OZartsreview

Recital

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 05:48:18 +0000

    Cameron Roberts (piano) Keyed-Up series Callaway Auditorium reviewed by Phoebe Schuman   This was a recital to grip the attention of the most jaded listeners: a compilation of works all being given their first airings in Perth. This is not to suggest that the audience would have been unfamiliar with the works on [...]

RIVERDANCE

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 09:07:26 +0000

    Burswood Theatre     Perth, Western Australia reviewed by Deanna Blacher   Riverdance opened last night to a packed audience in anticipatory mood. One could feel the expectation shimmering in the air, an expectation  that was, for the most part fulfilled.   The cast were in fine fettle , beautifully rehearsed and groomed, [...]

Boundary Street (Reg Cribb)

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:11:48 +0000

    Black Swan Theatre Company Heath Ledger Theatre reviewed by Scott Rheede Gary Marsh & Henrik Tived – Gary Marsh Photography Boundary Street is a play that ought to have been written decades ago. In its at-times shattering frankness, it focuses unblinkingly on a dark (no pun intended) aspect of Australia’s social and political [...]

Recital

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 02:43:22 +0000

    Taryn Fiebig (soprano) Mark Coughlan (piano) Hale Auditorium reviewed by Neville Cohn   If William Walton’s song cycle A Song for the Lord Mayor’s Table had been the only work on the program presented by Taryn Fiebig and Mark Coughlan, it would have been an altogether satisfying evening.   Had the shade of [...]

La Sonnambula (Bellini)

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 08:05:02 +0000

    W.A.Opera Company     His Majesty’s Theatre reviewed by Neville Cohn   One of the rewards of working as a music critic over decades is, after identifying and encouraging promising young talent, listening and watching (and hoping, because there is a high dropout rate) as they mature into confident adult musicians. This is [...]

Requiem KV626; Ave Verum Corpus KV618; Sancta Maria, mater Dei KV273; Exultate, Jubilate KV165 (Mozart)

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:50:24 +0000

  Cantillation     Orchestra of the Antipodes     Anthony Walker, conductor     ABC Classics CD 476 4064 TPT: 68’35”     reviewed by Neville Cohn   Oceans of ink have been spilled – and will so continue – about which hand completed which section of Mozart’s Requiem. If these endless speculations  – [...]

Mendelssohn: The Five Symphonies

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:14:49 +0000

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Sebastian Lang-Lessing (conductor)     ABC Classics 476 4623 (3CDs + DVD)     TPT: 128’ 52” reviewed by Neville Cohn   Last year, when the world was awash with performances of the music of Mendelssohn to mark the bicentenary of the composer’s birth in 1809, many regular concertgoers who thought they [...]

English Eccentrics: an Operatic Entertainment (Malcolm Williamson)

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 00:07:39 +0000

  Libretto: Geoffrey Dunn, based on the book by Edith Sitwell     WAAPA classical, vocal and music students     Roundhouse Theatre, WAAPA reviewed by Neville Cohn   Few English writers have been as astute and convincing in writing about eccentricity as the remarkable Edith Sitwell whose own oddness certainly qualified her for the [...]

Geoffrey Lancaster (fortepiano)

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 01:53:29 +0000

Sonatas Nos 32 in G minor, 31 in A flat and 33 in C minor TPT: 66’22” Tall Poppies TPT: 66’22” reviewed by Neville Cohn   To listen to Geoffrey Lancaster playing Haydn on the fortepiano is to be drawn ineluctably into the sound and mood world of the composer. And that was very much [...]

Stalin’s Orchard (Chris Edmund and student collaborators)

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 06:57:26 +0000

    Chris Edmund (director) Enright Studio (W.A.Academy of Performing Arts) reviewed by Neville Cohn   Yet again, Chris Edmund has demonstrated impressively and unambiguously that, in theatrical terms, he is a master when it comes to the evocation of political terror. The prime focus here is two men with almost limitless political power and [...]

Keyed-Up recital series

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:34:43 +0000

    Zen Zeng (piano) and friends reviewed by Helen Fintlean   This was a Keyed-Up program with a difference, very far away from the standard piano recital format that audiences have experienced over the years. Instead, we saw a host of artists who featured in a program of music and dance from Spain.   [...]

Dvorak: Violin Concerto: Legends opus 59

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 12:30:54 +0000

    Richard Tognetti (violin)     Nordic Chamber Orchestra     Christian Lindberg (conductor) TPT: 70’17”     BIS-CD-1708     reviewed by Neville Cohn       By most accounts, Dvorak was a gruff, no-nonsense sort of character who didn’t suffer fools gladly. But insofar as the composition of his Violin Concerto is [...]

Musica Viva 2011

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 04:58:42 +0000

  by Neville Cohn   For the first time in fifteen years, Australia will be able to listen to the rare artistry of Sabine Meyer, clarinettist extraordinaire. This superb musician came to worldwide notice after she was voted out – 73 to 4 – by her fellow musicians in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. It’s widely [...]

Complexions Contemporary Ballet

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 04:20:33 +0000

  His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth reviewed by Deanna Blacher           Complexions Contemporary Ballet would have been a largely unknown quantity in this part of the world before its opening night on Tuesday. But anyone coming away from its first performance at His Majesty’s Theatre is unlikely ever to forget it – [...]

Swan Lake on Ice

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 03:24:22 +0000

    The Imperial Ice Stars     Burswood Theatre reviewed by Deanna Blacher   Swan Lake on Ice, presented by The Imperial Ice Stars, prompted a rapturous, thoroughly deserved standing ovation on opening night at Burswood Theatre.   Not knowing what to expect – and a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist balletomaine of many decades – it [...]

Standfast and Other Tales

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 02:42:50 +0000

    by Barbara Yates Rothwell HC: 215 pp   Trafford Publishing     reviewed by Neville Cohn     Short story virtuoso Barbara Yates Rothwell paints with a delicate brush. Here are no vulgar splashes of colour. Instead, we’re taken into a world revealed in idiosyncratically gentle pastels. And she brings more than a [...]

Vladimir Rebikov

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 02:31:16 +0000

          Russian Piano Music Series (volume 2)   Anthony Goldstone (piano) divine art dda 25081   TTP: 70’05”   reviewed by Neville Cohn   This is a most welcome addition to the discography of Russian music for the piano.   Most of the pieces here are short, ranging from durations as brief [...]

An Eloquent Story

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:23:00 +0000

        by Neville Cohn     Not quite 80 years ago, a young employee – Walter Legge –  of His Master’s Voice records came up with an idea to boost sales: a limited edition of HMV recordings of German lieder, all by Hugo Wolf, and these would be made available only to [...]

UWA Choral Society

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:02:44 +0000

      Winthrop Hall reviewed by Neville Cohn   photo Denise Teo There would have been more than usual interest in a performance by the University of Western Australia Choral Society at the weekend as this was Jangoo Chapkhana’s  debut as director of this long- established choir.   It was an impressive presentation with [...]

RECITALS

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 01:31:33 +0000

  Geoffrey Lancaster (fortepiano)     Eileen Joyce Studio, UWA reviewed by Neville Cohn   Some time ago, during a TV interview, famed mezzo Cecilia Bartoli was asked whether she thought she had been touched by the finger of God. Modestly, she said she doubted it  -  but, tongue in cheek – she conceded that [...]

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