As the world remembers fallen soldiers this week and the year marks the centenary of WW I, conductor Marin Alsop writes about the enduring power of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem and why it is unique amongst sacred works.
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Do the sung arts have to be monolinguistic to be “accessible” ? The intrinsic quality of the language is why Janacek sounds so wonderful in Czech; and Britten in English To take the idea to its extreme, the Czechs would be translating “Porgy and Bess” into Czech, and “Peter Grimes” would sung in Italian; opera companies would never be able to…
Spotify, came to Australia this week. The Swedish digital music streaming service was launched in October 2008, and has clocked up a colossal 10 million users in less than 4 years. With three different levels of service Spotify offers capability of creating playlists, share music, browse artists, biographies and similar music, from a repository of millions of tracks. Spotify is available for your PC, Mac,…
It was in July that pianist Yuja Wang dazzled Australian audiences with her performances, described as “dazzling…tender…(and) stylish” (Sydney Morning Herald). She is now poised to release a new recording in Australia, entitled Ravel (available October 23, 2015) on the Deutsche Grammophon label, on which she performs with the celebrated Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich under young conductor Lionel…
The highly-acclaimed Australian composer Liza Lim has joined the University of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music to mentor and grow the reputation of women composers in this country. Liza Lim has been commissioned by some of the world’s pre-eminent orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, BBC Symphony, and Germany’s WestdeutscherRundfunk and SudwestRundfunk orchestras, and…
The “visceral, ethereal quality of his playing” has likened him to Liszt, but it is the music of Rachmaninov which piano wunderkind Daniil Trifonov has been recording for release in Australia next month (September 11, 2015). Described by the Washington Post as “a pianist ahead of his time”, Trifonov says of Rachmaninov, “he is one of my…
Andrea Bocelli has released his 14th studio album Passione, a collection of 13 French, Latin and English love songs. He teams up with Jennifer Lopez in a duet of Quizas, Quizas, Quizas and with Nelly Furtado to sing the Antonio Carlos Jobim classic Corcovado – Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars. The voice of Edith Piaf echoes from the past in…