Music – Reviews Archive

The recorder – mainly the descant – is responsible for turning generations of school children off making music from a very early age. A featureless instrument in many ways, its flat tone conjures out-of-tune ensembles parping away amongst the pencil shavings in a …

From the outset this gig had some mystery about it. The Perth International Arts Festival (PIAF) Chevron Gardens had a new home at the brand spanking Elizabeth Quay and The Dub Pistols had never been to Australia before. Seeing the main stage …

Vaudevillian entertainer Godfrey Uke and his ensemble of award-winning jazz musicians will be very busy in February. The fun begins in the Blue Mountains with Tin Pan Alley, a debut theatrical homage to the great composers of American popular song, performed as …

A program of Beethoven symphonies too often gives modern orchestras an excuse to really blast and shake the concert hall rafters. After all, Beethoven’s symphonies are full of pile-driving riffs and slammin’ power-chords. It’s all very exciting – as any heavy metal is …

Grammy-nominated three-piece, The Tiger Lillies, is one of the more interesting acts at this year’s Sydney Festival performing to full houses in the Famous Spiegeltent. The show falls somewhere between a circus act and a gypsy troupe that astounds with the range …

Most fans of the Rolling Stones see Keith Richards as the epitome of everything the band stands for. He is the really cool dude despite the glamour and notoriety that surrounds frontman Mick Jagger. Sydney playwright Benito Di Fonzo evidently shares that …

I’m proud to say English folk musician Laura Marling and I have a few things in common: we were both born in the South-East of England, both grew up in Hampshire, and were both educated in Reading, at institutions across the road …

Australia is turning into Baroque-era Naples: only for several nights, though, and only in select recital halls in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. These venues are hosting a concert tour for Riccardo Minasi, one of Europe’s finest baroque violinists, and the Australian Brandenburg …

Mozart’s Fortepiano, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s fourth subscription series concert of 2015, sees the early music ensemble venture beyond the baroque and into the classical repertoire. Beginning with works by JC Bach and WF Bach, sons of Johann Sebastian Bach, and then …

Eighteen years is a long time in the life of a band. Since English band Blur last played a gig on Australia’s shores in October 1997, they’ve released platinum selling albums, disbanded, reformed, headlined several gigs in London’s Hyde Park, pulled out …