Vale Maestro Abbado
Maestro Claudio Abbado has died at the age of 81. A prolific creative force, one of his many landmark achievements was to found the Mahler Chamber Orchestra which toured to Sydney just last year. Read more.
Clarity, Dynamism and Uniqueness – Jack Symonds on ‘His Music Burns’
“We’re righting a wrong to present composers whose works are de rigeur in the rest of the world as a festival event .” A potent statement from Jack Symonds, conductor and music director of Sydney Chamber Opera about the double-bill the company is presenting for the Sydney Festival. Under the collective title His Music…
‘Music And Monarchy’ on SBS TV
Republican or monarchist, embrace your inner Anglophile and tune in to this excellent series on SBS TV. Historian Dr David Starkey narrates this 4 part series on the way in which English monarchs from Henry V were responsible for much of what we still hear and perform today. The first episode has already aired…
Video Game Music
The explosion in the world of video games over the past decades has created a whole new genre of music. The symphonic nature of the music has means that symphony orchestras have embraced this form and performed it to great success. Writer and librettist Gordon Kalton Williams examines the place of this music in the…
‘The Magic Flute’: Picture Gallery
Scroll down to see these vibrant images from Opera Australia’s 2014 production of The Magic Flute. (9 images) Courtesy Opera Australia. Images Branco Gaica.
All About George Benjamin
English composer and conductor George Benjamin was born in 1960. He demonstrated a gift for composition from the age of 7. from the age of 15, he studied first privately and then at the Paris Conservatoire with Messiaen, also taking piano lessons with Messiaen’s wife, Yvonne Loriod, moving later to study at Cambridge University. He was…
Sarastro Speaks
Tonight, Mozart’s fantasy filled opera The Magic Flute opens at the Joan Sutherland Opera Theatre of the Sydney Opera House. Singing the role of Sarastro is Morris Robinson, a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Following his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in their production of Fidelio, he has enjoyed a busy career…
Sydney Festival 2014
Just when you thought it was time to relax in the humid and langourous hiatus between the end of 2013 concert season and the start 2014, the Sydney Festival brandishes in front of us dozens of unmissable events for all ages and tastes. Running in venues in and around Sydney from January 9th to…
A New Concertmaster For The AOBO
The Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra has a new concertmaster. Laura Hamilton has taken up the position in Australia after working as Principal Associate Concertmaster at the Metropolitan Opera since 1999. Whilst there she led many of the popular “Live in HD” videocasts, including Carmen, Parsifal, Turandot, Faust, Salome, and Madama Butterfly. Laura is graduate of…