During this year’s Lucerne Festival mestro Bernard Haitink conducts master classes for aspiring young professionals. The festival has been running since 1938 when the concerts in its first series were conducted by Toscanini.
Stuart Skelton was named the Best Male Singer at the 2014 International Opera Awards ceremony held under the auspices of Opera magazine at the Grosvenor House Hotel on London’s Park Lane last night. Simone Young featured as well, having conducted the Hamburg Staatsoper which won the award for Verdi anniversary production. Read the full list…
Jessye Norman – The Unreleased Masters, is a 3-CD set with never-before-heard recordings of one of the greatest classical singers of all time. Available on Decca Classics in late January. it features music by Wagner, R Strauss, Haydn, Berlioz and Britten.
Simone Young is in Brisbane to conduct the Australian Youth Orchestra. She comments on the Queensland state government’s slashing of music education in schools: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/conductor-heats-up-over-axed-programs/story-e6frg8n6-1226436119693
Enshrined in a healthy dose of scandal, Richard Strauss’ turn of the century opera Salome opens at the Sydney Opera House tomorrow. This Opera Australia production by Gale Edwards, revived by Andy Morton, features soprano Lise Lindstrom in the title role with a strong supporting cast headed by Jacqueline Dark in her defining role as…
Melbourne based pianist Hoang Pham, 28, took out the award for the 2013 ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year with a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1, opus 23 at last night’s Grand Final held at the Melbourne Town Hall. He performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Christopher Seaman. He wins…
Get a taste of Verdi’s rambunctious opera Verdi’s Falstaff which opened in Sydney last Friday. Warwick Fyfe sings the bawdy title role with Amelia Farrugia, Jacqueline Dark, Domenica Matthews, Lorina Gore, John Longmuir, Graeme McFarlane and Jud Arthur and Kanen Breen as the twin numbskulls Pistol and Bardolph adding burlesque and slapstick to their hugely demanding vocal performances….