Double Passes To The Launch Of Elysian Fields
There are double passes on offer for the launch of Elysian Fields, a band featuring the electric viola da gamba alongside other modern instruments in the improvised music scene. Formed by renowned gamba player Jenny Eriksson, the ensemble includes Matt McMahon on keyboards, Matt Keegan on saxophones, Siebe Pogson on electric bass and Finn Ryan on drums with guest…
Lloyd van’t Hoff – 2015 ABC Young Performer of the Year
Clarinet player Lloyd Van’t Hoff won the prestigious Grand Final of the 2015 ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards over the weekend, performing Copland’s Clarinet Concerto with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Johannes Fritzsch at Federation Concert Hall in Hobart. Now 24, Lloyd studied clarinet at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music graduating with Honours in 2011…
George Meets The Orchestra
Grab your kids, nieces, nephews and grandchildren and check out this captivating video from the Sydney Opera House, George Meets the Orchestra in which young George talks to the gifted members of the Sydney Youth Orchestra and conductor Brian Buggy OAM, as he discovers more about instruments and decides which one he is going to…
Alice Cooper On Narrating ‘Peter And The Wolf In Hollywood’
Despite an on-stage persona that was designed to shock, rocker Alice Cooper has demonstrated his softer side with his latest venture as narrator of Prokofiev’s children’s classic Peter and the Wolf (1936), given a 21st century twist as Peter and the Wolf in Hollywood, an innovative, interactive, multi-media creation on Deutsche Grammophon. Cooper has been…
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra Features in Bond Movie
Premiering in Sydney tonight is the eagerly anticipated new James Bond film Spectre – and the soundtrack has a very special Sydney connection. The film uses a track from a recording of Vivaldi’s music, made in Sydney in 2000 by German countertenor Andreas Scholl and Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, conducted by its Artistic Director Paul Dyer. The track…
Richard Gill Delivers 2015 Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address On The Case For New Music
Earlier this week, respected music director and educator Richard Gill OAM, delivered the 17th annual Peggy Glanville-Hicks address on the topic of “A Case for New Music” under the auspices of the New Music Network. In an erudite and passionate speech he argues the case for new music and for comprehensive music education in schools….
Grigoryans Re-release Rodrigo Guitar Concertos
It was 75 years ago, on November 9 in 1940 that Joaquín Rodrigo’s (1901 – 1999) Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra was premiered in the Spanish city of Barcelona. Celebrating the anniversary of this enormously popular concerto, guitarist siblings Slava and Leonard Grigoryan have re-released their CD, Rodrigo Guitar Concertos (ABC Classics 4812231), featuring the three…
Composer And Pianist Matt McMahon Talks About New Band Launch
When nationally renowned viola da gambist Jenny Eriksson formed Australia’s first electric viola da gamba band, Elysian Fields, she had one pianist in mind: Matt McMahon. Jenny and Matt developed their friendship over several years of performing together at jazz gigs. In 2014 she finally invited him to write for, and appear with, her…
‘What’s wrong with the classical concert experience in the 21st century?’
“Because we live in a culture…… where visual stimuli are in the ascendant, sometimes at the cost of sound. Sound is no longer enough…… that music is a worthy pursuit in and of itself is…..being casually dismissed. Classical music now must aspire to offer spectacle – whether a particular piece can take it or not….