Sunday, November 12, 2006

When too much music is barely enough ...

Joan and I attended the excellent performance of Mozart's Requiem on Saturday night at All Saints Cathedral, which was performed by combined choirs of Bathurst and Orange and the Bathurst Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Ann Hosking. This was a very good performance and the cathedral was packed again.

I mused to myself that if the best voices and instrumentalists in Australia had been performing for us, it would have been better, but not much better, because the standard was pretty high.

It was great to hear Gabriel Bieniek singing the soprano arias, sounding as terrific as ever. Will this be her last performance in Bathurst? We are very sorry to be losing her and her composer/pianist husband Matthew, but we imagine the Queensland part of her family will be over the moon that their daughter will be close by, especially after the birth of her baby.

Then, on Sunday afternoon we enjoyed some really beautiful music from Enchanted Winds, which features music by Kristopher Spike performed by Spike on piano, Leah Lock on flute and Deborah de Graaf on clarinet. Spike is a most interesting composer, and I am hopeful that it will not be too long before he is an Australian Music Centre represented composer, because he certainly deserves to be.

They were joined by mezzo soprano Sally-Anne Russell for 3 or 4 of the pieces they played.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Kate Neal

Did you see Kate Neal on Spicks and Specks tonight? If you'd like to hear some of her work, simply click on the above link, which will take you to an archive of a few MP3s of some of her pieces. I especially liked Rabid Fire, which was performed by an ensemble that includes terrific Australian pianist Michael Kieran Harvey.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Dame Joan Sutherland

Australia's most celebrated soprano has her 80th birthday today, 7th November, 2006. Limelight magazine, November 2006 edition, features a great CD which includes short interviews with her and her husband Richard Bonynge, and some beautifully sung arias.

Joan Sutherland shares her birth year with Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and Chuck Berry.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Simon Tedeschi

We had a most enjoyable concert in All Saints Cathedral a couple of Sundays ago, which featured Simon Tedeschi, a brilliant young Aussie pianist playing Mozart's Piano Concerto No 19 in F, with our Bathurst Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Michael Deasey OAM.

Fiona Thompson, Mitchell Conservatorium director and viola teacher and Melissa McLean, violin teacher performed Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, one of our favourite Mozart works.

Simon's encores were alsoterrific: he played a sizzling version of Dave Brubeck's Blue Rondo a la Turk, which featured his own improvised blues solos, and a great and difficult transcription of Danny Elfman's Simpsons Theme.

We look forward to hearing Simon again on 26th August next year, playing Grieg's wonderful piano concerto. This tiem round, I'm getting there early, because without a stage, and without tiered seating, we could not see Simon or the piano keyboard, which was a great shame.