April Highlights

 

Chamber/cello

 – There are two outstanding chamber music events in April with the Sitkovetsky Trio presented by Music Viva performing the music of Smetana, Beethoven (the Archduke Trio) and the world premiere of a new work by Carl Vine, commissioned for Music Viva by Julian Burnside AO QC to commemorate the composer’s 60th birthday.

April 5 at 2 pm, City Recital Hall. Click here for more.

– The Italian composer and cellist Giovanni Solima joins the Australian Chamber Orchestra directed from the violin by Richard Tognetti at the end of the month. The concert programme includes Solima’s own work L.B. Files inspired by a cello concerto by Luigi Boccherini, which Solima will also perform. As well, works by Respighi, Verdi and the evergreen Cello Concerto in C by Haydn.

April 29, 30, May 2,3, City Recital Hall. Click here for more

Symphony/ Cello

– There is more from the cello repertoire when the Sydney Symphony Orchestra welcomes conductor Oleg Caetani, previously chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra with American cellist Lynne Harrell. In the programme called Heavenly Schubert, they will perform music by Cherubini, Shostakovich (the Cello Concerto No 2) and Schubert (Symphony No.9, Great C Major). 

April 10, 11, 12, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. Click here for more

 Choral 

– The Sydney Chamber Choir conducted by its new director elect Richard Gill OAM, presents Faure’s Requiem, Stravinsky’s Mass for choir and wind, the world premiere of Mary Finsterer’s Kyrie and excerpts from Palestrina’s Music for Maundy Thursday. The ensemble is joined by the The Metropolitan Orchestra with soloists soprano Belinda Montgomery and baritone Alexander Knight. 

 April12, City Recital Hall. Click here for more.

– The tale of the Passion as narrated by JS Bach’s mighty St John Passion is presented by the Choir of Christ Church St Laurence and the St Laurence Baroque Orchestra conducted by Dr Neil McEwen, with soloists Jacob Lawrence, Craig Everingham, David Russell, Josie Ryan, Hannah Fraser and Joel Scott.

April 5 and 6, Christ Church St Laurence, Sydney. Tickets at the door. Click here for more.

Piano 

In the Utzon Room at the Sydney Opera House, pianist Johanna MacGregor, performs selections from the often twinned Preludes and Fugues of J S Bach and Shostakovich. Currently Head of Piano at the Royal Academy of Music, with a swathe of concerts, recordings, directing and academic positions in her wake, she will also perform Musical Toys by the contemporary Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina noted for using unusual instruments in her writing, and the Six Tangos of Astor Piazzolla.

April 6, Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House. Click here for more.

Song

Katie Noonan and Circa’s captivating Love-Song-Circus is a powerful ode to the strength and endurance of the first female convicts in Australia. After glowing reviews for its Adelaide and Melbourne seasons, Love-Song-Circus is coming to Sydney for the first time in 2014. The Brisbane-based Circa joins Noonan, a four-time Aria Award winning and seven-time platinum selling artist who created this project after seeing an exhibition of love token pennies dating from 1762. 

April 2,3, City recital Hall. Click here for more.

New Music

At the Riverside Theatre in Parramatta, the Aurora Festival 2014 celebrates its opening night. The performers include saxophonist James Nightingale, Roland Peelman, Daryl Pratt, Claire Edwards, didgeridoo player Mark Atkins, members of The NOISE, Ensemble Offspring and the Sydney Conservatorium Modern Music Ensemble.They will perform music by Alex Pozniak, The NOISE, Ekrem Mulayim and Xenakis, some of them world premieres.

The concert will feature the world premiere of Voyage through radiant stars by the Australian composer, Brian Howard. 

April 30, Riverside Theatre, Parramatta.

 riversideparramatta.com.au or auroranewmusic.com.au