Spot The Star – Musicians From Around The World Launch BBC Music
The BBC has new initiative, BBC Music. To celebrate its launch, a bevy of 27 musicians from around the world and across genres gathered with the 80 strong BBC Concert Orchestra to record a cover version of the Beach Boys’ God Only Knows. Watch the video and test your skills by identifying all 27 starts…
New Arrangements of Old Masterpieces
Last week, SoundsLikeSydney reviewed a concert by the Australian Haydn Ensemble which included important transcriptions of two major works for smaller ensembles. One arrangement was of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no 2 in B flat major opus 19 (1795) arranged by Stephen Yates for piano solo and string quintet (2014) and the other, Mozart’s Symphony No 39 in E flat major…
A New Chief Conductor for The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, reputedly the world’s best, has announced that the Milan born Daniele Gatti will take up the position of chief conductor from 2016. Mariss Jansons, the conductor who brought the RCO to Sydney on its inaugural visit last year, marks a decade in the role this year. Gatti has served as…
2014 ARIA Fine Arts Winners Announced
The 2014 ARIA Fine Arts Awards were announced earlier today. Congratulations to ABC Classics which won all four of the Fine Arts Awards. The award for Best Classical Album was won by Compassion, a collaboration between composer Nigel Westlake, singer Lior and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Westlake. Compassion is a ‘Symphony of Songs’,…
Quiz: Who Really Wrote These Famous Pieces of Music?
Who wrote Greensleeves? And where does the opening theme of The Rite of Spring come from? Some interesting revelations in this quiz about the origins of some famous pieces of music.
Nominees For The 2014 ARIA Best Classical Album Fine Arts Awards
Nominees for the 28th annual ARIA Awards have been announced and we have the list of contenders for the title of Best Classical Album in the Fine Arts Awards. Australian World Orchestra / Zubin Mehta – Stravinsky Rite of Spring / Mahler Symphony No.1 (ABC Classics/Universal Music Australia) Emma Matthews / Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra /…
Web-Based Music Projects – Six Of The Best
BBC Music Magazine nominates its 6 best web-based music projects to celebrate 25 years of the World Wide Web – Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir, the Sydney Opera House and an Australian ensemble feature in the list!
Mozart Score Discovered
The original score of Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major K 331 – the one that contains the famous Rondo alla turca finale, has been found in a library in Hungary. Composed c 1783, Hungarian pianist and conductor Zoltan Kocsis played the sonata from the original score last week. Few differences were detectable when…
Jessye Norman On Critics And Casting
“They might write it but darling, I don’t read it – I don’t need it”. So says the legendary soprano Jessye Norman in this excerpt from a no-holds-barred interview with Stephen Sackur of BBC’s HARDtalk. She also gives her views on the selection of singers based on their appearance over their ability to sing a…