When: Sunday, 1 March 4pm

Where: Classic Southside, the jazz club situated on Level 1 of the Classic Cinema in Elsternwick

Book tickets for Dr Donna Coleman, annual Sadie Hawkins Day concert here.

Dr Donna Coleman presents the annual Sadie Hawkins Day concert as her birthday gift to her friends and anyone interested in an afternoon of music ranging from Bach to Ives, World Premiere performances of brand-new works and free improvisations with members of her band, Quintessence, Eugene Ball, trumpet and Christopher Hale, bass. 

The program is devoted to music by Donna’s friends Kevin March (the World Premiere of Epigrams), composer of ephemerally esoteric and succinctly crafted works that have been premiered on Sadie Hawkins Day for several years; Cuban / American composer Aurelio de la Vega, whose one hundredth birthday is being celebrated in concerts around the world in 2026; and her “enhanced” version of Daniel Perlongo’s Jazz-inflected and Jazz-inspired First Set, in which she will be joined by Eugene and Christopher. 

Perlongo was Donna’s theory and composition teacher at university, and he honoured her by composing several works for her, including a Concerto for Piano and Orchestra that she recorded with the Radio Orchestra of Bratislava. You can hear her recording of this marvelous piece (and its companion, Shortcut from Bratislava) along with one of her performances of Suite (composed for her) and Serenade (a piece she introduced to Australian audiences in 2013) at the American Composers’ Alliance website.

The music of American composers Charles Ives and George Antheil mingle with that of Johann Sebastian Bach, introduced by an improvised musical conversation between Donna and Christopher.

Seating is extremely limited (capacity of the venue is 65 including the performers) so book early! Doors and bar open from 3:30, and there is additional bar area in the main lobby of the cinema.

Sadie Hawkins Day is the invention of American cartoonist Al Capp, who created the syndicated comic strip series L’il Abner in 1934 featuring characters living in a rural community called Dogpatch. In the years when the 29th February occurred, the town organised a race in which the men were given a few seconds head start and any woman who caught up with and “tagged” a man could claim him as husband. 

L’il Abner was the hunky main male character in the series, pursued romantically and in the race by the voluptuous Daisy Mae. She finally caught up with him in 1952, and they were married until the series ended in 1977.