Listen to excerpts from Andreas Ottensamer’s new recording Portraits – The Clarinet Album, out on the Deutsch Grammophon label. He performs a diverse array of music by Spohr, Cimarosa, Debussy, Copland, Amy Beach and Gershwin, with the Rotterdam Philharmonic conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Tenor Rolando Villazon is back in full voice with his first recording in three years. Released by Deutsche Grammophon, the collection of Verdi arias celebrates the 2013 bi-centenary of the composer’s birth. Recorded in Turin, Italy with the Orchestra del Teatro Regio di Torino conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, it includes classics like Brindisi, La donna e mobile, Lunge da lei, Dal labbro…
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht, performed by the Thomanerchor of Leipzig. Composer Franz Xaver Gruber set the lyrics of Joseph Mohr to music in 1818, in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg in Austria. UNESCO declared this carol an intangible cultural heritage in March 2011.
When a performer releases a “Best of” collection CD, it usually means that they have a large enough discography from which to make the compilation. In this latest release from ABC Classics, tenor David Hobson delivers his first compilation CD with “popular” tracks chosen from recordings of the last few years. Not that opera and Lieder aren’t…
Irish soprano Orla Boylan is currently thrilling Sydney audiences in her performances as Senta in The Flying Dutchman with the Sydney Symphony. She first sang in Sydney with the SSO in early 2006 in a performance of Britten’s War Requiem conducted by Paul Kildea. Since then she has given stellar performances in Australia winning…
When Philip Glass handpicked some pianists to perform all of his Etudes together at the Barbican in London last year, Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson was one of them. The Financial Times claimed: “Best of all was Ólafsson in the supersensitive stillness of Etude 5.” To celebrate the 80th birthday of Philip Glass, Deutsche Grammophon have released a…
Sydney’s art-lovers have been captivated by The Lady and the Unicorn – the series of six intricate wool and silk tapestries (c1500) from Flanders which depict the six senses – sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell and desire. Featured prominently in the tapestry which depicts ‘hearing’ is a positive organ. The scene is an intriguing one…