So Arvo Pärt has won Composer of the Year at the 2011 Classic BRIT Awards, ahead of fellow nominees Eric Whitacre and Karl Jenkins. This shouldn’t really come as too much of a surprise. Whitacre and Jenkins are fine composers, but Pärt, the 75-year-old Estonian, is regarded almost reverentially in parts of the British music community. And why not? England offers a multitude of choirs specialising in precise tuning and expressive restraint, and an abundance of remarkable acoustics in which they can perform – all of which is ideally suited to music written in Pärt’s signature style, tintinnabuli. An Englishman, Paul Hillier, has had a big hand in rendering Pärt’s works accessible to audiences outside the former USSR. (The University of Sydney gave Pärt an honorary doctorate some years ago, but still we don’t see much of his music performed in Australia – though Paul Stanhope and his Sydney Chamber Choir may yet have a thing or two more to say about that). However much Pärt is now part of the furniture in Britain, though, he was a late discovery for the musicians there, and in fact was barely known in the Isles before the mid-1980s. A flurry of activity,…

As we are fast approaching the end of the semester, the Con is abuzz with ensembles applying the finishing touches to their concert programs. As a member of the SCM Chamber Choir, next Monday will be the culmination of three months’ work. So, if you happen to be in Sydney, I encourage you to come along to Verbrugghen Hall for a great program of works by Victoria, Purcell, Britten et al. Here is a poster with the details (designed by one of our multi-talented sopranos, Tristan Hons): I’ve also been busy rehearsing with the big choir and symphony orchestra for another special event taking place at the Con next week. You may have read my interview with Michael Nyman in the March issue of Limelight. Nyman will be here for the world premiere of his newly commissioned work for orchestra and choir, Doing The Rounds. Again, Verbrugghen Hall will be the place to be next Friday night (with a repeat performance on Saturday afternoon). See here for details. Finally, I hope you picked up a copy of the June issue of Limelight (which hit stands on Wednesday). In it, you’ll find my first full-length feature in which I explore the…

The Met by night. Time flies. I’m not sure if it says anything about the cities themselves — or the use I made of them — that eight weeks in London seemed blissfully long, whereas eight weeks in New York flew by almost before I knew it. Or maybe I’m just getting into the swing of this vagabond lifestyle. In any case, here I am in Florida now, for two weeks of relaxation, regrouping and repacking, before we head off yet again, this time for a Parsifal in Zürich and a Wozzeck in Santa Fe. New York turned out to be wonderful. I say “turned out” because unlike London, it wasn’t a city I warmed to immediately. It grew on me, however, and it’s safe to say that the Met played a large part in that. I liked having one of the world’s great opera houses almost literally around the corner from me, I liked actually knowing first hand what all the gossips on Parterre were being snippy (or otherwise) about, and I liked how remarkably quickly I became accustomed to seeing opera’s biggest names on stage. And I did manage to see quite a few of them. Natalie Dessay,…

Links: Cambridge Union classical debate Library of Congress Jukebox

Sydney Camerata performed our all-Mozart program yesterday at the City Recital Hall to an audience of over 600. For an ensemble such as ours to play in a fine venue like this was a real treat. Rehearsals began only five days prior to the concert but parts were posted out to musicians months ago so that they could arrive at rehearsals prepared. We had a number of musicians fly from interstate including our concertmaster Liz Gormley and trumpeter Matthew Dempsey, who are both currently working with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. We were also joined by timpanist Brent Miller from Brisbane. What I imagined to be an ambitious program to put together over a weekend came together remarkably well. I attribute this to the preparation of the musicians and the excellent directorship from our concertmaster Liz Gormley. I might point out for those that haven’t seen us before, our ensemble performs without a conductor and instead is directed from the first violin. This presents a number of challenges including keeping together rhythmically and being aware of various entries. On the positive side however, performing without a conductor for us is a liberating experience and allows for a greater sense of awareness…

Opera Australia’s production by Gale Edwards of La bohème — reportedly the first new production initiated by incoming Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini — opened in Melbourne last month, to great critical and audience acclaim. Conductor Christian Badea was kind enough to answer a few questions about the experience, and about what has made La bohème so beloved of audiences for so long. La bohème is one of the best-known and most frequently performed and recorded operas in the repertoire. How do you go about keeping it fresh and exciting for audiences who may have heard it dozens of times? La bohème is one of those musical scores which have endured the test of time because they are so strong and true and they connect instantly with the audience. I always study the score like it is new every time I conduct it, trying to bring out all the details and the composer’s intentions, and I make sure that it relates to the theatrical production on stage. How do you find the balance between orchestra and singers in a piece which is so character-driven and intimate, but full of such lush orchestral writing? Has the challenging acoustic of the Melbourne Arts Centre affected your approach to the…

Reckon you know what’s worth knowing about the European music scene?

As I mentioned in my last blog, a short piece I composed for duo Zentripetal a few months ago was being performed at a recital in New York on April 24. While I couldn’t be there, for obvious reasons, I just received a link to the video – so here it is (I’m not sure how long it will be there for): To recap, the invitation was to compose a 60-second piece for violin and cello. As you can see by the video length, it was performed a bit below tempo – but nobody’s perfect. I welcome any feedback.

It must have been a tough decision for the royal couple: commission some new music for the wedding, or snub the present complement of British composers in favour of the proven performers of yesteryear? Either choice ran the risk of embarrassing the current crop in a service that included Parry’s I Was Glad, the incomparable hymn Jerusalem, and whose full musical programme showcased the who’s who of early 20th-century composers from the Isles. With admirable courage, the pair went for the first option, and so two new works sounded forth in the Abbey on Friday: the anthem This is the day which the Lord hath made, by John Rutter, and Paul Mealor’s motet on the Ubi caritas text. We begin with the Rutter: Many will disagree, but to me Rutter really is the most insubstantial of British composers. Like Ross Edwards and Morten Lauridsen, he writes the same tired piece over and over again. This is the day features all his usual tricks, which are pretty easily listed: 1) naïve and clammily diatonic melodies and chord progressions; 2) the use of broken chords in the organ to disguise a strikingly minimal command of choral textures other than simple homophony; 3)…

For the past week i’ve been fortunate to have participated in the Australian Youth Orchestra’s Chamber Players program. I auditioned for this program as a member of the Sydney Camerata String Quartet and we were excited to be one of five quartets and three piano trios selected for a week of performances and intensive masterclasses with some of the finest chamber musicians coming to Sydney for the Musica Viva Festival 2011. I’ve taken part in this AYO program twice before in Brisbane and Armidale but, unlike this year, previously auditioned as an individual cellist and came to the program to be placed in a quartet of musicians who had never played together before. Those experiences were invaluable but this time having a pre-formed quartet gave a completely different focus. Having the opportunity to rehearse before meeting our mentors meant that we could really use the valuable time at the program to work on more advanced musical ideas. Our assigned mentors for the week were Dene Olding and Irena Morosova, two members of the Goldner String Quartet and two of the most inspirational musicians I have had the pleasure of meeting. We prepared the Ravel String Quartet and Haydn’s String Quartet…

I had the pleasure of watching a performance at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music recently. It was a particular pleasure to see a good friend, Glenn Christensen, play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra. In this moving performance Glenn appeared right at home on the concert hall stage and I think his brightest light shone in the cadenza of the first movement. His success was a tribute to immeasurable hard work and commitment, not to mention guidance from his teacher Michelle Walsh. Glenn is a great example of one of the many enthusiastic and talented musicians emerging in Australia. Some readers may be aware of our ensemble Sydney Camerata, but for those that aren’t: it’s a unique group predominantly run by the musicians themselves with members drawn from all states in Australia. The purpose behind the group is to give emerging musicians – many of whom have just recently graduated from various Conservatories around the country – opportunities to perform, collaborate and learn independently while bringing a fresh, vibrant approach towards classical music to a broader audience. Directed from the violin by Liz Gormley, the core sextet of string players garnered the Musica Viva Award for Chamber…

There’s far more out there, of course, than I could ever hope to catalogue here — whole books have been written, dedicated to doing exactly that – and, incredibly, there are still movies in existence which nobody has uploaded to YouTube. But it’s still a treasure trove of operatic footage. Here’s another handful of highlights. We might as well begin with the king and queen of onscreen operetta: Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. Here’s a moment from that masterpiece of Canadian exoticism (yes, there was a time when the Rockies qualified as exotic) Rose-Marie. Never trust a baritone to deliver you safely into the arms of an Italian tenor. Eddy is most famous for this sort of light opera, but had some serious baritonal credentials and often dipped into the full-blown repertoire, both in concert (where he only sang his movie songs as encores) and in the movies. Here he is as Escamillo, in a cobbled-together Carmen medley from a film called Balalaika. It also features one Ilona Massey as Carmen, and I should warn you: this is pretty much what I imagine it will look like if Katherine Jenkins ever carries out her threat to sing the role. I have…