandolin is that it is more of a folk instrument than a classical one. A lot of people associate the instrument with folk groups they hear in pubs or at folk festivals where the instrument is more likely to be used for chord strumming. What is not as commonly known is that the mandolin goes back hundreds of years and that composers such as Vivaldi, Beethoven, Hummel and others wrote several works for it in various combinations including concertos for solo and two mandolins by Vivaldi. Anyone who saw the film "Kramer Versus Kramer" will have heard the solo mandolin concerto which was used for the sound track. One of our longer term plans is to present some of these classical works together with some early lute music in a concert. For that occasion we hope to find a suitable small venue so that Penny can use a round back mandolin which is more suitable to the romantic notion of such a concert.

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