Piano Facts
This short feature from the BBC Music magazine has some interesting facts about the piano as well as a video on how a grand piano is built. Magnificent!
This short feature from the BBC Music magazine has some interesting facts about the piano as well as a video on how a grand piano is built. Magnificent!
Some years ago I attended a concert at the Vienna Konzerthaus. Sopranos Montserrat Caballe and her Callas look-alike daughter Monserrat Marti gave a superb rendition of solos and duets for female voices. The hall was packed; the audience brought them out – and they graciously obliged – for three encores. On the premise that one good…
This compelling 2 hour documentary is available on SBS at the link below until 3.15 pm on November 30th, 2013. Centred around the creation of Britten’s last opera Death in Venice, it contains footage of Britten, his colleagues and carers at work and being interviewed, as well as the health issues that led to his death in…
‘Art for art’s sake’ is becoming an increasingly remote concept in 21st century Australia as performing arts bodies are expected to function according to business models and boost their bottom line from private sources. Are these expectations realistic – and who evaluates the bodies that make the funding decisions? The Australia Council for the Arts which…
Dame Nelli Melba was born on May 19th 1861. Today marks the sesquicentenaryof her birth in Melbourne. Australia Post has released a stamp to commemorate the occasion. Good enough reason to actuall post a letter, rather than send an email! On the stamp is fellow Victorian Rupert Bunny’s salon portrait of the great soprano. Did…
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…
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?…