This week SoundsLikeSydney reviewed a new CD form violinist Daniel Hope Spheres, a concept album on which all the selections have a link to astronomy. JS Bach’s fascination with numbers in music is well known. However, there were other composers who built numerical riddles and patterns nto their writing. Tom Service of The Guardian, delves deeper.
Acclaimed conductor David Zinman conducts the Sydney Symphony Orchestra during May this year in two programmes. Zinman is the Music Director of the Tonhalle in Zurich to which he was appointed in 1995. Renowned for his creative programming, he has also appeared as guest conductor with the major orchestras of the world – the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony,…
Being a conductor has got to be one of the strangest of jobs! In the cascade of music that the audience comes to hear, the conductor makes not one sound; he touches no instrument. The audience doesn’t even witness the emotions of the maestro/maestra at work and indeed, some gestures may even be completely obscured. Tom Service…
When Synergy Percussion under its Artistic Director Timothy Constable presents Masterpieces of Time, later this August, some of the music performed will pre-date by centuries, the instruments on which it will be performed. Herr Bach, Monsieur Couperin and Mr Handel will meet the marimba, vibraphones, bells, gongs, mechanical music boxes, prepared piano and steel drums. It doesn’t make the original versions obsolete, but…
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has a new chief executive. Andre Gremillet comes to the MSO after serving as president as chief executive of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra since 2007. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/music/french-canadian-to-helm-mso/story-fn9d2mxu-1226428527010 http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/new-jersey-symphony-president-goes-down-under/?ref=music
UNESCO has named Tan Dun, the composer of the Academy Award winning soundtrack to the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as a Goodwill Ambassador. Click here to read the feature in Gramophone.
Playtime for a young Benjamin Grosvenor was less about manipulating a games console or donning mouthguard and shin pads. For him, ‘playtime’ meant time with his beloved piano – “the big shiny black thing in the music room – very exciting for a child”. This fascination took him from starting pianos lessons aged…