Latest news
Head of School at ANU Music to take leave
Following the dramatic cuts to the ANU School of Music, in news just to hand, the Head of School Professor Adrian Walter has been instructed to take extended leave, returning to work only if he agrees to implement the changes announced last week. http://citynews.com.au/2012/news/music-school-chief-told-to-take-leave/
‘The Voice’ – an academic voices her thoughts.
Dr Rowena Cowley, is a senior lecturer in voice and opera at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and President of the Australian National Association of Teachers of Singing. She is also a friend of Sounds Like Sydney. She voices her thoughts on the hit Channel 9 star seeker show – The Voice: http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=6&newsstoryid=9139C
Sydney’s ‘House’ in Lego
If you thought you’d seen it all when Mattel released its Opera House Barbie doll, resplendent in ocean coloured mermaid dress with swirls of white, think again. Now Lego have released its vision of the Sydney Opera House as part of its Architect series, placing the distinctive building alongside others in this collection which includes New York’s Guggenheim Museum, the Burj Khalifa…
Deconstructing the music degree at the ANU School of Music
Last week we learnt with horror of the slashes to the teaching programme at the ANU School of Music. As the School of Music’s own website acknowledges: “With over 1,200 graduates in its 45 year history, ANU School of Music alumni are scattered around Australia and the world, teaching, composing, performing and researching”. The school’s alumni…
Hot off the press….
* More from the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s US tour: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/tognetti-adds-another-string-to-his-bow-20120504-1y46y.html * Composed in 2009 to commemorate the devastating bush fires that year, Brett Dean’s Fire Music was performed in Adelaide over the weekend. Read the review as well an interview in which Brett Dean talks to his publishers Boosey and Hawkes about Fire Music: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/music/visceral-masterpiece-conjures-up-fear-in-fire/story-fn9d2mxu-1226348104697…
Kurt Masur injured
Kurt Masur has reportedly fractured hs shoulder blade after falling off the podium during a performance in Paris: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-kurt-masur-june-20120430,0,127614.story …and in Colorado, a conductor has collapsed and died during performance of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. As this is a work for organ and not for orchestra, it is unclear whether the deceased…
Latest reviews
‘Messiah’ at St James’ King Street: a listener’s perspective
Whatever the diet of musicians in Handel’s time, his performers must certainly have had tremendous stamina. ‘Messiah’ as Handel intended, for a chamber sized ensemble is a massive test of endurance, requiring a technique that supports the power of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’, the coloratura of ‘All we like sheep’ and the hushed sostenuto of ‘Since by man came death’. After all this comes the mighty…
The Australia Ensemble reviewed
Peter McCallum reviews the Australia Ensemble for the Sydney Morning Herald. (Even the SMH makes typos!) http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/review/gig/australia-ensemlbe-20120318-1vdnw.html