Ross Edwards Previews His Missa Alchera
This Saturday, the Sydney Chamber Choir joins forces with orchestra seventeen88, conducted by Richard Gill to perform Ross Edwards’ Missa Alchera which reveals deep connections between time, ritual, place and the Dreaming of Australia’s Indigenous peoples. In this Q and A, Ross Edwards talks about his early memories of music, his inspirations and the process of writing the…
Hoang Pham On “Being The Best Pianist I Can Be”
Pianist Hoang Pham, winner of the 2013 ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Award gives a solo recital in Sydney in mid-October. He started his piano studies aged just three and a half, after arriving in Australia as a babe in arms via a refugee boat from Vietnam. After studies at the Australian National Academy of…
Album Release: Australian World Orchestra/Rattle – Bruckner Symphony No 8
The Australian World Orchestra is performing again in Sydney. Coinciding with this concert, ABC Classics is releasing its live recording of Bruckner’s Symphony No 8, captured during the orchestra’s 2015 concerts at the Sydney Opera House under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. This performance of Bruckner’s grand Symphony No 8 by the AWO under Sir…
Oliver Mears To Succeed Kasper Holten As Director Of Opera At Covent Garden
English director Oliver Mears is to succeed Kasper Holten as Director of Opera at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden from March 2017. It’s an important appointment for fans of Opera Australia given the close collaboration between the two companies. Mears has been Artistic Director of Northern Ireland Opera since it was established in 2010. He…
Valentina Lisitsa: Love Story – Piano Themes From Cinema’s Golden Age
The classical piano meets the silver screen in Love Story – Piano Themes From Cinema’s Golden Age – the recent album for Decca from Ukrainian born pianist Valentina Lisitsa. It’s a marked change in style for Lisitsa who started playing the piano aged 3 and used social media to launch her career. Signed to Decca in 2012,…
Applications Open For The David Harold Tribe Symphony Award 2016
Sydney Conservatorium of Music, at the University of Sydney, is pleased to be hosting the prestigious David Harold Tribe Symphony Award for 2016. Worth $12,000, resident Australian composers are invited to submit a new symphonic composition of 20 minutes or more, which will be judged by a panel of three prominent Australian musicians led by…
Chamber Works, Solos Or Concertos? Pianist Jayson Gillham Takes His Pick
Deborah Humble interviews London based Australian pianist and winner of the 2014 Montreal International Musical Competition ahead of his debut album launch and Australian tour. Australian concert pianist Jayson Gillham is the perfect example of a quiet achiever. Described by one English critic as possessing “a calm, unshowy keyboard style” these adjectives could equally be…
“The Voice Is Number One” – Pumeza Matshikiza On Her Life As An Opera Singer
For centuries, opera has been an European art form – its tales and music emerging from the literature, the librettists and the composers of the European continent. With the discovery of the New World, the art form reached across the Atlantic. It was only in 1955 that Marian Anderson (b1897) became the first African-American to…
Nicholas Tolputt Wins 2016 IFAC Australian Singing Competition
Counter tenor Nicholas Tolputt has won the 2016 IFAC Australian Singing Competition which includes the prestigious Marianne Mathy Scholarhip. Its a second triumph for the 25 year old Tasmanian who graduated from the University of Melbourne with a BMus in Voice and who now lives in Sydney. Just last month he won the 2016 City…