Sydney – Monday 5 December, 2022. The Sydney Opera House’s much-loved chamber music program Utzon Music returns for its 16th year in 2023, showcasing a curated collection of the world’s boldest and most innovative ensembles and soloists from Western and Eastern classical traditions.
From March to October, Utzon Music 2023 will feature 11 performances from 8 world-class international and Australian artists in the intimate Utzon Room – the only performance space designed entirely by Opera House architect Jørn Utzon.
The stimulating and diverse program features Malian singer and guitarist Vieux Farka Touré; British vocal consort The Gesualdo Six; iconic British string quartet Brodsky Quartet; French string quartet Quatuor Van Kuijk; German-British baritone Benjamin Appl; young Australian string ensemble Alma Moodie Quartet; Australian cellist James Morley, joined by soprano Jane Sheldon and fortepianist Erin Helyard; and Australian concert pianist Andrea Lam.
“It’s been a delight to work with all the outstanding Utzon Music 2023 artists to assemble this inspiring program,...
From March to October, Utzon Music 2023 will feature 11 performances from 8 world-class international and Australian artists in the intimate Utzon Room – the only performance space designed entirely by Opera House architect Jørn Utzon.
The stimulating and diverse program features Malian singer and guitarist Vieux Farka Touré; British vocal consort The Gesualdo Six; iconic British string quartet Brodsky Quartet; French string quartet Quatuor Van Kuijk; German-British baritone Benjamin Appl; young Australian string ensemble Alma Moodie Quartet; Australian cellist James Morley, joined by soprano Jane Sheldon and fortepianist Erin Helyard; and Australian concert pianist Andrea Lam.
“It’s been a delight to work with all the outstanding Utzon Music 2023 artists to assemble this inspiring program,...
- 12/5/2022
- by Music Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid Music
Awards
Renowned singer Shirley Bassey is set to open this year’s BAFTA film awards with a James Bond tribute. Bassey has long been associated with 007, holding the record for an artist who has sung the most Bond theme songs with “Goldfinger” in 1964, “Diamonds Are Forever” in 1971 and “Moonraker” in 1979. The singer will perform “an iconic Bond theme” although which one will only be revealed on the night. This year’s BAFTA Awards will celebrate a number of iconic British film franchises, including Bond and Harry Potter. “Coda” lead Emilia Jones is also set to perform during the ceremony with a rendition of “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell.
The BAFTA Awards will take place in London on March 13.
Animation
Independent production outfit Big Deal Films (“Little Badman”) is teaming with Hoek, Line & Thinker for Big Thinkers, a new initiative to find the next big animated hit authored by diverse U.
Renowned singer Shirley Bassey is set to open this year’s BAFTA film awards with a James Bond tribute. Bassey has long been associated with 007, holding the record for an artist who has sung the most Bond theme songs with “Goldfinger” in 1964, “Diamonds Are Forever” in 1971 and “Moonraker” in 1979. The singer will perform “an iconic Bond theme” although which one will only be revealed on the night. This year’s BAFTA Awards will celebrate a number of iconic British film franchises, including Bond and Harry Potter. “Coda” lead Emilia Jones is also set to perform during the ceremony with a rendition of “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell.
The BAFTA Awards will take place in London on March 13.
Animation
Independent production outfit Big Deal Films (“Little Badman”) is teaming with Hoek, Line & Thinker for Big Thinkers, a new initiative to find the next big animated hit authored by diverse U.
- 3/7/2022
- by K.J. Yossman
- Variety Film + TV
The Original Motion Picture Score for Jungleland by Award winning composer Lorne Balfe is available now.
Lorne Balfe (Mission Impossible: Fallout (Interview), The Lego Batman Movie, Churchill, HBO’s His Dark Materials) is a Grammy Award winning, Emmy and BAFTA nominated composer. Whether on an impossible mission, the heartbreak of the Queen, the perils of the cape crusade or the soul of a genius, Lorne Balfe creates a musical voice that reflects the characters and the stories that embody them. Originally from Inverness, Scotland, Balfe has created music in virtually all genres and for all visual media with projects ranging from major studio to independent films, tentpole video game franchises, beloved animated feature films, critically acclaimed television series, and documentary features.
Produced by Romulus Entertainment in association with Scott Free Productions and Big Red Films, and directed and co-written by Max Winkler (Flower), Jungleland is a love story between two...
Lorne Balfe (Mission Impossible: Fallout (Interview), The Lego Batman Movie, Churchill, HBO’s His Dark Materials) is a Grammy Award winning, Emmy and BAFTA nominated composer. Whether on an impossible mission, the heartbreak of the Queen, the perils of the cape crusade or the soul of a genius, Lorne Balfe creates a musical voice that reflects the characters and the stories that embody them. Originally from Inverness, Scotland, Balfe has created music in virtually all genres and for all visual media with projects ranging from major studio to independent films, tentpole video game franchises, beloved animated feature films, critically acclaimed television series, and documentary features.
Produced by Romulus Entertainment in association with Scott Free Productions and Big Red Films, and directed and co-written by Max Winkler (Flower), Jungleland is a love story between two...
- 11/14/2020
- by Michelle Hannett
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
There are always plenty of Christmas-music roundups this time of year. This one's different. The others usually focus on the newest offerings. Nothing I've gotten this year has really struck a chord, but there is no shortage of favorites from years past that have proven their merits and held up over time. It is those in the classical realm, where trends matter least; and choral, because it's sacred choir music that's at the heart of the celebration of Christmas, that are listed below.
Ancient
If you want some Christmas music you don't already know by heart, just look further back in history.The early music movement of the past half-century has unearthed many long-forgotten masterpieces from the Medieval and Renaissance eras.
Sequentia: Aquitania: Christmas Music from Aquitanian Monasteries (12th century) (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi)
This was Sequentia's second album of Aquitanian Christmas season music, following on the heels of the much-praised Shining Light.
Ancient
If you want some Christmas music you don't already know by heart, just look further back in history.The early music movement of the past half-century has unearthed many long-forgotten masterpieces from the Medieval and Renaissance eras.
Sequentia: Aquitania: Christmas Music from Aquitanian Monasteries (12th century) (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi)
This was Sequentia's second album of Aquitanian Christmas season music, following on the heels of the much-praised Shining Light.
- 12/24/2015
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
It was another year full of great classical music. Here are my favorites from 2014, new releases only, no reissues.
1. Magnificat/Philip Cave The Tudors at Prayer (Linn) This superbly programmed and performed album contains eight Latin sacred choral works (specifically motets, mostly votive antiphons and psalm motets) by John Taverner (c.1490-1545), Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585), William Mundy (c.1529-1591), Robert White (c.1538-1574), and William Byrd (c.1540-1621). Active during the period of greatest religious upheaval in English history, they kept writing richly layered polyphony despite changing fashions (though the later composers listed would also provide chordal English-language anthems as needed). The mightiest work here, Mundy's Vox Patris caelestis, leads off the program. The text, speaking as it does of "flowering vines" and their "heavenly ambrosial scent," practically begs for an elaborate polyphonic setting, and Mundy provided one that is among the most exquisite works of the 16th century.
1. Magnificat/Philip Cave The Tudors at Prayer (Linn) This superbly programmed and performed album contains eight Latin sacred choral works (specifically motets, mostly votive antiphons and psalm motets) by John Taverner (c.1490-1545), Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585), William Mundy (c.1529-1591), Robert White (c.1538-1574), and William Byrd (c.1540-1621). Active during the period of greatest religious upheaval in English history, they kept writing richly layered polyphony despite changing fashions (though the later composers listed would also provide chordal English-language anthems as needed). The mightiest work here, Mundy's Vox Patris caelestis, leads off the program. The text, speaking as it does of "flowering vines" and their "heavenly ambrosial scent," practically begs for an elaborate polyphonic setting, and Mundy provided one that is among the most exquisite works of the 16th century.
- 12/28/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Earlier this week, I looked at recent releases of Easter-season choral works by J.S. Bach and one of his sons. Today I cover a bit more historical range in terms of composers and eras, again sticking to recent releases.
Maria Venuti, Keith Lewis, Michel Brodard/Gächingen Chorale of Stuttgart/Bach Collegium of Stuttgart/Helmuth Rilling Christus am Ölberge, Op. 85 (Hänssler Classic)
Written in 1802 in just 14 days (but not published for a decade, hence the high opus number), Christus am Ölberge (Christ on the Mount of Olives) is a dramatic oratorio depicting Christ's emotional acceptance of his fate during His conversation with an angel in the garden of Gethsemene, followed by His arrest and Peter's protest.
It's not one of my favorite pieces; there's just one memorable chorus (all the way at the end) and a lot of fairly rote Beethovenisms. Even the composer spoke disparagingly of it, disliking the libretto.
Maria Venuti, Keith Lewis, Michel Brodard/Gächingen Chorale of Stuttgart/Bach Collegium of Stuttgart/Helmuth Rilling Christus am Ölberge, Op. 85 (Hänssler Classic)
Written in 1802 in just 14 days (but not published for a decade, hence the high opus number), Christus am Ölberge (Christ on the Mount of Olives) is a dramatic oratorio depicting Christ's emotional acceptance of his fate during His conversation with an angel in the garden of Gethsemene, followed by His arrest and Peter's protest.
It's not one of my favorite pieces; there's just one memorable chorus (all the way at the end) and a lot of fairly rote Beethovenisms. Even the composer spoke disparagingly of it, disliking the libretto.
- 4/17/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
It's been eight years since I wrote about my favorite classical Christmas music. So here's a look at some of the finer Christmas releases since then. As before, I try to spotlight some less familiar Christmas music while still including old favorites.
Monica Piccinini/Christina Kuhne/Ursula Eittinger/Alberto ter Doest/Thilo Dahlmann/Cologne Academy/Michael Alexander Willens Francesco Durante: Neapolitan Music for Christmas II (cpo)
I've got to get my hands on vol. I, because this is wonderful. Durante (1784-1755, an almost exact contemporary of J.S. Bach, was considered one of the greatest church composers in Naples at that time, and also taught such future famous opera composers as Pergolesi and Paisiello (Durante was himself a student, in Rome, of Pasquini).
Even Bach, always interested in the Italian masters, found Durante's work worthy of study. One of the tropes of Italian Christmas music was a pastoral mood celebrating the shepherds,...
Monica Piccinini/Christina Kuhne/Ursula Eittinger/Alberto ter Doest/Thilo Dahlmann/Cologne Academy/Michael Alexander Willens Francesco Durante: Neapolitan Music for Christmas II (cpo)
I've got to get my hands on vol. I, because this is wonderful. Durante (1784-1755, an almost exact contemporary of J.S. Bach, was considered one of the greatest church composers in Naples at that time, and also taught such future famous opera composers as Pergolesi and Paisiello (Durante was himself a student, in Rome, of Pasquini).
Even Bach, always interested in the Italian masters, found Durante's work worthy of study. One of the tropes of Italian Christmas music was a pastoral mood celebrating the shepherds,...
- 12/22/2013
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
It's been eight years since I wrote about my favorite classical Christmas music. So here's a look at some of the finer Christmas releases since then. As before, I try to spotlight some less familiar Christmas music while still including old favorites.
Monica Piccinini/Christina Kuhne/Ursula Eittinger/Alberto ter Doest/Thilo Dahlmann/Cologne Academy/Michael Alexander Willens Francesco Durante: Neapolitan Music for Christmas II (cpo)
I've got to get my hands on vol. I, because this is wonderful. Durante (1784-1755, an almost exact contemporary of J.S. Bach, was considered one of the greatest church composers in Naples at that time, and also taught such future famous opera composers as Pergolesi and Paisiello (Durante was himself a student, in Rome, of Pasquini).
Even Bach, always interested in the Italian masters, found Durante's work worthy of study. One of the tropes of Italian Christmas music was a pastoral mood celebrating the shepherds,...
Monica Piccinini/Christina Kuhne/Ursula Eittinger/Alberto ter Doest/Thilo Dahlmann/Cologne Academy/Michael Alexander Willens Francesco Durante: Neapolitan Music for Christmas II (cpo)
I've got to get my hands on vol. I, because this is wonderful. Durante (1784-1755, an almost exact contemporary of J.S. Bach, was considered one of the greatest church composers in Naples at that time, and also taught such future famous opera composers as Pergolesi and Paisiello (Durante was himself a student, in Rome, of Pasquini).
Even Bach, always interested in the Italian masters, found Durante's work worthy of study. One of the tropes of Italian Christmas music was a pastoral mood celebrating the shepherds,...
- 12/22/2013
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
The son of a vicar (and Charles Darwin was his great-uncle), Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) became one of the most popular English composers. He studied under Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry at the Royal College of Music, but also read history and music at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he palled around with the philosophers Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore. He also went to Germany for lessons with Max Bruch, but ultimately rejected the 19th century German Romantic style Friendships with fellow Rcm students Gustav Holst and Leopold Stokowski later bore more fruit, in different ways: Stokowski, who moved to the United States, became Rvw's biggest supporter there; Holst and Vaughan Williams critiqued each others' work and joined in the study and collection of English folk songs. "The knowledge of our folk songs did not so much discover for us something new, but uncovered something which had been hidden by foreign matter,...
- 10/12/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
On Monday night, I attended “An Evening with E L James,” an intimate New York City get-together for the launch of the Fifty Shades of Grey: The Classical Album. James, who kicks off her U.S. book tour today, was on hand for an interview (and of course, a general gawk at the nice middle-aged British lady who almost single-handedly ruled the publishing industry this year).
There are undoubtedly dozens of author Q&As and record-release celebrations happening across Manhattan every night, but this evening was, well, different… So, should you too ever find yourself uncertain as to whether...
There are undoubtedly dozens of author Q&As and record-release celebrations happening across Manhattan every night, but this evening was, well, different… So, should you too ever find yourself uncertain as to whether...
- 9/18/2012
- by Tara Fowler
- EW.com - PopWatch
Emi Classics have announced plans for an official soundtrack to Fifty Shades of Grey. The classical pieces on the album have been collected as an accompaniment to El James's erotic novel series. Fifty Shades of Grey - The Classical Album will be released digitally on August 21, followed by a physical release on September 18. The label credits the books for the recent rise in classical music sales, with Thomas Tallis's 16th century 'Spem in Alium' having topped the UK classical charts after it was referenced in Fifty Shades of Grey. El James said: "I am thrilled that the classical pieces that inspired me while I wrote the Fifty Shades trilogy are being brought together in one collection for all lovers of the books to enjoy." Pieces by Chopin, Bach, Debussy and Vaughan Williams are also among the album's tracklisting. (more)...
- 8/7/2012
- by By Tom Eames
- Digital Spy
Probably some of you were a little too busy with, er, other things on your mind while reading Fifty Shades of Grey to realize author E.L. James was giving you the perfect playlist for your very own, um, enjoyment. Or if you’re that great a multi-tasker, in between buying that complete set of restraints and riding crops, you’ve already downloaded all the Thomas Tallis, Bach and more that accompanies Ana and Christian’s adventures in and out of the “Red Room of Pain,” For the rest of us, Emi has actually compiled a bunch of those songs into Fifty Shades of Grey – The Classical Album (alas, that means no Britney Spears or Kings of Leon will be included).
“I am thrilled that the classical pieces that inspired me while I wrote the Fifty Shades Trilogy are being brought together in one collection for all lovers of the books to enjoy,...
“I am thrilled that the classical pieces that inspired me while I wrote the Fifty Shades Trilogy are being brought together in one collection for all lovers of the books to enjoy,...
- 8/7/2012
- by Sabrina Rojas Weiss
- TheFabLife - Movies
Today in weird and incongruous ripple effects: Thomas Tallis's Spem in alum, a "40-part motet … written around 1570," has apparently rocketed up the iTunes classical chart thanks to its inclusion in the mind-bogglingly popular erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey. Spem is the piece of music that Christian Grey plays on his first night with Anastasia, so, now you know what the fortysomethings of this nation are making out to. ("Making out.")...
- 7/11/2012
- by Amanda Dobbins
- Vulture
The X Factor theme tune 'O Fortuna' has been named the most recognised classical music song of all time. According to The Mirror, Carl Orff's 1937 composition beat 'Fantasia On A Theme' by Thomas Tallis. The list, compiled on behalf of Radio 2 by a royalties collection body, was revealed in a programme presented by former Never Mind the Buzzcocks comic Bill Bailey. German composer Orff was inspired by a Latin poem for the track, but it has gained mainstream recognition as a tension-builder on ITV1's mainstream TV reality contest The X Factor. (more)...
- 12/28/2009
- by By Paul Millar
- Digital Spy
Don't read any further if you don't want to be depressed for the rest of your Sunday.
Still with us? Well, beloved Discworld author (and Good Omens co-author) Terry Pratchett told The Daily Mail that before he reaches the "endgame" of the Alzheimer's Disease he was diagnosed with back in 2007, he wants to be allowed to die on his own terms. In his own words, per the article:
I intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod. Thomas's music could lift even an atheist a little bit closer to Heaven. Oh, and since this is England, I had better add, "If wet, in the library."
There's some interesting stuff in the article about the assisted suicide debate in the UK, and I recommend you take a read.
Still with us? Well, beloved Discworld author (and Good Omens co-author) Terry Pratchett told The Daily Mail that before he reaches the "endgame" of the Alzheimer's Disease he was diagnosed with back in 2007, he wants to be allowed to die on his own terms. In his own words, per the article:
I intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod. Thomas's music could lift even an atheist a little bit closer to Heaven. Oh, and since this is England, I had better add, "If wet, in the library."
There's some interesting stuff in the article about the assisted suicide debate in the UK, and I recommend you take a read.
- 8/2/2009
- by Matthew Weinberger
- Comicmix.com
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