Grace Clifford Wins 2014 ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Award
Sixteen year old Grace Clifford has won the coveted 2014 ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Award, announced at the Grand Finals of the competition held in Adelaide last night. For her winning performance she played Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D, Op.61 with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Christopher Seaman at the Adelaide Town Hall. A formidably talented…
The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra 2015 Season
The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra has revealed its line up for 2015 – a six programme series that sweeps the baroque and early classical repertoire and which includes music by Handel, Vivaldi, the Bachs and Mozart, performed by soloists from Australia and overseas. Moving on from its 25th year in 2014, Artistic Director of the ABO,…
2014 Gramophone Classical Music Awards
Just as Sydney is recovering from ‘Kaufmannia’ after the recent tour of Jonas Kaufmann, comes news from Gramophone Magazine that his recording of Schubert’s Winterreise with pianist Helmut Deutsch for Sony Classical, has won the Solo Vocal Gramophone Classical Music Award for 2014. A recording of Brahms’ Symphonies by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Chailly…
APRA AMCOS Announce 2014 Art Music Award Winners
Congratulations to all the nominees and winners in the 2014 APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards, announced in Melbourne tonight! The awards recognise achievement in the composition, performance, education and presentation of Australian music including outstanding contributions by individuals and organisations in Australian music, music education, experimental music, jazz and regional music. Here is the list of Art…
Musica Viva Unveils its 2015 Season
An anniversary is a marvelous excuse for a gathering of friends, and in the case of Musica Viva’s 70th anniversary in 2015, the season is a reason to bring back some of its most popular performers from recent years. Unveiling its 2015 season at Sydney’s City Recital Hall last week, Artistic Director Carl Vine AO,…
Dollhouse – New Ideas In Performing Orchestral Music
Clarinet virtuoso Martin Frost is looking to push the boundaries of the traditional performance and has created a multi-media symphonic work Dollhouse which was premiered by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic in 2013. Dollhouse combines a symphonic performance of the music of Stravinsky, Hillborg, Dukas, Sørensen, Göran Fröst and de Falla with choreography and lighting design. (Link to trailer below). Frost…
Met Talks Reach Agreement
Talks at the Metropolitan Opera in New York have finally resolved the disagreements between workers and management, clearing the way for the opening of the 2014/15 season in September – a new production of The Marriage of Figaro conducted by James Levine. Read the article from the New York Times
Music – It’s In The Genes
You either have it or you don’t – a recent study of 1500 pairs of twins from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute suggests that practising an instrument without a natural gift for it is of little or no value. Read the feature in The Economist
Quartet For The End Of Time
Pianist Steven Osborne presents his insights into Olivier Messien’s Quartet for the End of Time, a landmark work for piano, clarinet, violin and cello, composed whilst Messiaen was an inmate of a Nazi prisoners of war camp and premiering in that camp in 1941, performed by Messiaen and three other prisoners.