Tabla de contenidos para June 2018 en Limelight

WITH STRINGS TO OUR HEART... Our hearts were given a little lift recently when 10-year-old Melbourne violinist Christian Li made history as the youngest ever winner of the Junior First Prize at the Menuhin Competition (see our story in News). Limelight had been following Christian’s progress through the Competition and his success took our website by storm. Speaking to Limelight, he was surprised and excited, but with his feet firmly on the ground. I heard him a week or so later talking to ABC radio and he explained that when he played Vivaldi’s Summer from The Four Seasons at the Competition Final, he imagined a shepherd leading the sheep to better grass, before a storm came. It was gorgeous listening. “I’d like to be a soloist like Maxim Vengerov [who…

HAPPILY SUBSCRIBED When I made my regular visits to the Sydney Conservatorium library I usually picked Limelight up to read but as I was thinking of submitting a book review [Beyond Bach in the May 2018 issue] I thought I should get to know the magazine better and subscribed. Now, I keep a bookmark in the current issue to see that I don’t miss something. It is such a rich trove. Thank you Jo, and all the others who read, write and support it. Dennis Dorwick, Jannali, NSW HERE’S TO TOBY CHADD ABC Classic FM has a new Content Manager. Whacko. Let us hope this includes website content and that being “absolutely conscious of the different audiences we are reaching out to” means that Toby Chadd has read the countless…

Ten-year old Australian violinist Christian Li has made history at the 2018 Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition in Geneva as the youngest ever winner of the Junior First Prize, taking out equal first with 11-year old Chloe Chua from Singapore. It was the first time joint winners had been awarded. Li, who played Summer from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Jaehyuck Choi’s new work Self in Mind in the final round with the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, also took out the Audience Prize. In addition to 10,000 Swiss Francs worth of prize money, Li and Chua will each be granted a one-year loan of an Italian violin by Florian Leonhard Fine Violins. Both violinists performed alongside the Senior Competition winner, 18-year-old Armenian violinist Diana Adamyan, in the Competition’s Closing Gala Concert with…

Chick Corea Akoustic Band Chick Corea p, Dave Weckl drums, John Patitucci db GRP 95822 My late jazz teacher Fergus Read got me into this album when I was 15 and it blew my mind. The interplay between the musicians is exhilarating and pushes all three of them to ever greater inventiveness. JS Bach Goldberg Variations Andras Schiff p DECCA 4757508 Bach is the one composer I never get tired of and I personally prefer hearing it on modern instruments. This interpretation is beautifully clear and Schiff’s playing is delicate and tasteful. Perfect for an evening in with a glass of wine... Paul Abraham Viktoria und ihr Husar Orchester des Nordwestdeutschen Rundfunks Köln/ Marszalek LINE MUSIC 501146 I’ll be conducting the German premiere of Abraham’s Märchen im Grand Hotel in…

HUGUETTE TOURANGEAU 1938 – 2018 The French-Canadian mezzo-soprano Huguette Tourangeau has died at the age of 79. Perhaps best known to audiences as a frequent recording partner of Joan Sutherland’s, Tourangeau was unsurprisingly a virtuosic singer with abundant gifts. Born August 12, 1938 in Montreal, she studied at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal in 1958. Her operatic debut occurred in 1964 as Mercédès in Carmen, conducted by Zubin Mehta. That same year, Tourangeau won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, and sang Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro at the Stratford Festival with Richard Bonynge at the podium. Not long after that she began performing regularly with Bonynge and Sutherland, with notable recordings including Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Handel’s Rodelinda, Massenet’s Esclarmonde and Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots. “She was…

My generation of Australian composers was different to the preceding one, they didn’t wear suits and ties, didn’t work on the staff of the ABC, got jobs at universities, composed for newly formed ad hoc ensembles, and most of all had writers like Roger Covell or Maria Prerauer to champion them in public. As it turned out, I wasn’t like any of them either. For a start, after 11 years as a loyal, self-effacing second bassoonist, I got myself thrown out of the ABC’s Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, by the self-same aforementioned suit and tie composers. But then, if I hadn’t been thrown out of the orchestra, I would never have composed my landmark Australische Meisterwerke – quite something for someone born in Wuppertal, Germany. There’s the Theme from Rush, the…

Among the 19th-century’s numerous musical skirmishes, one of the more waspish has to be that between Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner. It didn’t help that they were cast on opposite sides in the famous War of the Romantics, but it’s fair to say that the annointed representatives of the musical future never got on. Over the years there were several frosty, if at least polite encounters, and behind the scenes a great deal of private lampoons – it was likely Wagner who put it about that Brahms used to kill stray cats with a Bohemian Hunting Bow gifted him by Dvor˘ák – but their greatest feud appears to have revolved around a long-disputed score and a bundle of letters to a milliner. It all began in 1864 when the virtuoso…

BORN SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA STUDIED SYDNEY CONSERVATORIUM OF MUSIC LIKES LAST WEEK TONIGHT, CHORAL MUSIC, HARRY POTTER DISLIKES HUMID WEATHER, EGOS, NOISY ENVIRONMENTS What are your early musical memories? I remember my uncle Waleed entertaining my sister and me by singing and playing funny songs on the piano. I also remember my parents and grandparents singing along to Fairouz, who is a famous Lebanese pop singer. My grandfather also played the oud, and as a kid in the late 90s and early 2000s, I’m pretty sure I was The Wiggles’ biggest fan. When and how did you first become interested in composition? I was 12 when I first started making things up on the piano. When I was 14, my sister Lauren introduced me to Beethoven and I became (and will…

In Ingmar Bergman’s 1978 autobiography Laterna Magica, he wrote about Bach’s joy:“All through my conscious life, I had lived with what Bach calls his joy. It had carried me through crises and misery and functioned as faithfully as my heart, sometimes overwhelming and difficult to handle, but never antagonistic or destructive. Bach called this state his joy, a joy in God. Dear Lord, may joy not leave me.“ It was an astonishing confession, coming from a man who in many of his films concluded that religion provides no answers and little comfort. Few directors have so relentlessly explored the human condition and questioned the existence of God. Bergman’s admission that he was totally devoted to Bach came as less of a surprise. It had been evident all along on the…

LIVED 1887 – 1959 MOSTLY IN RIO DE JANEIRO AND PARIS BEST KNOWN FOR BACHIANAS BRASILEIRAS, CHÔROS, GUITAR CONCERTO, SOLO GUITAR WORKS SIMILAR TO MILHAUD, STRAVINSKY I am a child of nature”. This immodest statement was uttered by composer Heitor Villa-Lobos to an audience in Los Angeles during his first visit to the US in 1944. If it clearly surprised the novelist Érico Veríssimo, who was acting as Villa-Lobos’s translator from the Portuguese, it is, perhaps, a more accurate description of this remarkable musician than it might at first appear. Villa-Lobos is one of those rarities in music: a great composer who taught himself. As a child he was instructed in cello and clarinet by his father, a librarian by day but also a fine amateur musician.Villa-Lobos also mastered the…

This is your third disc of Mozart concertos. What is your fascination with these works? One keeps discovering layers in this music that seem to be endless. The depth of this music astonishes me. I feel like centuries of culture are being synthesised and put into those scores. What individual characters do you find in the C Major (No 25) and the B Flat (No 27)? The C Major is heroic and brilliant. The B Flat is intimate and somewhat sad. By pairing the two works I wanted to bring out the contrast of their respective characters. What differences do you find between Mozart’s late piano concertos and other composers’ works from that period? The richness of interactions between the piano, the individual instruments in the orchestra, the originality of…

Beethoven Piano Sonatas Volume 7 Jonathan Biss p JB RECORDINGS MM18037 “So, why am I throwing myself into Beethoven, whose music, more than any other, demands both laser-like focus and total abandon? Why drive myself crazy in this particular way?” Why indeed record the Beethoven sonatas again? Young American pianist Jonathan Biss is close to completing his nine-year, nine-disc project. Undaunted by his predecessors, and enterprising and eloquent, he was the first classical musician to publish a Kindle single as he embarked on the cycle in 2011, a meditation on playing these oft-performed scores called Beethoven’s Shadow. In Volume 7, he shapes his program around one of the late sonatas, The Tempest, the best-known of the Op 31 set, opening with one of Beethoven’s earliest teaching pieces, Sonata No 2…

“She doesn’t overdo the femme fatale thing, painting a more introspective Carmen” Anita Rachvelishvili Operatic arias Anita Rachvelishvili ms, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI/ Giacomo Sagripanti SONY 19075808752 Let’s get one thing out of the way. The engineering on this anticipated release does no justice whatsoever to the size, depth or colour of rising star Anita Rachvelishvili’s very fine instrument. A throwback to the past, it’s one of those rich, fruity mezzos with chest for days, but unlike so many of those golden age singers, it’s wielded with considerable taste and control. Although it’s not the most exciting offering in terms of repertoire, with most of the selections mezzo bread and butter, Rachvelishvili’s stylish singing and vivid characterisations more than make up for the fatigue of hearing the Habañera for…

It remains one of the most remarkable, bracingly modern works in the canon In 1946, mere months after the horrifying conclusion to World War II, the very first meetings of the General Assembly and Security Council of the United Nations took place. Established with 51 member states, the stated aim of the organisation was to ensure another such conflict never occurred. That resolution was motivated by the litany of nightmares coming to light about the atrocities committed during the course of the war, prominent among them the novel Se questo è un uomo (If This Is a Man) by Italian chemist Primo Levi, narrating his experiences in Auschwitz. But proving that there is always someone ready to make a quick buck through shock tactics, 1946 also saw the introduction of…

Snow White Choreographed to Mahler symphonies, this visually ravishing production gives the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale an erotic charge. Ballet Preljocaj, Sydney Opera House, June 6 – 10 Verve Showcasing the invention of The Australian Ballet’s choreographic talent with works by three very different dancemakers. The Australian Ballet, Melbourne, June 21 – 30 Genesis Pure imagination and raw talent comes to full fruition as dancers release their flair and skill in this exciting mini-season of short works. West Australian Ballet, June 27 – 30…

PREVIEW Growing up in Adelaide, Sarah Snook won a drama scholarship to the city’s prestigious school Scotch College. “It had a really good performing arts program there. Strangely enough, my drama teacher there, who was excellent and a great inspiration, he wanted to put on Joan of Arc whilst I was there, for me to play Joan,” says Snook. “It never eventuated but he’d always be like ‘you should play Joan at some point’, and I was like ‘yeah, maybe I will’, so it’s nice coming full circle like that. I wanted to email him and tell him it’s on.” Snook is about to star in George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan for Sydney Theatre Company, directed by Imara Savage. Telling the story of the 15th century French military figure, who…

BLACK IS THE NEW ENRIGHT THEATRE Nakkiah Lui’s smash hit, incisive romantic comedy Black is the New White has won the Nick Enright Prize for Playwriting at this year’s NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. The Nick Enright Prize recognises a play or music drama that is first premiered in Australia, and comes with a $30,000 cash prize for the playwright. Centring on a disastrous dinner, Black is the New White explores Indigenous identity and how it interacts with and is shaped by class, as well as the complexities of contemporary Indigenous and white relations. DOUBLE THE HELPMANN THEATRE The Helpmann Awards will be held over two nights for the very first time this year. The newly announced Curtain Raiser Ceremony takes place at Sydney Town Hall on July 15, celebrating those…

PREVIEW Serious cinemagoers in the capital cities can hardly fail to have noticed the burgeoning number of film festivals dedicated to a single nation (Russia, France et al) or region (Scandinavia, Latin America). If there’s a downside to this largely happy state of affairs it’s the creeping feeling of overload, and the sense that when the number of international titles becomes a flood curating standards are being diluted. Many fine films are screened at these festivals among many, alas, of lesser interest, which means working out what to see can be alarmingly hit-and-miss. While the same applies to a degree to larger events such as Melbourne and Sydney film festivals, these institutions’ curating standards tend to be more rigorous, wide-ranging and likely to include work of aesthetic ambition. More commercial…

Australia’s rapidly rising star of the violin Grace Clifford has been studying in Philadelphia following her ABC Young Performers Award win in 2014 when she was 16. Clifford returns to Australia this year for a number of concerts around the country, including with the Adelaide, West Australian and Canberra Symphony Orchestras, but listeners also have several opportunities to hear her on the radio. On June 2, hear her performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra – with whom she performed in the ABC Young Performers and where she is now Artist in Residence – under the baton of Mark Wigglesworth. “I think the challenge with a work that audiences know and love so well is to try and hear it as it might have been heard…

Donizetti’s La Favorite has always been overshadowed by some of his big hitters – Lucia di Lammermoor, L’Elisir d’Amore and Don Pasquale, to name a few – despite containing some of his more inventive writing. Written at a time of emotional turmoil for the composer (he had just lost his wife in 1838), it deals with themes of forbidden love in the public eye. Namely, that of a king for his mistress, and that of the mistress for another man. La Favorite was a huge success at the time of its premiere – between the year of its creation in 1840 and 1904, Opéra de Paris had overseen something like 650 performances. Though less popular with audiences today, it recently enjoyed a much-lauded staging by Amelie Niermeyer at Munich State…

SCORECLOUD “Like Google Translate for music,” proudly proclaims the ScoreCloud app. The latest in a long line of music notation gadgets, this one promises to turn your songs into sheet music with its world-class polyphonic music transcription. This means that users can play an instrument and have the app instantly notate for you, without requiring any fussy cables or MIDI instruments. “Anyone can use ScoreCloud, but it’s particularly useful for those who might find notating music complicated and need a straight-forward, affordable tool for practical music notation,” says co-founder Sven Ahlbäck. The app more or less lives up to Ahlbäck’s claim, with the user experience particularly commendable. Pleasingly clean and intuitively designed for even the most technologically challenged of users, there are certainly no irritations that would prevent repeat use.…

1. Which watery spirit links works by Debussy, Ravel and Hans Werner Henze? 2. Peterloo, The Fair Field and The Padstow Lifeboat are works by which composer? 3. Prokofiev and Kodály were responsible for which pair of musical tall tales? 4. Name the two Finnish composing brothers, one of whom is also a famous trombonist? 5. Which conductor founded the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in 1918? 6. Who wrote a musical theatrical parable (pictured) where a soldier sells his fiddle to the devil in return for a life of unlimited wealth? 7. What is the name of Sullivan’s early operetta where a canny landlord is letting the same room to two lodgers who work different shifts? 8. Which British playwright quipped that “People are wrong who say opera…

She sang her first phrase and I started shedding tears. That kind of says it all I grew up without television. As a family, we found other ways to entertain ourselves, often through music. I have a strong visual memory of records – actual vinyl LPs – everywhere in our home. Mostly jazz and blues, but no classical. We never quite bridged that divide. There was Ella Fitzgerald, Della Reese, even Joan Baez, all of whom I loved from an early age. And there was plenty of crooning, which was fun but led to bad habits. (As an adult, I took singing lessons for a few years and had to have all of that Dean Martin vibrato hammered out of me). Both of my parents were handy on vocals and…

VIER LETZTE LIEDER Jessye Norman, Philips 4758507 When I near the end of what I hope will be a long life, I’d be content to hear just one particular piece of music as I fade away: Strauss’s Vier Letzte Lieder. I’ve heard many recordings of this magnificent ode to life’s last stages, but there’s one that I find utterly unparalleled. That’s Jessye Norman. A few years ago, I was present at her recital at the Salle Pleyel. She sang her first phrase and, astonishingly, I started shedding tears. That kind of says it all.…

LINDY HUME OPERA COLUMN PAGE 20 Lindy is Artistic Director of Tasmania’s Ten Days on the Island festival. Previous roles include Artistic Director of Opera Queensland, the West Australian Opera, OzOpera, and Victorian State Opera. An internationally renowned director, Athalia is her fourth production for Pinchgut. PHILLIP SAMETZ CHAMBER ENSEMBLES PAGE 42 Phillip is a communications professional, arts administrator, writer, broadcaster, and founder of Sydney’s swing orchestra The Mell-O-Tones. For ABC Classic FM (2014 –2017), he presented Screen Sounds, Sunday Recital and Classic Breakfast as well as many live concerts. ALBERT EHRNROOTH INGMAR BERGMAN PAGE 48 Born in Finland, Albert grew up in Holland, and has lived in Belgium and Australia. He studied musicology, has worked as an actor, director and translator and is now an arts correspondent (acge.net). He…

I wish to add my comments to those expressed in the previous issue (Limelight, May) about the latest ABC Classic FM programming. As a looooonng time listener, overall I am pleased with the new line up of programs. In particular I have noted that since the New Year we have had more varied and new music being presented, which I think is really great for opening up we the listeners to what is “out there”. I have to say that I enjoy listening in particular to concert pianist Kristian Chong as he often has a personal relationship with the artists he presents in concert. Russell Torrance is absolutely great on the breakfast show, with just enough contribution from text messages to make a connection with the listeners as a whole.…

The Semi-Finalists have been announced for this year’s ABC Young Performers Awards. The biggest turn out was from the violins, with four musicians – Anna Da Silva Chen, Riley Skevington, Emily Sun and Victoria Wong – making it through to the Semi-Finals, closely followed by the pianists, Robbin Reza, Tony Lee and Shuan Hern Lee. Cellists Benett Tsai and Waynne (Woo Seok) Kwon will also compete, alongside guitarist Andrey Lebedev, clarinettist Oliver Shermacher and violist Stefanie Farrands. The contestants are no strangers to competition, with the list of Semi-Finalists a who’s who of Australian rising star musicians. For instance, in addition to taking out first prizes at competitions such as the Kendall National Violin Competition, the Fine Music Network Young Virtuoso Award, Australian National Youth Concerto Competition and Sydney Conservatorium…

Cultural diplomacy and the exercise of soft power has been an important element that falls within the ambit of a comprehensive cultural policy. There are both cultural and economic dimensions to the promotion of a country’s culture abroad. Here in Australia we have always engaged in cultural exchange with other countries, including through programs such as Asialink Arts, and the cultural engagements pursued by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In this latter context, the conjunction of foreign affairs and trade is appropriate when the arts are involved, in view of the old adage “where culture leads, trade follows”. Although such a slogan may seem far-fetched, the fact remains that countries in our region are our major trading partners and economic relations with them are likely to be enhanced…

Facebook has been collecting our data and other organisations like Cambridge Analytica have been using it for their own purposes. What a surprise! Of course they have. I suppose it depends how much you reveal of yourself on a platform like Facebook and I am amazed at how people share the most intimate details of their health problems and break ups with such a wide audience of people. Facebook doesn’t exist in the natural world. You don’t find geese posting pictures on Facebook or bandicoots taking selfies, so we have a choice to be part of it, and how much to share with ‘friends’ or even distant acquaintances. After the Cambridge Analytica revelations I thought enough is enough, they won’t make another cent of spooky surveillance advertising revenue out of…

I DON’T THINK LUCIA IS WEAK OR FEEBLE AT ALL. SHE’S A GIRL WHO GOES OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT TO MEET A MAN. SHE ISN’T FRIGHTENED, SHE’S REBELLIOUS Was singing always a part of your life? Yes, I always sang. My father is a tenor and I used to watch him all the time, but he didn’t want me to study formally until my body and voice had developed. It was at 18 that he said I could start learning how to sing properly, so I left the trumpet behind and devoted myself to it. I actually did a lot of sculpture growing up, and was looking to study both at university – sculpture by day, singing by night. The uni didn’t let me: I think in…

“ I HAVE THOUGHT SOMETIMES ABOUT WHAT IF I HAD BECOME A PRIEST WHEN I WAS 21 RATHER THAN CARRYING ON BEING A MUSICIAN? WHAT WOULD I HAVE FACED IN MY MIDDLE AGE?” You’re playing the Paganini Rhapsody around Australia. Does the work have special meaning for you? I played it in teens first, very badly, in a half-learned sort of way with a youth orchestra somewhere in the Midlands. It was not a distinguished thing, so I put it aside. Not long after I’d won the Naumburg in 1985 I got a call from my manager who said, “Someone’s cancelled at the Hollywood Bowl in two days playing the Rachmaninov Rhapsody, can you go?” It was a great opportunity to play with the Los Angeles…

Scott Rankin was in a taxi on his way to Limelight when he got a phone call from the people who work for him in Roebourne, a town in the Pilbara in Western Australia. Once a gold rush town, it now has a largely Indigenous population and is known for its social dysfunction and high levels of child abuse. Since 2011, Rankin’s company Big hART has been working there, undertaking arts projects with people across the community. “[It] is an exquisite place and wonderful people, [though] incredibly traumatised and currently in the media for some very serious issues,” he says quietly. “And my discussion is that the cultural centre was trashed last night – so [you need to know] what kind of damage it was so you can identify who…

1887 Villa-Lobos is born on March 5 in Rio de Janeiro, at a time when Brazil is experiencing a period of social revolution and extensive modernisation. He is encouraged by his disciplinarian father to take up the cello, guitar and clarinet. 1907: He moves to the port town of Paranguá, where he works as a freelance musician while extending his practical explorations into Afro-Brazilian ethnic music. 1918: He meets the pianist Arthur Rubinstein in Rio during the latter’s tour of Brazil. The famous pianist goes on to become Villa-Lobos’s patron and performs A Prole do Bebê No 1, which launches his name in Europe. 1923: After exploring Europe he settles in Paris. Mingling with such luminaries as Picasso, Varèse and Prokofiev, his exoticism proves a winner with the city’s artistic…

Forty years old this year, Utah Opera was founded by the internationally successful tenor (and Mormon) Glade Peterson whose daughters Michelle and Leslie still hold key positions within the company. Supported by the fire power of the Utah Symphony in the pit, UO punches well above its weight, regularly attracting overseas attention thanks to world premieres like Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath and David Carlson’s Dreamkeepers. This year they helped launch a new production of Jake Heggie’s Moby Dick. Helmed by director Christopher McBeth since 2003, this is definitely a company to watch.…

Ravel • Debussy String Quartets Tinalley String Quartet DECCA 4816906 In 2016 Melbourne’s Tinalley Quartet – Adam Chalabi and Lerida Delbridge on violins, Justin Williams on viola, and then cellist Michelle Wood – played Ravel’s quartet in the first half of a typically adventurous concert with rock singer Lior in the Sydney Opera House’s Utzon Room. In my review I said Tinalley played with passion and commitment, adding: “It was a bit of a bumpy ride, but this was a colourful and full-throated reading.” The colour, passion and earthy quality are still there in their debut album with Decca, released in March this year, but there is plenty of French polish as well. There is also a change of personnel with Patrick Murphy – formerly of the Tankstream Quartet and…

Wagner Siegfried O’Neill t, Goerne b-bar, Cangelosi t, Melton s, Hong Kong Philharmonic/Jaap van Zweden NAXOS 8660413-16 (4CD) Following a fine Rheingold and even finer Walküre, Naxos’s Hong Kong Ring reaches Siegfried, so often the ‘problem child’ of a complete cycle. Not that it’s a washout as Jaap van Zweden helms this opera as impressively as he has its predecessors. The troubles stem from a mixed cast and a rather variable quality to some of the recorded sound. Of course, no Siegfried can succeed without vocal heft in the title role and New Zealand Heldentenor Simon O’Neill is on the money much of the time. His bright, if occasionally tight tone proves perfect for a thrilling forging scene and he’s still clearly powering forward in that exhausting final scene, his…

PREVIEW Speaking to me on the phone, Miranda Wallace, senior curator of International Exhibition Projects at the National Gallery of Victoria, is palpably excited, talking a mile a minute. She has every reason to be, what with the gargantuan exhibition she and her co-curators have pulled off over the last two years. This winter, the National Gallery of Victoria will be home to 200 works from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, spanning 130 years and featuring a bevy of big name artists like Gauguin, Mondrian, Dalí and Pollock. “I began working at the NGV in October of 2015 and started on this project that same week,” Wallace tells me. “Within four weeks I was in New York meeting my co-curators, Samantha Friedman and Juliet Kinchin. That the…

Halliwell overturns the rocks of mateship, cultural cringe and tall poppy syndrome MUSIC National Identity in Contemporary Australian Opera: Myths Reconsidered Michael Halliwell Routledge Press, HB, 238pp, $165 ISBN 9781472433275 An in-depth look at who’s really put the Aussie into Aussie opera National identity is a slippery concept at the best of times, and it’s only getting slipperier as Australia continues to grapple with everything from its colonial history and the Anzac mythology to its relationship with the Commonwealth, its regional neighbours and the USA. Thirteen years on from his book Opera and the Novel: The Case of Henry James, Australian critic and scholar Michael Halliwell dives into the murky waters of national identity in National Identity in Contemporary Australian Opera: Myths Reconsidered, examining Australian operas written since World War…

MONDAY - FRIDAY 6am Classic Breakfast Start your day with a delicious selection of the best in classical music 10am Classic Mornings Spend your morning with great music, including new releases and classic performances, plus the latest news and stories from the world of music 1pm Lunchtime Concert The best concerts from Australia and around the world 3pm Music in Time and more Music in Time / Legends / Passenger / Duet / Game Show 4pm Classic Drive A journey home through classical sounds, designed to relax, refresh and delight you 8pm Evenings Concerts from Australian and international ensembles plus music to help you wind down 12am Night Music Classical music that’s perfect for all-night listening, presented by some of your favourite ABC Classic FM voices SATURDAY 6am Weekend Breakfast…

The Danish photographer Nikolaj Lund is known for taking arresting, often unusual photographs of classical musicians and their instruments. Here he’s caught a trombonist at full throttle – but what might the player be thinking? ENTER TO WIN ... A boxload of Badura-Skoda The Badura-Skoda Edition Celebrating the pianist’s 90th birthday, Deutsche Grammophon presents a selection of his recordings from 1950-65. SEND YOUR CAPTION TO: Limelight Magazine, Suite 37, Level 13, 167 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000, or email caption@limelightmagazine.com.au For full terms and conditions, go to www.limelightmagazine.com.au. Authorised under NSW Permit Number: LTPM/14/00315 and ACT TP 14/01198.1.…

BARENBOIM SET FOR SYDNEY Daniel Barenboim will conduct the Staatskapelle Berlin in three concerts in November, the Sydney Opera House has confirmed. The legendary maestro will be conducting a complete Brahms Symphony cycle as well as Beethoven’s Eroica and Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony across three nights. This is the first time Barenboim has brought the orchestra to Australia. SLAVA WALKS ON AIR This year’s nominations for the AIR Awards’ best independent classical album have been announced, with guitarist Slava Grigoryan picking up two nods. He is nominated alongside his brother, Leonard, for Songs Without Words, as well as for his Bach Cello Suites Volume II. The Australian Chamber Orchestra’s collaboration with Jonny Greenwood, Water/Night Music, has also been nominated, as has Paul Stanhope’s Lux Aeterna and Kate Miller-Heidke’s Live at the…

1. Your career as a chamber musician is at least as extensive as your career as a soloist. What attracts you to chamber music? The repertoire. A life without the pieces having been written in the field of chamber music would be very poor. 2. How important is it to you to work with contemporary composers? It is essential and should be part of every musician’s life. Only through the process of working with a composer nowadays do you get a glimpse of what a composer in the past might have meant by using the notation he chose. You get an insight into the composer’s mind by being part of the evolution from a first idea, revision and final notation. Learning and performing a piece for the first time gives…

Anna Netrebko has added another role to her extensive CV with a run in David McVicar’s new production of Tosca at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Playing alongside the Cavaradossi of her husband Yusif Eyvazov and German baritone Michael Volle as Scarpia, Netrebko earned a standing ovation on opening night and was generally lauded in the American press. “I can’t remember when I’ve seen such a shattering performance of this opera’s harrowing second act,” enthused New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini.…

I find the idea of a concerto somewhat suspect. Why create a piece of such clear hierarchy, where the listener focuses on one (or in some instances, two or three) characters? Is it a ritual? Is it a glorification of physical virtuosity? Or is it simply a way to explore the multiplicity of musical consciousness? Valid as these reasons may be, what interests me most about the concerto is its ability to reflect social structures – like the harpsichord in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, a humble servant who usurps the supremacy of the orchestra with a florid, extended cadenza – a moment that could be understood as a musical “storming of the Bastille". Or the violin in Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto, whose rhapsodic figurations, refusing to bend to…

“There’s nothing to be done in this ghastly country, and I can’t leave it quickly enough. I’m waiting till the German translation of Faust is finished before setting forth to find cities more hospitable than our rascally Paris. Only barnyard fowls live happily on their own dung heaps.” With that, Hector Berlioz slammed the door on his native land, supposedly shutting up shop as a composer forever. The year was 1846, and though the Parisian critics had on the whole applauded his Damnation of Faust, the slushy winter streets had put off a bewildered public and Berlioz, self-funding his work as usual, had lost his shirt. The following years saw him trekking from St Petersburg to London, building a reputation as the greatest conductor of his age. But not a…

For Korean soprano Sumi Jo, moving to Italy from Seoul in 1983 to study at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia was a culture shock. But some 35 years later she’s obviously very much at home and she brushes off the early hour of our phone interview. “I usually wake up at six to take care of my three dogs,” she explains. “So for me at 7:30, my day has already started.” The lyric coloratura soprano made her debut as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto in 1986 and has gone on to become one of the highest selling classical singers in the world, returning to Australia – she was last here in 2016 for her A Tribute to Maria Callas tour and an appearance at Canberra’s Voices in the Forest – for…

Piano Works Nelson Freire p WARNER CLASSICS 2564609024 Freire is all elegance and technical brilliance interpreting a range of Villa-Lobos’s remarkable works for solo piano. Complete Chôros & Bachianas Brasileiras São Paulo Symphony Orchestra/John Neschling BIS BISCD1830/32 (8CD) The definitive readings of Villa-Lobos’s unique compositional genres, and an excellent introduction to his inventiveness. Complete String Quartets Cuarteto Latinoamericano DORIAN SONO LUMINUS 90904 Vibrant, intimate and masterful interpretations of Villa-Lobos’s finest accomplishments in chamber music. Floresta do Amazonas Anna Korondi s , São Paulo Symphony Orchestra & Chorus/John Neschling BISSACD1660 This 80-minute tone poem, written for an enormous orchestra and chorus with solo soprano teems with the sounds of the Brazilian rain forest.…

“Anderszewski and his band explore every corner of these pieces for expressive possibilities” Mozart Piano Concertos Nos 25 and 27 Piotr Anderszewski p, Chamber Orchestra of Europe WARNER CLASSICS 9029572422 These are hidden operas, says Piotr Anderszewski of Mozart’s piano concertos, but he also says that he understands these works as chamber music. That may seem contradictory, but only until you hear the results. This is the playing of someone who has lived with this music for decades but continues to seek new meaning in every bar. One of the many delights of this album is hearing Anderszewski and his marvellous band explore every corner of these pieces for expressive possibilities, and yes the results can be simultaneously operatic and intimate. Take the Larghetto from Piano Concerto No 27. The…

Ferdinand Ries Piano Concertos Nos 8 and 9 et al Piers Lane p, The Orchestra NOW/Botstein HYPERION CDA68217 Hyperion continues its gargantuan archaeological dig for obscure romantic piano concertos with Volume 75 dedicated to Beethoven’s pupil and assistant Ferdinand Ries. The ever-reliable Australian pianist Piers Lane is in wonderful form on this delightful disc, admirably supported by The Orchestra NOW, a training band of musicians from around the world under the steady baton of Leon Botstein. A London music journal in the 1820s praised Ries’s playing as being often surprising and “distinguished from that of all others by romantic wildness”. Beethoven had been taught violin by Ries’s father Franz Anton and then took Ferdinand on as his pupil and assistant. He helped Beethoven stage his gigantic 1808 benefit concert which…

“Lugansky’s technique is transcendental with miraculous feats of pedalling” Rachmaninov 24 Preludes Nikolai Lugansky p HARMONIA MUNDI HMM902339 Nikolai Lugansky is an exemplar of the Russian Piano School; his impeccable pedigree includes study with the legendary Tatiana Nikolayeva and Sergei Dorensky, both able to trace a lineage back through Ginzberg, Goldenweiser and Siloti to Liszt. Despite a formidable career in the concert hall, his discography has been an uneven affair veering between major and boutique labels – I suspect the less compelling releases lacked a firm hand on the tiller; it takes an experienced producer to challenge and prod an artist for that elusive take to keep for posterity. This latest offering of his meat and potatoes repertoire suggests he has found the right crew and hopefully Harmonia Mundi will…

“Highlights include Liszt’s Transcendental Études , played with enviable fluency at the age of 73” Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau (1903 – 1991) had a direct connection to Liszt through his teacher Martin Krause. Renowned throughout his long career for a virtuoso technique and incredible stamina – he once played all Bach’s keyboard works from memory over 12 recitals – Arrau kept his pianistic skills well into old age. From the mid-1960s until his retirement he recorded exclusively for Philips, covering all the Beethoven Sonatas and Concertos (twice), Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, and Liszt. During those years his scrupulous musicianship intensified, and critics began to use adjectives like “colossal” and “reverent”. Now Universal has released a handsome 80-disc box set of his Philips recordings. Highlights (for me) include…

PREVIEW Were Indigenous Australians hunter-gatherers prior to colonisation? Author Bruce Pascoe thinks not. In 2014, Pascoe, an Indigenous Bunurong man born in Victoria, published a non-fiction book called Dark Emu: Black Seeds, Agriculture or Accident? which challenges the widely held notion. Instead, he put forward evidence that they cultivated domesticated plants, built permanent dwellings, and developed sophisticated systems of governance and sustainable land care for thousands of years across the country. The book struck a chord with Stephen Page, Artistic Director of Bangarra Dance Theatre, who is using it to inspire the company’s major new work for 2018, Dark Emu. Page has worked with playwright Alana Valentine as dramaturg – a role she played on Bangarra’s sold-out 2017 production of Bennelong – to create a loose storyboard. He then invited…

Bliss Peter Carey's classic Australian novel performed by a terrific ensemble cast. Entertaining and a little bit epic, it might just offer a vision of hope... Belvoir, Sydney, June 9 – July 15 Marjorie Prime In the not too distant future, a special service has been introduced to resurrect loved ones in holographic form. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney, June 15 – July 21 Wild From Olivier Award-winning playwright Mike Bartlett comes this riveting contemporary thriller that promises to turn the world upside down. Melbourne Theatre Company, May 5 – June 9 The House of Bernarda Alba Patricia Cornelius takes Lorca’s classic tragedy out of the villages of Spain and into the heat of rural Western Australia. Melbourne Theatre Company, May 25 – July 7 Brothers Wreck In Darwin’s dry season, a…

Picasso: The Vollard Suite A set of etchings and engravings created by Picasso in the 1930s, many depicting mythological themes. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, until September 24 Zero Passing through a series of chambers, audiences will see important aspects of the Zero art movement that emerged post-World War Two. Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, until April 22 Julie Dowling – Babanyu Focusing on the First Nations Badimaya artist, Julie Dowling, and her eclectic paintings. Art Gallery of Western Australia, until August 13…

FICTION The Ensemble Aja Gabel Riverhead, PB, 352pp, $30 ISBN 9780525535072 Aja Gabel’s debut novel gives a riveting look into the high-stakes, cut-throat world of musicians, and of lives made in concert. The story of Brit and Henry and Daniel and Jana, The Ensemble is a heart-skipping portrait of ambition, friendship, and the tenderness of youth. NON-FICTION Chopin’s Piano Paul Kildea Allen Lane, HB, 354pp, $55 ISBN 9780241187944 In his new book, Chopin’s Piano, Australian conductor and author Paul Kildea traces the history of Frédéric Chopin’s 24 Preludes through the instruments on which they were played, the pianists who interpreted them and the traditions they came to represent. NON-FICTION Inventing the Opera House Eugene J Johnson Cambridge University Press, HB, 314pp, $87 ISBN 9781108421744 In Inventing the Opera House: Theater…

ARTSOUND FM CANBERRA INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL June 24 at 8pm The program for this year’s Canberra International Music Festival spanned an incredible range of music from Monteverdi, Bach and Handel to contemporary Australian composers such as Holly Harrison, Robert Davidson, Alex Pozniak and CIMF Composer in Residence Mary Finsterer. Artsound FM will be playing highlights from the festival at 8pm on Sunday June 24, and you can catch up on all the news, features and reviews from the festival on the Limelight website. “This year’s CIMF continues to build on its previous strengths and uniquely positioned character,” wrote Vincent Plush in his round-up of the festival’s opening weekend, describing “a program that engenders contemplation and reflection on the state of the world and humanity in general.” Limelight loves…