Latest news
The music that influenced Reich
The ‘Modern Master’ Steve Reich talks to Phil Johnson of The Independent ahead of the world premiere of his new composition, Radio Rewrite drawn from the music of Radiohead. He discusses the musicians who influenced him. For Reich, Baroque and bepop, Coltrane and Classical were simply part of a spectrum, not to be segmented by labels. It is a fascinating…
Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard wins major opera award
American mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard has been awarded a major opera prize, the Richard Tucker Award. The native New Yorker is a graduate of the Juilliard School and has won many awards including the Beverly Sills Award in 2011. She married bass-baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes in 2008. Click here for more from the New York Times….
The challenges of performing in the Concertgebouw
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra makes its much anticipated inaugural visit to Sydney later this year, performing in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House. Celebrating its 125th anniversary in 2013, the highly acclaimed orchestra directed by Maris Jansons is resident in the building of the same name in Amsterdam’s Museum Quarter. The Concertgebouw opened on April 11,…
Music by numbers
This week SoundsLikeSydney reviewed a new CD form violinist Daniel Hope Spheres, a concept album on which all the selections have a link to astronomy. JS Bach’s fascination with numbers in music is well known. However, there were other composers who built numerical riddles and patterns nto their writing. Tom Service of The Guardian, delves deeper.
Orchestras in ‘pitched’ battle
This April, Limelight Magazine has published a ranking of Australia’s orchestras. “Australia’s six major orchestras are frequently described as “world class”, but how do they fare in their own backyard? We pit the state orchestras against each other in a blind-listening test to see which band would emerge king of the concert hall.” Limelight Magazine. Coincidentally…
Some of opera’s greatest stars
The UK Telegraph has been running a seriesof live streamed debates on various aspects of classical music. As part of thisseries they’ve published a gorgeous picture gallery of 10 of opera’s greatest singers: 5 men and 5 women. Guess who they are! Click here for the link.
Latest reviews
‘Tosca’- A Welcome Revival For The Future
Opera Australia’s new production of Puccini’s Tosca was premiered on 6 July, just three years after they launched their previous new production. That 2010 production was widely regarded as a dramatic disaster – a travesty which completely reinvented the work so that it bore only a passing resemblance to the plot for which Puccini wrote…
Stephanie MacCallum records Alkan’s ‘Recueils de Chants’
Sydney pianist Stephanie McCallum has released the first volume of Recueils de Chants a series of tone poems for piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan. This first edition contains the first three of five books, adding a world premiere recording of Une fuse a spinning song.tone poems by Charles-Valentin Alkan. Recorded in the Recital Hall West, of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music during 2012, there is nearly 75…