Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, 41, has been appointed music director of New York’s Metropolitan Opera. It’s a critical time at which he succeeds James Levine who led the company for over four decades. Nézet-Séguin presently heads up the Orchestre Métropolitain, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He will take over at the met in…

“….the biggest losers of this stale safety bias will be Australia’s opera makers of tomorrow. When a culture of predictability and drab conservatism finally atrophies the expectations of the opera-going public, artists attempting to escape from that trope will likely be met with hostility.” Maxim Boon in The Guardian takes a refreshingly honest view of…

Sir David McVicar’s production of Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte for Opera Australia hits the boards in Sydney in July. Conducted by Jonathan Darlington, it features a glittering cast which includes Nicole Car, Anna Dowsley, Taryn Fiebig, Charles Castronovo, Andrew Jones and Richard Anderson. It also completes the trilogy of Mozart-Da Ponte operas that Sir David has…

In more news about pianists, the AFR has published this interview with 23 year old Russian protege Daniil Trifonov and ends the feature with a list of the very best 6 pianists who are not yet 35 years old.Guess who they are…

The brilliant superstar pianist Lang Lang performs in Sydney next month, with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and in a solo recital at the Sydney Opera House. In his recital on June 8 he plays Tchaikovsky The Seasons, JS Bach’s Italian Concerto and Chopin Scherzos. With the Sydney Symphony, conducted by Manuel López-Gómez, on June 10 and 11, the focus…