Intoxicating textures and colours combine in a feast of strange and vivid imagery.

The radio station will celebrate International Women’s Day with a run of female presenters and composers. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Shostakovich wrote his First Violin Concerto in 1947-48 while persecuted and bullied by Andrei Zhdanov. The Soviet Central Committee secretary announced his decree on music, condemning formalism and naming Shostakovich specifically, while the composer was writing the Scherzo, imprinted with the jagged musical motif based on his initials, DSCH, used here for the first time. The concerto – written, like the second, for David Oistrakh – wasn’t performed until 1955, once Zhdanov and Stalin were dead. It is these tensions, fears and anxieties that German violinist Peter Frank Zimmermann brings to the fore in his agonised performances of Shostakovich’s Violin Concertos with the NDR Elbphilharmonie – the renamed NDR Sinfonieorchester – led by Alan Gilbert and recorded live at the Laeiszhalle, Hamburg in 2012 and 2015 respectively. In the First Concerto Zimmermann bases his performance of the solo part of the autograph manuscript – which includes Shostakovich’s own metronome marks and bowing instructions – rather than the often heard version edited by Oistrakh. He also uses the composer’s preferred opus number – 77 – in keeping with the work’s date of composition rather than publication. Above the restive strings of the opening Nocturne, Zimmermann’s sound has a rich,… Continue reading…

Following an intensive search, the 23 boys have been announced who will populate the British dancemaker’s savage island. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Kate Mulvany juggles charming wit and cunning ruthlessness in a visceral performance as the “bunch-back'd” king.

Multi-instrumentalist Adam Simmons has enlisted Michael Kieran Harvey to perform his Concerto for Piano and Toy Band. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Kicked out of the seminary, the Willoughby Symphony's Composer-in-Residence channels the folk music of his Latin heritage.

Eighth Blackbird delivers tight-as-a-drum ensemble work and irresistible momentum.

Greta Bradman shines in her first outing for Opera Australia, in Edwards' Weimar Bohème.

Robertson’s wild, dancing programme is a fascinating study in orchestral colours and textures.

Indonesian and Western music intermingle in a haunting accompaniment to Garin Nugroho’s horror film Satan Jawa. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The radio station on Sydney’s North Shore has opened a brand new educational hub to nurture new audiences for classical music. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in