For the past week i’ve been fortunate to have participated in the Australian Youth Orchestra’s Chamber Players program. I auditioned for this program as a member of the Sydney Camerata String Quartet and we were excited to be one of five quartets and three piano trios selected for a week of performances and intensive masterclasses with some of the finest chamber musicians coming to Sydney for the Musica Viva Festival 2011. I’ve taken part in this AYO program twice before in Brisbane and Armidale but, unlike this year, previously auditioned as an individual cellist and came to the program to be placed in a quartet of musicians who had never played together before. Those experiences were invaluable but this time having a pre-formed quartet gave a completely different focus. Having the opportunity to rehearse before meeting our mentors meant that we could really use the valuable time at the program to work on more advanced musical ideas. Our assigned mentors for the week were Dene Olding and Irena Morosova, two members of the Goldner String Quartet and two of the most inspirational musicians I have had the pleasure of meeting. We prepared the Ravel String Quartet and Haydn’s String Quartet…

I had the pleasure of watching a performance at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music recently. It was a particular pleasure to see a good friend, Glenn Christensen, play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra. In this moving performance Glenn appeared right at home on the concert hall stage and I think his brightest light shone in the cadenza of the first movement. His success was a tribute to immeasurable hard work and commitment, not to mention guidance from his teacher Michelle Walsh. Glenn is a great example of one of the many enthusiastic and talented musicians emerging in Australia. Some readers may be aware of our ensemble Sydney Camerata, but for those that aren’t: it’s a unique group predominantly run by the musicians themselves with members drawn from all states in Australia. The purpose behind the group is to give emerging musicians – many of whom have just recently graduated from various Conservatories around the country – opportunities to perform, collaborate and learn independently while bringing a fresh, vibrant approach towards classical music to a broader audience. Directed from the violin by Liz Gormley, the core sextet of string players garnered the Musica Viva Award for Chamber…

There’s far more out there, of course, than I could ever hope to catalogue here — whole books have been written, dedicated to doing exactly that – and, incredibly, there are still movies in existence which nobody has uploaded to YouTube. But it’s still a treasure trove of operatic footage. Here’s another handful of highlights. We might as well begin with the king and queen of onscreen operetta: Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald. Here’s a moment from that masterpiece of Canadian exoticism (yes, there was a time when the Rockies qualified as exotic) Rose-Marie. Never trust a baritone to deliver you safely into the arms of an Italian tenor. Eddy is most famous for this sort of light opera, but had some serious baritonal credentials and often dipped into the full-blown repertoire, both in concert (where he only sang his movie songs as encores) and in the movies. Here he is as Escamillo, in a cobbled-together Carmen medley from a film called Balalaika. It also features one Ilona Massey as Carmen, and I should warn you: this is pretty much what I imagine it will look like if Katherine Jenkins ever carries out her threat to sing the role. I have…

During the break at the orchestral call yesterday afternoon, a violinist whom I have known for some time and have performed with many times came up to me and said that she wanted to stop and get up halfway through the first chorus to tell everyone how privileged she felt to be playing this music. As she spoke of her love of the Passion, tears welled up in all our eyes as she articulated how we all feel about Bach and this work in particular. The first general rehearsal ended with our principal oboist saying, “I could just play this music all day”. Such is the preciousness of this repertoire. Bach holds a special place in most musicians’ hearts. In our second orchestral we concentrated more on the arias; always a question of balance and tempo. In many ways Bach does play itself if these two issues are addressed. It became apparent at this call that one of our soloists was having some vocal issues. This is always your nightmare that at last minute you may have to replace a soloist. My belief is that you should never go on stage if you are not going to perform at your…

I grew up about a 15-minute walk from the Hayden Planetarium in New York, and its great dome filled with incandescent projections of the skein of the cosmos instilled in me from a young age a love of all things astronomical. All of that goes towards saying I think the shoe may very well fit with this one. All right, the Holst. It begins with MARS, The Bringer of War, which is a straight rip-off of the music playing during that scene in Star Wars where Darth Vadar first steps onto the flight deck of the Death Star. John Williams should seriously consider suing this guy. “Luke…. I am your composer”. Okay, we’ve moved on to VENUS, The Bringer of Peace and I think Francis may be messing with me. Is this not actually the soundtrack from Star Wars? I’m pretty sure this is from the really gross part where Luke and Leia kiss (SPOILER ALERT) before they know they’re brother and sister. It is fairly beautiful, though. MERCURY, The Winged Messenger next. This is marginally less Star Warsy than the first two. Although, let’s be honest: close your eyes while listening to it and it’s not hard to imagine R2-D2…

The orchestra played very well yesterday at the first rehearsal led by Fiona Ziegler, one of the best violinists in Sydney. Today we concentrate on the arias and it is our last chance to focus in on just orchestral matters, as tonight is a full run – all choruses, recits and arias in order. All the soloists are now in Sydney with Sara Macliver joining us from Perth. We had a brief rehearsal last night between calls with the orchestra and chorus but we have now worked with each other for so long that we could probably walk on stage on Saturday night without consultation and just do it. She is a marvelous singer. Tonight is the first full run at the Sydney Opera House. This is about everyone getting used to the pace of the work and adjusting to the acoustic of the hall. I have some last minute changes to some parts to write, a few tweaks to the stage plan and a pair of shoes to buy… so here ends the blog for today.

For various reasons, I’ve neglected this blog for the past two weeks. Firstly, I, like most local uni students, have been frantically trying to combat the usual bombardment of mid-semester assessments. Secondly, the days seem to be getting considerably shorter. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, I’ve been trying to compose. Outside of these activities (and the odd work commitment), I’ve tried to sleep. Right now, though, in a fortunate turn of events, I’m unable to get to sleep. So, it seems a good opportunity to share some recent musical discoveries. To provide some background: the goal I’ve set myself this semester is to explore texture through my major compositional work. In the past, I’ve tended to focus on issues of pitch, rhythm, even articulation and dynamics – but I’ve never made texture a primary tool of musical interest. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that concepts of texture are harder to wrap one’s head around. You can sing a melody, tap a rhythm, etc. But when it comes to understanding and explaining mass sound events, things can get confusing. One composer I’ve been listening to in an attempt to get the creative (and analytical) juices flowing is György Ligeti. Ligeti…

Coffee – start the day Email – quick check to see of there is anything urgent Viola parts – must get them finished Hayfever – damn… Rehearsing recitative – essentially spoken text inflected on pitch and accompanied by a few instruments – is a very exhausting process requiring a great deal of concentration as decisions have to be made as to where you place the chords, how long they should be, who should play them and at what level of intensity. Sometimes the instruments are functional, telling the singer what pitch to speak the text on. At other times, they take on an interpretive function to highlight the injustice of an action, the frustration of a character or a metaphorical rendering of an idea. Bach essentially left a blueprint for the recitative and all of these aspects are worked out over the course of the recitative calls. The process is as follows: the conductor sends out a marked up score with his suggestions; in the first rehearsal they are refined, discarded, added to and then, over the course of the next three days, they are repeated so that they sound free and spontaneous. This is what happened yesterday in the…

It’s a balancing act – I do not feel it is my role to impose. Rather, my role is to provide the means by which each chorister is prepared for the performance so that the meaning of this gospel becomes a personal journey. Also, one’s search for meaning commences many months before the first call with the choir. Once in rehearsal, it is not so much verbalising one’s ideas as to finding the technical means to achieve it. Every time one asks for an accent here or a softer section here, it is because of the deeper philosophical response to the work, even if this is not articulated as such at the time. Only this way can you deal with the broad range of both religious and non-religious views. You can only remain open to possibility and do the E.M. Forster. Sunday was a full-day workshop on choral singing with the emphasis on Bach’s chorales as a blueprint for the next 150 years of tonal harmony. It finished with a panel discussion with Penny Gay, Emeritus Professor of English at Sydney University and Paul McMahon, tenor extraordinaire who will sing the role of the Evangelist in our performance on Saturday….

Considering how regularly you have to hear the theme music of your chosen news source, you want it to be good. I tend to get my news from the ABC, who, historically, have done good work in this area. The venerable old warhorse Majestic Fanfare is still used on ABC radio nearly 80 years after its composition by Charles Williams – impressive longevity indeed, and a bit of tweaking by Richard Mills hasn’t done it any harm at all. Here’s one version of it: Here’s another ABC news theme that many will remember fondly – the Tony Ansell/Peter Wall music for the ABC’s evening news bulletin, that was used from 1985 to 2005. Here it is, sans Richard Morecroft: Now, the above two themes use fairly traditional musical tropes, and use them well. The prominence of brass instruments – the arpeggiated, almost military theme of the Fanfare, the solo trumpet in the later piece – unmistakeably heralds the bulletin. The music gets your attention immediately with its arresting gestures: the pomp and circumstance of Fanfare‘s splendid full orchestra, Ansell/Wall’s rhythmic call-and-response, and, later on, its equally rhythmic stabbing chords. Both main melodies are eminently singable. The harmonic patterns and textural…

Coffee no.1 at exactly 8.00am on Friday morning. A little tired after a very long day but a really exciting rehearsal with the singers last night. We did not get through the entire work but already I can feel that this will be a very special performance of the this piece, especially given the beautiful way the choir are singing the chorales which are rehearsed a cappella, with no accompaniment, to ensure perfect intonation and ensemble. The Sydney Philharmonia Choirs are one of the hardest-working choirs in the country and as such may find themselves working on several different programmes at the same time. Having only just finished John Adams’ Harmonium a few weeks ago and with some of the members also singing in a production of The Fellowship of the Rings with Sydney Symphony, while others augment the Festival Chorus in Orff’s Carmina Burana, it is really these last few rehearsals, which tend to be closer together, where the real music-making starts to occur. Individual lines have been mastered, the language has been deconstructed and put back together and the overall shape of the music is being discovered. Last night we also went back to rehearsing “in the round”,…

A core group of twelve cellists – comprising a mixture of professionals and students from the Australian National Academy of Music – performed works by Bunting, Vivaldi (with exquisite solos from Gabriel Schwabe) and Handel. The first half concluded with a work by the festival’s featured composer Anatolijus Senderovas written for master cellist David Geringas, David’s Song. The Baudin String Quartet performed alongside Geringas in this exciting piece, something of a departure from music by Senderovas heard the night before with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. This time he called upon the performers to go beyond their instruments, occasionally shouting, interrupting each other with shrieks and squeals and eventually whispering before Geringas brought the piece to a dramatic close. The concert’s second half began with a solo performance by Geringas of Pablo Casal’s Song of the Birds, marking the debut of the brand new cello that had been built for the festival in a mere 10 days. I might point out that the usual time for construction varies but is usually at a minimum around two-and-a-half months, not including the varnishing process. I had the pleasure of speaking with Alex Grant, a Melbourne violin maker who was part of the team…