Arjun von Caemmerer
Dr Arjun von Caemmerer is a Hobart-based general medical practitioner, Iyengar Yoga teacher and practitioner, and writer. In 1995, with Naomi Cameron, he established The Hobart School of Iyengar Yoga.
Arjun’s Pieces of 8, written for Yogāchārya Sri BKS Iyengar’s 88th birthday, juxtaposed eight translations of Patañjali’s Yoga-Sūtra. That book stimulated Michael Kieran Harvey’s Patañjali; as a personal tribute to Iyengar (1918–2014), Arjun choreographed and performed yogāsanas for the premiere at Hobart MONA FOMA in January 2015.
He was guest poet at the Tasmanian Poetry Festival in 2017 and for the Australian Doctors Orchestra in 2023. His writing has appeared in The Medical Journal of Australia, extempore, australianjazz.net, Famous Reporter, Unusual Work, The Rondo Hatton Report and Yoga Rahasya. Vice Versa – new and selected poems (2016) is available from Collective Effort Press; Bible Stories (2019) accompanied Harvey’s Catalogue des Errances Bibliques. Some of his concrete poetry is anthologized in Wayword Forword (Collective Effort Press, 2023).
He has contributed to these Michael Kieran Harvey recordings:
— 48 Fugues for Frank (concrete poetry)
— Psychosonata (poetry; voice)
— Portrait of Bob Brown (commissioner and collaborator)
— The Green Brain (concrete poetry; voice)
— Sonata #6: 17 Graeme Lee Prints (poetry)
— Greta (concrete poetry)
— Patañjali (yoga sequence: choreography and performance)
— Luz meridional (text; DVD notes: essay and concrete poetry)
— The Sparrow and the Mead Hall (concrete poetry)
— Move 50 (concrete poetry)
— Catalogue des Errances Bibliques (spoken narration; songwriter)
Arjun von Caemmerer is featured on the following titles
War Sonatas
Three piano sonatas by Michael Kieran Harvey, written as a response to twenty-first-century war. Spoken poems by Arjun von Caemmerer stand between the works, framing a triptych of anger, friendship and warning.
Songwriter
Catalogue des Errances Bibliques
Michael Kieran Harvey’s epic Catalogue des Errances Bibliques deploys eight keyboardists and four percussionists with spoken narration by Arjun von Caemmerer: twenty-five musical pieces alternating with twenty-five short narratives.
Songwriter
The Green Brain Cycle
Michael Kieran Harvey’s ninety-two-minute multi-instrument solo cycle draws on Frank Herbert’s 1966 ecological novel The Green Brain, pairing intense keyboard writing with Arjun von Caemmerer’s concrete poetry and spoken passages.
Credit: Concrete poetry
Arjun von Caemmerer also appears on
Patañjali
This CD and performance DVD celebrates Patañjali’s Yoga-Sūtra in music and āsana (2015). Michael Kieran Harvey composed the score and plays keyboards, with Arabella Teniswood-Harvey (piano) and Eugene Ughetti (percussion).
Psychosonata
Michael Kieran Harvey’s own works from 2007–2013, spanning serious intensity and cheerful pastiche. The half-hour piano sonata anchors shorter pieces with leading young Australian instrumentalists.
Contributor: Concrete poetry
Other credits
The Sparrow and the Mead Hall
Composed and mostly performed by Michael Kieran Harvey, these 2021 works move from the rarefied extended techniques of Piano Sonata #7 and Liszt–Busoni bravura in the Four Ballades to bebop wit in Lawyers… and metal-edged satire in Death Cap Mushroom.
Piano Sonata #6: 17 Graeme Lee Prints
Composed and performed by Michael Kieran Harvey in the 2020 pandemic, Piano Sonata #6 answers seventeen mixed-media prints Graeme Lee made that July. Music, image and Arjun von Caemmerer’s aphorisms remain sharply individual yet bound as one series.
Greta
Michael Kieran Harvey’s fifth piano sonata appears in a conventional piano reading and an electric keyboard interpretation. Subtitled Greta for climate activist Greta Thunberg, it is also tagged ‘Concerto in no need of an orchestra’.
Move 50
Twenty-four Australian composers mark Move Records’ fiftieth year with short new works gathered on this commemorative disc.
Luz Meridional (Southern Light)
A CD with bonus DVD. Luz Meridional was composed by Andrián Pertout for pianist Michael Kieran Harvey. Its twenty-four solo piano études each contain a quotation from an early Australian composer.
Portrait of Bob Brown
Produced in support of the Bob Brown Foundation, this disc presents three new Australian chamber works from 2016: two by Michael Kieran Harvey and one by violinist and violist Emily Sheppard.
48 Fugues for Frank
A musical homage to the life and work of Frank Zappa, composed and performed by Michael Kieran Harvey, and complemented by Lingua Franka – concrete poetry by Arjun von Caemmerer.