Love is in the air… Our Valentine’s Day concert in Melbourne was a great success – we hope we created a romantic evening for the audience with some beautiful Renaissance polyphony, including John Wilbye’s Weep, weep mine eyes and Draw on, sweet night. American Composer Libby Larson had kindly written A Lover’s Journey for the group as a gift, and her setting of Four Valentines summed up the occasion perfectly. The end of the first half included more romantic works by Camille Saint-Saëns, Edward Bairstow and Arthur Sullivan. In the second half we performed three pieces from our latest album High Flight: Morten Lauridsen’s O nata lux, former King’s Singer Bob Chilcott’s A flower given to my daughter and Eric Whitacre’s This Marriage. It was then time to loosen our ties to sing the trademark close harmony pop fare that the group has become known for. The Beatles’ Penny Lane went down a treat! One of the highlights for us was performing two world-premiere encores of Australian favourites in new arrangements: Botany Bay and The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. The latter is a stunning arrangement of the poignant text, and a piece that we were honoured to be able to…

As I write this, sitting on a plane from Adelaide to Melbourne, I can recall the last time I was in this part of the world. I left New Zealand on a beautiful winter’s afternoon in June 2010 and I can vividly picture flying over the Southern Alps with the sun setting on the white peaks. I remember thinking how much I was going to miss New Zealand, but that I’d be back one day… Not in my wildest dreams did I imagine it’d be so soon, on tour with The King’s Singers! We left England a week ago and after a few quasi-chilled-out days in Sydney with time to shake off the jet lag and enjoy the restaurants on Darling Harbour, we had a busy day of media appointments with local and national radio stations and newspapers. As the only member of the group who has been to Australia before, I’ve enjoyed reacquainting myself with the city – Circular Quay with its fantastic Eastbank restaurant is always a good place to go. The others have been jogging around Darling Harbour and along to the Opera House, exploring Bondi Beach, cafés and eateries… And basking in the non-snowy weather! We…

I’ve been in Banff, Canada now for a week undertaking a solo creative residency focusing on Bach’s Sixth Cello Suite. The Banff Centre is situated in a beautiful national park surrounded by the Canadian Rocky Mountains, the ideal environment in which to immerse myself in music. Winter in Banff is something quite special. Although it has been rather warm by Canadian standards, we are now reaching temperatures of about minus 20 degrees Celsius. A thick blanket of snow covers the mountainous landscape dotted with pine trees, and the occasional deer and elk roam around the campus. In contrast to the pristine stillness outside, inside the centre is buzzing with activity. Artists from all over the world are here in fields as diverse as puppetry and poetry. Such an eclectic mix of creative people makes for stimulating mealtime conversations. Devoting so much thought and time to the Sixth Cello Suite has been a real delight, both challenging and fulfilling. This weekend I perform the first three movements in Canmore, a town south-east of Banff. The Sixth Suite was certainly written for the “violoncello” but not the violoncello as we know it today. The words “a cinq cordes” are written on Anna Magdalena Bach’s transcription…

A couple of nights ago I posted a request on Twitter for names of “rising young/youngish Australian opera singers” currently enjoying overseas success. Not to diminish the magnificence of our many Australia-based artists, of course, whom I love to distraction; but I was curious to take stock of the many up-and-coming singers making their mark overseas – especially as, although I knew some of their names, I was sure there would be plenty I’d missed. The response was fantastic, from both Australian and international Twitterers alike, and I soon had a pile of names. So in honour of the day, I thought it would be nice to highlight some of these fabulous young Australian singers taking the operatic world by storm – from those making their first international forays, to those very much on the rise, to those who have in fact now risen. It’s not a comprehensive guide by any means, but it should be enough to warm your heart! At the beginning of the alphabet is Rachel Bate, who, as winner of Opera Foundation Australia’s 2011 German Opera Grant, received a yearlong contract at Oper Köln. Last year she performed there in the children’s opera Die feuerrote Friederike; in…

Take a moment to picture these: Clapboards (preferably the old-fashioned chalkboard types) Spotlights blazing and projectors in silhouette Box office windows, preferably Art Deco Usherettes with flashlights Red velvet curtains with gold tassels A candy bar counter stocked with goodies: popcorn and choc-tops Do you feel like going to the movies now? Do you want to sit in the back row and stuff your face with popcorn and snuggle with your sweetheart in the dark? Do you want to escape your humdrum life for a couple of hours? Yes? Then the mere mention of this imagery is having the desired effect. It’s all typical album cover material for a typical film music compilation. The message it sends is very clear. Scores of compilations are released all the time with images like these plastered on the cover, and in my mind they all blend into one giant mass of celluloid sludge. Let’s face it; in the context of this album cover business, such images have become more than a little generic and predictable. It goes without saying that the cover for my little cinematically inspired offering The Good, the Bad and the Awkward must stand out from these. Enter Tina Fiveash….

After my stint playing cello in a Melbourne flash mob last year, I was keen to try something else in the same spirit. And what better city to seek out new musical experiences in than the Big Apple? On December 21, while visiting New York, I was fortunate to be a part of a Make Music NY Winter Festival event curated by US-based composer James Holt. The event was called Thru-line and involved 44 solo musicians performing the Prelude to JS Bach’s Cello Suite No 1 at every station platform on the Coney Island-bound F line through Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Every stop was coordinated so that when the train doors opened the musician would be up to a particular measure. We began on the dot at 7pm and continued right through until 8pm. I was stationed at one of the busiest stops on the line, which had both its advantages and disadvantages. After a minor setback getting temporarily stuck entering the turnstiles at the station (they’re not made quite wide enough for both cello and musician!) things were pretty smooth sailing. I scouted out my desired location: “as close to the middle of the… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

It’s classic, it’s Christmassy, and it’s so iconic that even the Muppets once did a film version! In fact, it’s so intertwined in our culture that we rarely connect the dots when exclaiming “Bah! Humbug!” or calling someone a “Scrooge”. But the man we have to thank for these phrases is, of co-urse, British author Charles Dickens, who on December 19, 1843, published a little novella called A Christmas Carol. We all know how the story goes. In Victorian era England, the character Ebenezer Scrooge turns from being a grumpy, stingy old man into a big softie after receiving visits from the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. (As opposed to the Blackadder version, where Rowan Atkinson actually reverts from being generous to being insulting after a visit from Robbie Coltrane.) The novella was so beloved that it was very quickly adapted into a play, and has since been made into countless film and television versions, operas, musicals, audio readings, and even graphic novels. It’s also the reason that Sydney-based actor, writer and director Tama Matheson decided to add directing to his bag of tricks. “It’s the first thing that I did as a director – I…

The weather outside was, as the song says, frightful but the concerts were indeed delightful, and the tenor in my life did Australia – and himself – proud in his Berlin Phil début, singing Das Lied von der Erde under the baton of no less a name than Sir Simon Rattle himself, with Anne Sofie von Otter doing alto soloist duty. Not too shabby, right? Sydney audiences might remember Stuart singing Das Lied with the Sydney Symphony, Ashkenazy (my favourite musical pixie) and Lilli Paasikivi last year; you may even have bought the CD. I was there too, funnily enough. I’ve also heard him sing it since then in Salzburg and Hong Kong and I have to say – in the first concert with the Berlin Philharmonic he may just have outdone all of those performances. Hard for me to know, of course – I’m not exactly objective – but it was fairly sensational. Interesting, too, because the Berlin Phil tunes slightly higher than most other orchestras, so that everything sits slightly less than a semitone above where it would usually be. And if you know Das Lied, you know that the tenor portion doesn’t really need to be any…

After my most recent meeting at ABC Classics, this time with engineer Virginia Read, I began to realise just how complicated this album is going to be to produce! I’m very proud of the breadth of repertoire I’ve chosen, but it presents a few issues on the engineering side of things.  I’m relying on the wonderfully skilled Virginia to help create a variety of sound worlds for me, whilst creating a unified ‘listenable’ whole.  Not an easy task, but I’m sure she can do it! The first sound world I would like to create on my album is a bona fide “classical” sound. I’ll be recording works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Joseph Haydn, Franz Schubert, Léo Delibes, Claude Debussy, Erik Satie and Elena Kats-Chernin. The works of these composers require a particular sound in my mind’s ear. It will be a warm sound, with plenty of space around it, as if the listener were the only member of an audience in a largish recital hall (think City Recital Hall Angel Place, the Melbourne Recital Centre or the Kleine Zaal in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam). The second sound world will be much more like a pop music sound, characterised by its…

In my experience of working on other classical albums, the ordering of the tracks has been something that happens much further down the line, usually after the recording sessions are complete and most of the performers have pretty much left the whole experience behind. After all, when you record a major work of some kind — a symphony or a suite or an oratorio, say — the “track list” is pre-determined by the composer. It has its inherent structure as a single work pre-packaged in a way and cannot bear re-ordering; it just wouldn’t feel right. I remember in my university days attending one of those dreadful progressive dinners, this one being even worse than your average one as it was presented backwards. We started with wine and cheeses and quince paste and went back through desserts followed by mains and soups and so on. Let me tell you, nothing sits very well on top of a crème brulée! By the time we arrived at entreés, there was a distinct green pallor about our entire party. I excused myself at that point and went home. It was all too weird, like opening The Messiah with the Hallelujah Chorus. So many…

Last night, following our four performances with Sydney Symphony in Mahler’s epic Second Symphony, we were back in the rehearsal room for Messiah. In the space of just one week, we will have rehearsed the choirs, met the soloists, put together the orchestra and done our two dress rehearsals, ready for our opening night performance on Thursday December 8, 2011. We present Messiah every year so on one level, there is an element of predictability, but there is also the thrill of performing with new choristers, soloists and conductors. In each year there are subtle changes to the performing edition as Handel did not leave us with a definitive version of the work, so my job always starts with choosing what to sing and what to leave out. Sometimes this is based on a famous historical performance such as the “Dublin” version or the Foundling Hospital version. Some years it is based on the soloists I have chosen and others on a mere whim! This year, I have left nothing out! It is the whole shebang with the versions that most of the audience would recognise as their favourite settings. I have played around a little with the orchestration, giving…

Over brunch with Limelight‘s online editor Melissa Lesnie recently, I was asked how my life has been affected by the sudden success of my first album. “Has classical stardom transformed Sally Whitwell?” she asked. When my giggling subsided, I felt compelled to give some serious thought to the question of how my life and career has changed post-Mad Rush. Or indeed, how it hasn’t changed. First of all, let’s think about profile — fame, infamy… Whatever you want to call it. A part of me admits that it would have been nice to have become rich/famous/glamorous as a result of a best-selling, ARIA Award-winning album. Were I a pop musician of some description, I’m sure this kind of thing might have been on the cards, but in the classical music world, here in Australia? Hmm… Let’s just say that even with the profile I have gained, life is still a cheerfully modest affair! Perhaps, then, I should take this opportunity to count my blessings. I am very lucky to have signed with ABC Classics, not only because they are wonderful people, but because being represented by them pretty much guarantees media saturation in the form of airplay on ABC Classic…