Warwick Fyfe’s hunch-backed sociopathic jester heads a fine cast in this new production of Verdi’s classic. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Italian cellist plays, dances and sings while taking us (and his instrument) on a whistle-stop tour.

It may only take two to tango, but it takes more than that to make a great musical. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

WASO and Gomyo capture the energy and inventiveness of the great American composers. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

They died (relatively) young and stayed (relatively) pretty. So who were classical music's biggest losers?

The Montenegrin musician who is conquering the world (and the charts) with an Aussie instrument. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

  YouTube is the most extraordinary repository of documentaries on all sorts of subjects. I found myself last night watching a feature-length report from American news anchor Dan Rather investigating the mess that is the Detroit Public Schools system. Schools closed and falling into ruin like modern day Stonehenges, a totally dysfunctional school board, infighting and misappropriation of funds, no text books , teachers who are demoralized and at the bottom of everything students who have given up, are semi if not fully illiterate and who will make up a lost generation, unable to fund work or a future in the crumbling, fire-wrecked mess that is Detroit, a city that used to be the fourth largest in the richest country on earth. Of course, we have problems here in Australia (and there would be some Aboriginal communities who would look at the Detroit experience and feel they’d seen it all before) but we are living in a paradise compared to downtown Motown. But as this column is called a Soapbox and my natural human inclination is to complain about everything, here we go. It is depressing that music has dropped off the education radar in Australia. Not in the well-funded private…

The 27-year-old Chinese piano star talks about her influences, standing in for Argerich and doing her own laundry. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize winning Little Match Girl Passion is Australia bound, but is it opera? Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

"Composers Doing Normal Shit" on Tumblr has caused an Internet frenzy, highlighting the normality (and craziness) of musical lives.

Chief Conductor David Robertson will head a seven-city Chinese musical odyssey in June. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Whether this delights or sends you screaming up the wall, there’s no mistaking this film’s uniqueness.