Music
On 4 September 2024, the classical world of music, and especially its Austro-Germanic heartland, will celebrate the bicentenary of Anton Bruckner’s birth. Australia’s homage to this symphonic Titan is relatively modest, though these months do include performances of his Ninth (Brisbane, QSO, Johannes Fritzsch), and Fourth (Melbourne and Geelong, MSO, Daniel Carter; Hobart, TSO, Eivind Aadland), along with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s four performances of the Eighth Symphony, under Simone Young. Her global reputation increasingly rides on dynamic interpretations of large later-Romantic works, by Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, as well as Bruckner.
... (read more)How does a ten-day festival in Townsville (Gurambilbarra) in tropical Far North Queensland, with a line-up of thirty-five top musicians from Australia and across the world, go from strength to strength in a difficult economic climate? Maybe it’s because the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, with a track record of more than thirty years, is so much more than a music event.
... (read more)Andrew Ford is a composer, writer, and broadcaster, and has won awards in all three capacities, including the prestigious Paul Lowin Prize for his song cycle, Learning to Howl. His music has been played throughout Australia and in more than forty countries around the world. Since 1995 he has presented The Music Show each weekend on ABC Radio National. He is the author of eleven books, including The Song Remains the Same: 800 years of love songs, laments and lullabies (with Anni Heino). We review his new book, The Shortest History of Music.
... (read more)Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The jazz singer who transformed American song by Judith Tick
Pursuit of the New: Louise Hanson-Dyer, publisher and collector edited by Kerry Murphy and Jennifer Hill
Film Music: A very short introduction, Second Edition by Kathryn Kalinak
Full Coverage: A history of rock journalism in Australia by Samuel J. Fell
Melbourne International Jazz Festival
Building on the success of the 2022 Melbourne International Jazz Festival (MIJF) – never guaranteed, coming off Melbourne’s lockdowns – the MJIF’s artistic team, at first glance, looked to have voted for more of the same, casting a wide net to ensure that plenty of musical diversity was on offer. After the triumph of last year’s Big Saturday event at Sidney Myer Music Bowl, featuring New Zealand funksters Fat Freddy’s Drop, the Festival rebranded this year’s event Jazz at the Bowl, headlined by 1980s soul diva Chaka Khan and funk producer Nile Rodgers, best known for his pioneering work with Diana Ross and David Bowie.
... (read more)