Just had an exquisite evening at Robina Surfers Paradise Uniting Church. The night was made exquisite by the Andrew Tuppen Project - a group of professional artists who perform a range of praise and worship and instrumental music.

Andrew Tuppen, keyboard player, composer and arranger, is one of the teachers at Emmanuel College where my kids study. His wife, Petrina, taught the two older ones piano back in 2001. Gary Mulholland, saxophonist, is woodwind teacher at Emmanuel College. Ben Dennien, bass and accoustic guitarist in the group, is known as the metronome guy at Emmanuel where he teaches drums. And not at Emmanuel are Naomi Pryor (lead vocals), Brendan Elcham (lead guitar), Aaron Butters (guitar – absent tonight), and Justin Douglas (management).

So what made it all so exquisite? I think it was the arrangement of jazz rock fusion interpreted live by confident well practiced musicians with passion. It reminded me of performances by Iona, Eden’s Bridge, Miles Davis, Blue Train, and Chris Mason-Battley Group.

The Andrew Tuppen Project have recorded AdventureLand, an instrumental CD, and Thank You, a “praise and worship” CD. AdventureLand is also an enhanced CD-ROM, containing video interviews and live concert recordings, 3D animations and an interactive sound sample keyboard, collated by Fusion Creative on the Gold Coast.

The photo above comes from the Andrew Tuppen Project web site – from their recent appearance at Kings Christian Centre.