Vote for your favourite three in our inaugural Australian and International Artists of the Year Awards. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Here are our shortlists of the 25 albums of 2015 rated most highly by our critics. But which will come out on top?

★★★★½ Robertson’s ‘from the heart’ Mass returns to the heart indeed. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Pokémon: Symphonic Evolutions – the video game inspired event attracting new audiences to the concert hall. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

This programme has been cleverly crafted around the world premiere recording of Sir James MacMillan’s Oboe Concerto performed by its dedicatee Nicholas Daniel with the composer at the helm. It is a bold virtuosic work that should prove popular with both players and audiences. The breezy first movement, a bustling affair with the soloist goaded on to challenging passage-work by startling effects in the orchestra, contrasts starkly with the following Largo based on material from a earlier composition In Angustiis (a post-9/11 lament for solo oboe). It juxtaposes periods of keening sorrow with outbursts of rage, while stretching the expressive possibilities of the instrument just about as far as it can go. The Finale is forthright and playful, opening with a demented parody of serialist pretensions before veering off in unexpected poly-stylistic directions – although some of its jokes are a little too wacky for its own good. The disc opens with Vaughan William’s pastoral idyll with the soloist directing a performance that should serve as a top recommendation for this under-recorded gem. The Britten Sinfonia’s limpid strings conjure moments… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Or why ousted Prime Minister Tony Abbott should have paid more attention to his Shakespeare.

Rush, Russell Beale, Salminen & Skovhus: four Lears on tackling Shakespeare’s tortured monarch. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The SSO’s chief explains why he’s taken his time before conducting the music Beethoven never heard. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Nicholas Daniel finds similarities in two different English works for the oboe. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

★★★★½ Brit and Aussie impress, but Robertson’s take on the Finn outflanks them all. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

How Maestro Abbott’s sluggish tempi (and that thing about onions) led to a rebellious orchestra tearing up his contract. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The new Principal Conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra has curated a year of big pieces and big names in 2016. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in