There is a growing group of scientists who are convinced that technology will advance so far beyond our comprehension that the world as we know it will be completely transformed: they call this the “Singularity”. Ray Kurzweil, an American futurist and co-founder of Singularity University, has gone as far as to predict the year that these changes will take place: and it’s less than 35 years away. Kurzweil has observed that computational speed is growing exponentially. At the same time, the technology we are creating is getting “smarter”. So, the range of tasks that a computer can carry out faster than humans, and without their intervention, is growing. The expectation of Kurzweil and other Singularitarians is that, one day, those tasks will include the development of even smarter technology – computer programmers will be usurped by the very systems they have created. In other words: robots will learn to procreate (so to speak). They call this the “intelligence explosion”. OK, so the world will one day be ruled by super-intelligent robots. But, I hear you ask, what impact will this have on classical music? Even if the Singularitarians are right, and artificial intelligence… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from…

Searching for a birthday present for a tech-savvy sound engineer, and not wanting to come across as a Luddite, I stumbled upon a nifty CD. Well, not quite a CD: like much of the music we hear on ABC Classic FM, my purchase is housed in a jewel case, but the mechanism inside this flimsy, plastic, hinged container allows the music to exist, defines its sound world, and gives it life. American composer and artist Tristan Perich has programmed his First Symphony. It comes packaged in a CD case, the listener plugs headphones directly into the case, flicks the ‘on’ switch, adjusts the volume dial embedded in the case, and – hey, presto. A symphony. Perich’s 1-bit Symphony is an electronic composition in five movements, programmed onto a single microchip designed to ‘perform’ itself when switched on. His compositional techniques are electrical pulses and assembly code; the electronic circuit mounted in the jewel case is the composition. Electronic and electroacoustic music has experienced a long evolution in 20th-century classical music dating back to Varèse and the European avant-garde, but it’s never been presented in this form, as a sort of pocket sound installation. With digital downloads encroaching on physical CD…

Mark-Anthony Turnage’s operatic take on the rise and decline of Playmate, billionaire’s widow and tabloid darling Anna Nicole Smith has been heavily hyped by The Royal Opera, who commissioned it, pretty much from the day it was announced, and more intensely still in the weeks leading up to its world première. They’re even hyping it to those who’ve already bought tickets and shown up to see it – on Anna Nicole nights, promo shots of Eva-Maria Westbroek as Anna Nicole smile at you from every portrait frame on the wall, every bust and statue, even from the spot above the stage where you expect to see the queen. Even the curtain is now hot pink instead of red. At some level it does please me to see an opera company get so desperately into the spirit of things but this is probably overkill, and it risks undermining the opera before it’s even begun to treat it as an Event in this way. Particularly if it’s an opera which sets out to move its audience as well as amuse them, which I think Anna Nicole does. At least, it gets all serious in the last half hour. Whether it is indeed…

After all the excitement of the Classic 100, the Classic 100 Ten Years On and the First Time Classics, I think it’s time for nominations for Music You Never Want To Hear Again, and I have a few ideas to get things started. 1. Anything by the composer Samuel Scheidt. Apart from having a most unfortunate name, this composer was forgotten for hundreds of years for a very good reason. He is boring. I played a Fantasia of his on ABC Classic FM a little while ago and it sounded like a piece of Monteverdi with all the grace and intelligence sucked out of it. So goodbye Scheidt, you had your chance and now it’s over. Same with the equally unfortunate Anton Ferdinand Titz. 2. The tradition of the singer holding the last high note in a Rossini aria. The music is powering along, we know we’re going to finish, we’re excited about it and suddenly the singer decides to stop and admire the view from a high B-flat. Rossini never intended it to be this way, it kills the drama and the excitement, and it should be banned immediately, or at least the singer should be fined $3,000 for…

Yesterday afternoon, I strolled down to the Sydney Opera House for Great Opera Hits – a concert performance featuring four of Opera Australia’s finest young singers. While I’m not here to review the concert, I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed it and gladly recommend it. I experienced those sought-after “chills” on more than one occasion – and, if you read my Valentine’s Day blog, you’ll understand the kind of forces that must be engaged for that to occur. All performers were great. I was particularly amused by baritone Andrew Jones’ super-hammy presence. While I’m no expert, I expect he’ll do quite well for himself. As I say, I’m no opera expert (I feel I’m cutting Sarah’s grass a little with this blog). I’m not even a huge fan, but that may be gradually changing. Yesterday’s concert was essentially an operatic highlights reel. My short attention span was grateful. The most powerful moments from the most popular operas delivered in succession and, while there was no storyline with which to engage, the music was beautiful and entertainment enough. As always, I was amazed by the talent and physical strength possessed by opera singers. It is, therefore, a shame that I…

Reviewed: Sydney’s adventurous young chamber opera company does Dostoevsky When: Feb 17, 2011 Where: Cell Block Theatre, Forbes St, Darlinghurst, New South Wales Web: https://sydneychamberopera.com/ I can see how Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground would appeal to Sydney Chamber Opera, the newly founded troupe of ambitious twenty-somethings, as the basis of their inaugural production. The novella’s stream-of-consciousness diatribe is constructed as the writings of a raving recluse taking refuge from the world at large in his own internalised ‘underground’. Penned in 1864, this strikingly modern study of existentialism broods in the shadows, shunning the 19th-century Romantics. With that grim premise for a new opera by young composer Jack Symonds, concert-goers and opera buffs might be expecting an indulgently angst-ridden affair from recent graduates and wannabe-enfants terribles. But, having seen Britten’s Turn of the Screw staged last year by members of the dynamic new group (in an earlier incarnation as Sydney University Opera Company) I knew to expect a polished, atmospheric and thought-provoking piece. I had no idea, however, what to expect in terms of a plot. How to write an opera based on a hazy philosophical rant, with an alarming (to most theatre directors) lack of action or drama? Librettist…

It was a bit of serendipitous timing to find myself in the right city at the right time for the service of thanksgiving held at Westminster Abbey on Tuesday in honour of Dame Joan Sutherland.  I had the privilege of writing a profile of Dame Joan for Limelight‘s extensive tribute, and it was wonderful to have this chance to further celebrate not just a great Australian singer, but one of the greatest singers anywhere, ever – and a great lady to boot. We arrived at 10:15 for a midday start and already there was a crowd milling at the entrance, where a large white security tent had been set up – HRH Prince Charles would be there, representing the Queen and Prince Philip, so security was tight, with most attendees required to undergo a bag and identity check. We went on a search for fortifying hot beverages and returned at 10:40 to see this… And there was still another 90 minutes’ worth of people to arrive, so I don’t know how much longer that queue got – but nevertheless, we were all inside and in our places by noon, with suitably glorious music to welcome us. A selection of organ…

A few weeks ago, I went on a little business trip. There were keynote presentations and intervals with coffee and biscuits, but it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill convention. Picture this: I’m sitting in a sun-drenched conference room in a hotel, teacup and saucer in lap, surrounded by forty or so international colleagues. And we are all listening intently to Bach. The Art of Fugue, the motets, Johann Ludwig Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel. For we are enjoying our coffee and biscuits at harmonia mundi’s annual MIDEM presentation, and the French label’s 2011 first-semester release schedule could be described as a little Bach-heavy. Every January, in the off-peak season, Cannes is taken over by the music industry’s biggest international trade fair. Most of the tourist shops around town stock postcards depicting Robert De Niro or the Palme d’Or laurel all year round, but those attending the music festival and in search of a memento will find dark chocolate CDs moulded into plastic jewel cases at most chocolatiers and patisseries in the area. The Marché International du Disque et de l’Edition Musicale (MIDEM) was founded in 1967, and in 2011 it’s not hard to find a music biz veteran who has been coming back,…

On Saturday night in Balmain a swanky fundraiser was held for Orchestra Romantique – an ensemble made up of some of Sydney’s best players from in and outside of The Sydney Symphony. Nick Carter is their conductor, and they perform music of the romantic era in the Paddington Town Hall. Across town. the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra has sprung up, with a home base at the Balmain Town Hall. This group is the brainchild and passion of another conductor – Sarah-Grace Williams, and tackles all sorts of orchestral music in their own subscription series. You’d have to say on a scale of madness, starting a new orchestra rates pretty high – up there with attempting to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon, or hopping across the continent on your right leg. Orchestras, by their very nature, are human-intensive: you need all those players to blow and scrape and hit their instruments. Humans are expensive. You also need to hire venues, publicise and market your new group – none of which is cheap. But in the face of huge obstacles, these two new orchestras have sprung up and are doing good things. They are performing at high standards and adding to the…

Today is Valentine’s Day. For many, it’s a day to do something romantic. Traditionally, this requires (at least) two people. However, many of us are sans significant other at the present time. If you fall into that category, read on… Over the past few years, I’ve developed an interest in music psychology – an interest fed by my work in the Music, Sound and Performance Lab. You don’t have to be a psychologist or a neuroscientist to realise that music is a powerful medium. However, you may be unaware of just how powerful it is. In 2005, NeuroImage published a paper by Vinod Menon and Daniel Levitin investigating the brain activity associated with emotional responses to music. The authors discovered that listening to music triggered activity in areas of the brain that release dopamine. This particular hormone provides feelings of enjoyment and is known to be linked with food, recreational drugs and, you guessed it, sex. Four years prior to that study, Anne Blood and Robert Zatorre presented similar neural activity – as well as changes in heart rate, muscle activity and respiration – in participants listening to a piece of music that gave them “chills”. What can we take…

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks watching rehearsals of Parsifal at the English National Opera. Yes, I know, it’s a rough life. Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s production – which premiered at the ENO in 1997 and has since done the rounds of European stages and ended up on DVD along the way – has come back home for its (‘scuse the pun) swansong. Sometimes I’ve felt a bit like I’ve wandered into an episode of Doctor Who, with people in space-alien makeup (it’s a bit of a post-apocalyptic staging) and elaborate robes wandering about the place – not just on the otherworldly set, but also in the very this-worldly stalls. Anyway, it’s been quite fascinating to watch, but what’s especially wonderful is to hear this opera – which I’m really only meeting for the first time – come together, to see Mark Wigglesworth work his magic, and to hear a bunch of excellent singers on an almost daily basis. Among them – and this is in fact is mostly why I’m posting – the one and only Sir John Tomlinson, Wagnerian supreme, whose Gurnemanz – even in rehearsal – is a wonder to behold. Quite simply, The Man is God. And…

Life in the Antipodes has accustomed me to enjoying my favourite singers only via recording; but this time I was actually going to coincide with one of them – Magdalena would be singing in London while I was there. The recital in question took place on Friday. Not only was this my first in-person encounter with Magdalena, it was also – despite several previous trips to London – my first ever visit to Wigmore Hall, which is very pretty, remarkably compact and acoustically an utter delight. In such happy surroundings, I was in a good mood even before the music started; but I’m pleased to report that when it did start, La Koženà well and truly lived up to gorgeousness of the album. Her band here was the same as on the CD, the excellent period band Private Musicke, whose leader Pierre Pitzl heralded the beginning of the recital by strolling out on stage, already playing his guitar. The rest of the group followed, instruments in hand, and among them – a barefoot and beaming Magdalena Koženà, who began to sing (Vitali’s “O bei lumi”) before anyone had a chance to applaud. Her two subsequent numbers followed in quick succession,…