Music – Reviews Archive

From Tom Waites to Claude Debussy, 31-year-old Australian classical saxophonist Amy Dickson’s musical tendencies are as far reaching as dusk is from dawn. Dickson’s latest offering, titled Dusk and Dawn, is a stylish reworking of classical, jazz and popular tunes including Chopin’s “Nocturne”, Bellini’s …

Whenever I hear the saxophone used in classical orchestral music – after years of digging the instrument in jazz and rock with all its attendant growls, snarls, bleeds and honks – it sounds like a completely different instrument to its earthier-music sibling. Its …

The Renaissance Players are back on home turf and will play their next concert series in the Great Hall, Sydney University, on Saturday October 5 and Sunday October 6. The 35th Runnymede Pop Festival is a unique concert of serious, devout, comic, …

The glitz and glamour of the 1920s will come alive on Sydney Harbour when the Sydney Philharmonia Festival Chorus and Orchestra celebrates the music of Cole Porter this week. Under the inspired guidance of conductor Brett Weymark some of America’s most famous …

The 1980s. When dreams were big and hair was bigger. When we all thought we were gonna live forever. Chatswood Musical Society’s upcoming production of FAME: The Musical takes a look at the grit and glamour of New York’s High School of …

Italian baroque violinist Stefano Montanari has wowed audiences in the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s latest concert Celebrazione! now at the City Recital Hall, Angel Place. His violin sang, danced and cried as Montanari, dressed in tight leather pants and boots, delighted both the …

Arctic Monkeys lit up Glastonbury Festival 2013 on Friday with a performance that proved to be the highlight of the weekend. Six years on from their first appearance at the legendary festival they made their return to the Pyramid Stage at 11pm, …

If you’re wondering where wandering songstress Miriam Waks has been for the past year and a half, the answer is anywhere but here. Deeply frustrated and consumed with an overwhelming desire to “feel alive”, she has been off meditating in India, tangoing …

Acclaimed jazz saxophonist Matthew Ottignon assured me that Saturday night’s launch of his new band Mister OTT would be “something a bit different for the 505 crowd”. Despite his self-confessed “pretty standard” taste in jazz – John Coltrane, Wayne Shorte, Miles Davis, …

Gurrumul doesn’t speak during his shows but he doesn’t need to. His quietly majestic music says more than words could ever hope to. Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was born on Elcho Island off the coast of Arnhem Land, about 580 kilometres outside Darwin. …