The famed Chinese pianist's slip up steals the show, but his Chopin is still stellar.

Capturing an Australian geographical icon in composition. First Light at Uluru is inspired by the spectacular sunrise of Uluru – Australia’s most famous icon. It showcases unique, atmospheric and captivating sound worlds an army of saxophones can create. This piece features every type of saxophone ranging from the biggest and lowest sounding instrument, the bass saxophone, to the smallest and highest sounding one, the soprano saxophone. Commissioned by the Queensland Conservatorium Saxophone Orchestra, the work received its world premiere performance at the XVII World Saxophone Congress in Strasbourg, France. It was also performed at the Selmer Saxophone Showrooms in Paris, and in a joint concert with the Royal Northern College of Music Saxophone Orchestra in England. The Australian premiere will be performed by the Sydney Conservatorium Saxophone Orchestra in October as part of the 2015 Con Centenary lunchbreak concerts. A compositional aim of my saxophone music is to create works that a layman audience can enjoy and appreciate just as much as a professional musician specialising in contemporary music. For example, a stylistic trait of my saxophone music uses avant-garde techniques to create calm, lyrical, expressive and atmospheric passages. I am also a saxophonist and to depict the sunrise at Uluru…

Inventi Ensemble enriches the live of Melbourne immigration detainees with music. It was in early 2014 when Melissa Doecke and I were discussing the fact that as musicians, we spend so much time practicing and playing at home, and that surely we could be playing for people who might not have access to music as readily as us. This inspired us to contact the welfare and engagement coordinator at Melbourne’s immigration detention centres. Our initial plan was to bring in some of Melbourne’s many talented musicians to perform regular concerts for the detainees, but following our very first session, we realised the people in these centres had a burning desire to join in, not just listen! After some generous donations and hunting, we were able to source instruments that people could use to join in. We have been running weekly workshops now for over a year in both of the detention centres in Melbourne and have seen how valuable it is for the detainees to have music in their lives and to be able to collaborate with us on a regular basis. An average workshop will find us bringing in Inventi Ensemble musicians and multi-instrumentalists playing traditional woodwind, brass and…

Mitch Fifield picks up the cultural portfolio as Malcolm Turnbull listens to the arts community. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The vibes virtuoso keeps us up-to-date while on his latest tour of Western Australia. Day 1: Adelaide to Geraldton The first thing to say is that this mini diary will be full of typos as I’m writing it on my iPhone and my finger-tips seem to be bigger than the letters! So don’t hold the bad grammar against me! Left home this morning to fly Ade-Geraldton (WA). Taxi man was very helpful and even helped me lift my 32kg vibe cases I travel with. Didn’t talk too much, which I always appreciate. Checked in with Qantas and had to explain twice what a vibraphone was to airport staff – received very confused and slightly concerned looks. Then had a 15-minute conversation with a friendly Qantas bloke on whether the musicians allowance gives you 2 or 3 extra pieces of luggage. Apparently it’s 2, except sometimes its 3 in “some circumstances” – clear as mud! Saw Julie my accompanist at the gate – always a relief to know your pianist has made the flight!  The long flight gave me a chance to look over the music for the first half of the programme. Had a long 3-hour stop over in Perth…

Is Nannerl Mozart a simple case of Viennese whispers? I’ve had a generally excellent week, full of interesting and stimulating chats with the likes of Geoffrey Rush, Audra McDonald, Kristian Bezhuidenhout and the extraordinary Menahem Pressler – a 92-year-old legend who knew Alma Mahler and Thomas Mann and whose unorthodox tempo for the final movement of the Ravel Piano Trio was approved by Ravel himself. It’s not often you get to hear anecdotes about what Fauré said to one of your colleagues! I got to chat to Lieven Bertels about the 40th Sydney Festival, and although my lips are sealed for a few weeks, I think it’s fair to say that there are some real gems coming our way in January. I even got to sit in on a recording session for Nicole Car’s debut recital on ABC Classics, which I’d say was sounding pretty remarkable. It’s good sometimes to share some of the joys of a job that I consider damn near ideal as it saves these editorials from becoming simply an opportunity for me let my inner ‘Angry of Mayfair’ out. This weeks big classical music story (well, it lit up the internet and twittersphere at least) was…

Making a hullabaloo over Miriam Hyde's music for flute and piano.

Soprano Jane Sheldon on Helmut Lachenmann's colourful and virtuosic Got Lost.

There’s enough bad things going on in the world today without music inciting us to worse.  I was intrigued this week to read a pair of scientific studies claiming that enjoyment of our favourite music might well have an insidious side effect – the power to make us do something just a little bit wrong.  One paper suggested that music makes us more inclined to take risks, and in particular to gamble. The only upside of this report is that it apparently needs to be music that we like, and so the chance of a pokie lounge or casino taking a chunk out of my pay check by popping on Bach’s B Minor Mass or a quick burst of the Ring Cycle seems a fairly remote possibility.  The other more curious study claims that, subjected to our top tunes, we become considerably more likely to lie, cheat and generally do someone else’s dirty work. This is more insidious. As I sat back and enjoyed Paul Lewis’s Beethoven or the Australian String Quartet premiering a new Matthew Hindson work, I couldn’t help feeling vulnerable. Was I being lulled into a suggestible state of mind where I would willingly say yes to an embezzlement scam or…

A musician’s plan to raise awareness of suicide prevention. Three years ago my godson Alex took his own life, aged 24. He was a wonderful young man who had so much to give and so much still to experience. Along with all his friends and family I was left wondering what I could have done to help prevent his death. I started to read about suicide and was shocked at the statistics; suicide is the biggest cause of death for people aged 15-45 and accounts for twice the number of deaths as road accidents. Deaths by suicide have reached a ten-year peak; this equates to almost 7 deaths by suicide every day in Australia, and it is estimated that for every completed suicide as many as 30 people attempt. These are our friends, our colleagues, our neighbours, people from literally all walks of life. So many lives are wasted. I realised we need to start talking about suicide much more openly, and learn how to better support those at risk. Concert for Life from ∑ ∞ on Vimeo. I hatched a plan. September 10, 2015 is World Suicide Prevention Day so I decided to organise a concert on this day to…

In defence of artists. You know those mornings after the night before when you wake up with a warm glow? God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world – and then someone dumps in your cornflakes. That happened to me today. Last night I sat through a couple of hours of unalloyed pleasure. Tim Minchin’s award-winning musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda has landed in Sydney, and the opening night crowd were treated to a cast of hard-working, multi skilled artists (some of them giving every appearance of being shy of ten years-old and quite a few under four feet tall). My face has only just recovered from the effort of maintaining a permanent grin for such a stretch. And then I checked the Daily Telegraph… It turns out that Sydney Theatre Company and Sydney Dance Company are losing their parking spaces on The Wharf down at Walsh Bay. Hold the front page I hear you say! Why I should let myself be annoyed by a total non-story I don’t know, but it isn’t what it says, it’s the way that it says it. In a ridiculously over-sensationalised account, Miles Godfrey (apparently a State Political Reporter, for God’s sake) writes how…

It may not be Christmas just yet, but presents are definitely in the air. No, it’s not Christmas just yet, but while most of us are to be found hunkering down against the winter blasts, presents are definitely in the air. Yes, it’s the time of year when PRs lose what little hair they have left and arts companies across Australia are to be found frantically wrapping up their next year’s seasons before gifting them to a culture-hungry public. And although noticeably fewer organisations this year are launching with a champagne-popping, canapé guzzling media bash (a sign of small annual surpluses and cash-strapped, Brandis-threatened times), there’s still plenty of optimism in the air. Last week saw the Sydney Symphony Orchestra first out of the traps waving Lang Lang, Ashkenazy’s Beethoven and a concert version of Porgy and Bess under our noses. In a nicely curated programme their was a strong sense of commitment to new music and the announcement of Brett Dean as Artist in Residence was the icing on the cake. This week the Queensland Symphony Orchestra are dangling not just Lang Lang in front of us but a second helping of Maxim Vengerov, as well as an impressive line up……