Music Education &
Performing Arts Consultant
Barry published by Nelson Cengage Learning (ISBN 9780 1702 11253) Put aside the encyclopedias or online dictionaries, this little tome is a treasure chest of amusing and yet highly informative information about all things musical and otherwise. Nick Peterson has cleverly knitted together an amazing set of facts, historical stories and rare gems of information to … Read more
The Importance of Early Musical Training Oliver Sacks: And you’ll find that even a few minutes of five finger exercises will make functional changes in the brain, so the brain’s response to music in physiological terms is almost immediate although obviously it would take months or whatever to have anatomical changes. But a year of … Read more
Stellar Sopranos (The most dazzling, death-defying, dizzyingly stratospheric arias ever written) ABC Classics 480 5514 Terrific Tenors (The most thrilling, handsomely heroic, devastatingly tragic arias ever written) ABC Classics 480 5512 Bravura Basses (The most brooding, prfoundly deep, mellifluously magnificent arias ever written) ABC Classics 480 5513 Playing on singer stereotyping, this collection of three … Read more
The explosion of interest in early music has just been phenomenal as people are re-discovering music of the Baroque and earlier times. Coupled with performers who dedicate themselves to uncovering the essence of the music they play, using period instruments, this music comes alive with a fresh perspective. Reuniting after studying at the Royal Conservatory … Read more
In 2000 and 2001, ABC Classics released The Best of Joan Sutherland: Live from the Sydney Opera House, (Volumes 1 and 2) with the Elizabethan Sydney Orchestra conducted by Richard Bonynge. Ten years on, these two discs have been re-packaged in one box set as Classic Australian Performances. Now a year since the passing of … Read more
Originally a pianist, Claire Edwardes is now one of Australia’s most highly acclaimed percussionists. On her second recording for the Tall Poppies label, Edwardes has compiled a selection of 33 short pieces, some from her days as a fine pianist (Bach, Schumann, Shostakovich, Kabalevsky, Tchaikovsky, Bartok and Corea) and others are by Australian composers, some … Read more
Perhaps there are no other piano sonatas than these which have attracted such wide difference in interpretation. These sonatas written (1821-22) at a time when Beethoven was very ill and deafness had overtaken his life. He was also greatly obsessed with devotion to his nephew, Karl. Beethoven triumphs with these lasting testaments to the human … Read more
I never tire of listening to the “48” for they hold an incredible spiritual sense, deriving, I suspect, from Bach masterfully working in all 24 keys (12 major and 12 minor) with inspired polyphonic intricacy. Listening (and playing) these works can give an experience, not only to the soul and intellect, that is profound. Australian … Read more