The BBC celebrates Brett Dean

A performance of Brett Dean’s Grawemeyer Award winning composition “The Lost Art of Letter Writing” in London, has been warmly received. Featured in a recent BBC Total Immersion day at the Barbican Centre, the four movement concerto for violin and orchestra was composed in 2006 and won the award in 2009. The concerto was premiered by the…

Conductor avoids the currents

Brian Castles – Onion will conduct the upcoming productions of La Traviata on the harbour. He talks to Steve Meacham of the Sydney Morning Herald about keeping his head above the water – metaphorically speaking: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/opera/orchestral-manoeuvres-in-the-dark-pit-20120318-1vdo2.html

Happy Birthday to the coathanger

  The Sydney Harbour Bridge turns 80 today! Eleven musicians from the brass section of the Sydney Symphony scaled the bridge to perform from the top. Guess what they played?! Check out these features: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/featurenews/view/1189848/1/.html http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/13205823/sydney-harbour-bridge-turns-80/

Hot off the press….

The new look Australian String Quartet’s Sydney concert reviewed: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/spirits-high-as-new-lineup-gels-with-old-guard-20120316-1va8v.html The Guardian’s Tom Service asks if Stephen Sondheim might be our greatest composer: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2012/mar/16/sondheim-sweeney-todd-music-theatre

Hot off today’s press –

Review In Search of Haydn screening at the Hayden Orpheum and Roseville cinemas: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/in-search-of-haydn-20120314-1v39p.html   John Bell talks about the competition for opera from HD cinema productions: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/opera/bell-gives-stravinsky-a-rakeover-20120315-1v82g.html   and read Peter McCallum’s review of  The Song Company’s Love in Venice http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/irresistible-allure-of-sensuality-with-a-light-original-approach-20120315-1v82u.html  

accompanists hold the keys

Accompanists are the unobtrusive support behind the soloist. They are able to lead as well as to follow and perform music that is as demanding as that of a soloist. Yet, they rarely recieve the same adulation and recogntion. Tom Service of The Guardian writes: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2012/mar/04/accompanists-unsung-heroes-music