Ahead of his Musica Viva Festival, the Artistic Director talks about the allure of intimate performer-audience relationships.

The Aussie composer's How Forests think has been shortlisted in the Chamber-Scale Composition category.

With telepathic ensemble work, the Grigoryan Brothers create an intimate atmosphere in which guitars sing.

Acacia Quartet and Sally Whitwell bear the bays at this year's Festival.

In the lead up to his final AFCM as Artistic Director, the pianist reflects on his 11-year tenure.

The British violinist has appeared on the catwalk and as an ambassador for Dior, but his heart comes alive in the concert hall.

Good music, fine playing and intelligent programming.

Neil Armfield and Rachel Healy's debut programme has finished with the biggest takings in the Festival's history.

Riveting performances of neglected youthful masterpiece and epic Romantic smasher.

This album is a little charmer from one of Australia’s finest chamber groups, the Omega Ensemble. Led by David Rowden, it starts with a lovely, nuanced performance of Mozart’s gorgeous Clarinet Quintet. Rowden uses a basset clarinet, the instrument with the extra low notes developed by Anton Stadler, for whom the work was composed. Those woody bass notes that so fascinated Mozart are on display from the outset, enhanced by the ABC’s closely placed microphones. The string quartet, led by Catalin Ungureanu, are fine equal partners in the “conversation” with the soloist and listen out for second violinist Airena Nakamura’s dialogue with Rowden in the beautiful Larghetto. Ian Munro’s three-part quintet Songs from the Bush mixes folk tunes with contemporary themes. For the outer movements, Country Dance and Drover’s Lament,  Munro raids his well-thumbed copy of John Meredith’s Folk Songs of Australia for snippets while the spacious middle section evokes a camp fire under the great Australian night sky. The final work is a corker: It Takes Two – Concerto for Two Clarinets by George Palmer, for which Rowden is joined by Dimitri Ashkenazy. Commissioned in 2008, the former Supreme Court Judge came up with a delightful tribute… Continue reading…

Named for an Aboriginal word meaning pipe or flute, Ulpirra Sonatines places Ross Edwards and Mark Isaacs – who joins flautist Melissa Doecke on this disc – alongside Poulenc and Dutilleux. The disc opens with the lush first movement of Isaacs’ Sonatine, Doecke soaring over Isaacs’ undulating piano. The recording catches the complex edge of Doecke’s sound as she produces ethereal harmonics and earthy flutter-tonguing. Isaacs’ The River for alto flute and piano revels in the velvet sound of the lower instrument, while providing plenty of opportunity for Doecke to sweep up through the range with a light, flitting agility. The colour and virtuosity of Edwards’ Nura has no doubt contributed to its popularity in the flute repertoire. Wild Bird Morning channels Messiaen while Ocean Idyll is eerily tranquil. In this performance the normally fiery Earth Dance is given a carefully paced, detailed treatment. Doecke’s clean sound winds meditatively above gently flowing water in Edwards’ Water Spirit Song, originally a work for cello, while Ulpirra dances playfully. After this, it is jolting to be thrust into 20th-century neo-classicism with Poulenc’s oft-performed Sonata. Doecke’s tone is honeyed, however, as she… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

The Acacia Quartet's Stefan Duwe explains why the composer, banned in Hitler's Germany, should be heard more often.