The string quartet's boy band delivers more than one direction.

A celebration of music written and repurposed for the screen.

Imagine the horror of being born into a family where you’re the only one among parents, grandparents and siblings who doesn’t excel at something! No such problems among the Ottensamers, father Ernst and brothers Daniel and Andreas aka the royal family of the clarinet, who share the Principal Clarinet positions of the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics. Andreas, who was appointed to his Berlin Philharmonic position at 21 also declined a position at Harvard (as one does). Their ensemble, The Clarinotts, play an impressive range of E Flat, B Flat and A clarinets, bass clarinet and bassett horn and performs traditional classical music as well as arrangements, jazz and “edgy” contemporary repertoire. While their breathtaking (pun intended) virtuosity can be taken for granted, what makes The Clarinotts’ playing even more miraculous is their impeccable ensemble, as well as their flair for playing “out” in a soloistic manner, which many orchestral musicians find difficult. (It was the alleged inability of the clarinettist Sabine Meyer to blend in with the woodwind “choir” of the Berlin Philharmonic that caused the final rupture between the orchestra and Herbert von Karajan in the mid-1980s). Clearly the Ottensamers don’t have a problem in this department…. Continue reading Get…

People talk about music changing the course of history, but what events have changed the course of music?

We investigate the what, why and how of classical music’s greatest growth industry. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Lacey does far more than just tiptoe through the tulips.

The Musica Viva CEO has won the Arts Leadership Award at this year’s ceremony. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

★★★★½ Crack British outfit launches Sydney Opera House’s chamber music series. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

From the holocaust to Isaac Stern, we learn a great deal about a musician whose middle name is ‘curiosity’. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Pianist, composer and arranger Joe Chindamo and violinist Zoë Black are more than capable of transcending their specialities of jazz and classical.

Since signing to Virgin (now Erato) the Berlin-based Artemis Quartet has recorded some superb accounts of core repertoire including one of the finest Beethoven cycles of recent times. Brahms supposedly wrote some 20 quartets that ended up in the bin before the rigorously self-critical composer felt ready to publish the three extant examples. Each inhabits its own sound world and are tough nuts to crack; the dramatic intensity of the first and the sly playfulness of the third can both easily turn turgid if slathered with heavy-handed Romantic excess, so Artemis proves to be ideal exponents with their modernist sensibility tempered by warmth of expression and miraculous variety of tonal colour and dynamics. The opening movement of the First Quartet is perfectly judged, veering between nervous energy and sweet repose but with an eye always on the architecture so that the ebbing conclusion seems an inevitable consequence rather than a mere petering out. The Romanze is breathtakingly beautiful, drawn with the gentlest brushstrokes of tone; the players’ telepathic ensemble playing at the lowest dynamic level is a wonder to behold. Their variety of vibrato and colour illuminates the Scherzo with half-lights and veiled tone evoking a… Continue reading Get unlimited…

The Artistic Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music looks back on a decade of superb music making. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in