Are You An Orchestra Nerd?

You spend your weekends at rehearsal and your wardrobe is full of all-black outfits; you were in a quartet not a garage band……take this quiz from the Huffington Post and find out if you really are an orchestra nerd!

You spend your weekends at rehearsal and your wardrobe is full of all-black outfits; you were in a quartet not a garage band……take this quiz from the Huffington Post and find out if you really are an orchestra nerd!
Wagner specialist conductor Christian Thielemann’s reading of the complete Ring Cycle at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2011 was recognised as one of the greatest Wagnerian events of recent times. On August 2nd, Deutsche Grammophon releases a recording of this performance as a boxed set of 14 CDs of the four Ring operas and 2 DVDs featuring four…
So Silvio Berlusconi has finally stepped down. Recently, Alex Ross wrote about the indifference of the Berlusconi government to supporting the arts in Italy. (1) Ross also makes reference to the unprecedented action by Riccardo Muti, conducting Nabucco halted the performance and spoke to the audience about the situation. The response from both the chorus and the…
Last night, the English National Opera premiered a new production of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde Conducted by the ENO’s ex-music director Edward Gardner, designed by the artist Anish Kapoor and direction by Daniel Kramer – the company’s artistic director elect, the cast included Australian tenor Stuart Skelton as Tristan. Will it be the troubled ENO’s saving grace?…
Applications are now open for Ensemble Offspring’s 2017 Hatched Academy, an intensive music program aimed at providing practical experience to emerging innovative young Australian performers and composers. Ensemble Offspring is looking for composers and performers under 30 with a passion for the ‘sonic weird and wonderful’. Designed to provide practical experience, the Academy will equip artists…
An engaging new work by Sydney based Australian composer Andrew Schultz has been included on a recently released album, Winter’s Warmth, by the American label, Navona. Schultz’s Falling Man, Dancing Man (opus 68) is a three-movement concerto for orchestra and solo pipe organ. It was commissioned by Symphony Australia and written and premiered in 2005…
Composer Paul Stanhope made his mark on the 2011 APRA Art Music Awards announced last night. His compositions won Work of the Year in both Instrumental (String Quartet No 2) and Vocal/Choral categories. (Deserts of Exile). Sydney audiences were mesmerised by “Deserts of Exile” when the Sydney Chamber Choir performed it in their “Lamentations” programme a few…