The impossibly perfect tenor Jonas Kauffman in a recent interview with The Guardian. In June he sings in a gala concert at the Royal Albert Hall with Anna Netrebko and ErwinSchrott, and also at Covent Garden in Les Troyens.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/apr/05/jonas-kaufmann-tenor-great-pretender
How well do you know Aussie movie music? Challenge yourself with these teasers on this substantial and brilliant topic! Name the singer and the 1977 disco song written by George Young and Harry Vanda which is the centrepiece of the movie Strictly Ballroom. The song was a worldwide hit in 1978, peaking at No. 3 on…
Violinist Christian Tetzlaff, soloist with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Yarmila Alfonsetti is a woman with a mission. That mission is to have Sydney on a par with other international cities in its menu of live classical music concerts. As producer of classical music events for Sydney Opera House Presents, a company that is based…
It’s rush hour for Sydney’s performing ensembles as they jostle to release their programmes for 2014 and secure the all important subscription dollar for the year. Hot on the heels of the SSO’s 2014 season release, Opera Australia has announced it’s compilation for next year on a re-vamped website. Nine of the 16 productions offer opera in…
Readers will be familiar with numerous studies claiming the physical and psychological benefits of participating in musical activities. The pressures of being a solo performer in the public eye are anything but calming. Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix – rock stars who died young weren’t the only ones. In classical music, Pergolesi,…
There is a change of leadership at The Australia Council for the Arts, as CEO Kathy Keele steps down at the end of the year. The government’s central arts funding and advisory body distributes more than $160 million each year in funding for arts organisations and individuals, nationally. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/australia-council-chief-kathy-keele-steps-down/story-e6frg8n6-1226519446195
Oh the joy of a serendipity….of discovering a lost score long after its composer is no more. This is the story of Igor Stravinsky’s 1908 piece, Pogrebal’naya Pesnya (Funeral Song) written in memory of his teacher, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, shortly after Rimsky’s death in June that year. The 12-minute work was performed only once, in a Russian symphony…