Barrie Kosky’s stupendous onstage cavalcade (featuring performers from Russia and Ukraine) is a masterful meditation on the lunacy that drives civilisations to ruin.

Barrie Kosky returns to the Adelaide Festival with his third operatic production, Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel.

Here is a really indispensible set of recordings.

Pianists old and new, great singers and a dollop of disco set to rock South Australia next year.

It’s hard to believe such an accomplished, distinctive Australian work only had its European premiere last year with Olding, the SSO and Ashkenazy at the Edinburgh Festival – the present disc makes a strong case for its reappraisal abroad. Ross Edwards’ 1986 concerto remains his finest work, composed when his “maninyas” style of dance rhythms, inspired by insect life in the Australian bush, was still fresh and immediately gripping. The Adelaide Symphony imbues the hushed opening strains with subtle warmth while violinist Adele Anthony introduces delicate pizzicato, as gentle and exploratory as a cicada opening its wings for the first time. The orchestra’s crisp syncopations grow lively and buoyant throughout the movement. By contrast, the soloist’s contemplative, extended cadenza is a dazzling display of her interpretive powers: impeccable intonation and finely judged portamenti add a personal touch. The final movement, marked “ecstatic”, basks in Edwards’ unique brand of mysticism in nature as indigenous wooden clapping sticks beat out the pulse of life and Anthony takes darting, fervent passages at a rapid pace. The Sibelius Violin Concerto is the work with which Adelaide-born Anthony won the ABC Instrumental and Vocal Competition at the age of 13. It’s a surprisingly effective… Continue reading…