Seven great maestros choose their favourite underrated composers, plus interviews with Simone Young, Piers Lane and more. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
The ensemble’s pianist Stefan Cassomenos talks developing Australian culture and the challenges facing young composers. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Northey proves the world needs more Copland and less you know who.
★★★★☆ Audacious programming pays off in this memorable Guitar Festival highlight. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Andrew Ford introduces his new electric guitar concerto for Zane Banks and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Composer Andrew Ford and Heldenbaritone John Wegner are also named among the 565 Australian honourees. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
James Ledger's transcriptions star in intriguing evening of German Romantics.
Limelight’s Recording of the Year heads a bumper edition to take you into 2016. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Finsterer, Dean, Hindson and Ford head the 2014 APRA AMCOS nominations.
Sydney-based string quartet The NOISE say they began improvising for fun – avoiding the usual through-composed repertoire.
Andrew Ford’s eclectic tastes and playful persona, well known from his bitingly witty and perceptive critical essays and radio shows are well represented here in this collection of finely crafted compositions from 2001-2007. The main work, Learning to Howl for soprano, soprano saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, harp and percussion, sets verses of Sappho and other mostly women poets across the centuries in an approachable lyrical style – the vocal writing refreshingly natural and idiomatic. The work has an austere, delicate beauty with its sparse accompaniment of harp and percussion and Ford’s keen ear for sonority and colour is much in evidence. Jane Sheldon’s pure tone and accurate intonation interweaves well with the wind obbligatos played by Margery Smith, but the songs would benefit from more dramatic projection and variety of tone on the vocalist’s part. The other lengthy work here Elegy in a Country Graveyard overlays recorded interviews of elderly residents with choir and ensemble to create an evocatively atmospheric depiction of a spectacularly positioned graveyard at Robertson in NSW’s Southern Highlands – a nostalgic tribute if quaintly ‘ABC Radio’ in character with its cawing crows. Three short works complete the disc of which the standout is Snatches of Old…
Contemporary string quartet receives grant to create seven new works, all by Australian composers.
