The Turandot Stage Takes Shape

  Maria Schneider’s composition Winter Morning Walks has won four Grammies this year for the composer, the soprano soloist Dawn Upshaw and  production team. The recording features one of Australia’s finest ensembles, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, who will perform this song cycle in its upcoming Sydney season. Schneider has recently moved from working in jazz…

  Verdi was born in a small village in the Duchy of Parma where the baptismal register of  October 11th states that he was ‘born yesterday’. As days were sometimes counted as beginning at sunset, it is not clear whether he was born on the 9th or the 10th of October in 1813. Whichever way, it would be legitimate by now to celebrate…

  Sergei Prokofiev and William Shakespeare were born on April 23rd in 1891 and 1564 respectively. Here’s a tribute to both these men of genius. Valery Gergiev conducts the London Symphony Orchestra playing the Dance of the Knights from Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet.

Elina Garanca sings Saint-Saens Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix from Samson et Dalila, one of the tracks on her glorious new CD Romantique released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG 479 0071)

  Celebrating the birth anniversary of Franz Liszt, born October 22nd, 1811. Pianist Valentina Lisitsa plays the Hungarian Rhapsody No 2.