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Australian Music News July 14th 2008
Singing with others makes you happy - new research is catching up with what many choristers already know. That's even if they sing Mozart's (or Faure's) Requiem and Handel's Messiah every year. Mind you the same research found that choristers are more unhealthy than the norm - too many biscuits in rehearsal breaks.
In a world-first, Jimmy Barnes is making his next album available via a wristband-USB. The device will allow users to update the music regularly with new Barnes content.
In the city of festivals, David Campbell has been appointed director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, and Graeme Murphy's production ofTurandot is set to be staged.
For these stories and more, check out the bulletin.
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Twenty-seven of the world's best young pianists could have their chance to shine at the Sydney International Piano Competition tarnished by the industrial stand-off between Qantas and its engineers.
Source: SMH
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Greg Bell, 1951-2008
With the renaissance of the Australian film industry in the 1970s, cameramen such as Russell Boyd showed the world what Australia looked like. Greg Bell showed how it sounded.
Source: SMH
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While there is a sense of excitement in Sydney with pilgrims flooding the streets for World Youth Day, there is an excitement of an entirely different nature happening behind the closed doors of the Seymour Centre.
Source: The Australian
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Three major US jazz artists will share the headline honours at this year's Wangaratta Festival of Jazz. Guitarist John Scofield and saxophonist Joe Lovano will co-lead a quartet as part of the festival, which runs from October 31 to November 3. The program, which was launched in Melbourne on Tuesday night, will also feature a quartet led by the iconic American saxophonist David Murray.
Source: The Age
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Battle of the Choirs first came to my attention in May, when an undercover operative emailed to inform me that from an insider's perspective the series was heinous on a scale not seen since Posh Spice made a hash of Los Angeles, before signing off with the words "please please please savage our crappy show" and disappearing in a cloud of red smoke like the Wicked Witch of the West, leaving no return address. It was kind of like Deep Throat meets The Sound of Music. The political Deep Throat, that is, not the one with the naked people. But I digress.
Source: The Age
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An hour before his first Sydney show, Davide Bruno, the rather fierce-looking leader of the Italian heavy-metal group Metatrone, was holed up in his dressing room and refusing to speak.
Source: SMH
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There have been some strange goings-on in the crazy world of American hip-hop during the past few weeks, at least as far as it relates to Australian performances.
Source: The Australian
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Sunday may traditionally be the day of rest, but no one could begrudge the 81-year-old leader of the world's Catholics a few hours of quiet reflection yesterday as Sydney took one last deep breath before the official start today of the World Youth Day celebrations.
Source: SMH
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Pilgrims are not the only people invading Sydney. International jazz artists are coming here on a scale not seen for 25 years.
Source: SMH
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The competition is tough and rivalries go back years. The competitors respect the strength of their opponents, saying it comes down to who performs best on the day. But the self-belief is strong.
Source: The Australian
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Nintendo has announced plans to launch a music game for its hit Wii game console this year, taking it into the fast-growing software segment pioneered by Guitar Hero.
Source: SMH
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It has been billed as the piano Olympics, since the event takes place every four years and, just like athletes, competitors can see their training regimes thrown out of whack.
Source: The Australian
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Competitors are permitted to choose their weapon, leaving the unchosen pianos scowling at the back of the stage.
Source: SMH
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Kristy Edmunds's final Melbourne Festival features intriguing relationships and some musical luminaries, writes Bryce Hallett.
Source: SMH
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Laura Marling's father might have played a crucial role in her decision to become a musician, having started teaching her guitar when she was only four years old but he doesn't call the shots these days.
Source: The Age
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The world of classical music has an unhealthy obsession with anniversaries.
Source: The Australian
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While athletes are doing their last-minute fine-tuning for the Olympic Games, the soprano Caroline Wenborne and a group of musicians from the Sydney Conservatorium will already be flying the Australian flag in Beijing.
Source: SMH
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Brother Johannes Paul and Brother Edmund are not the only monks visiting Sydney this week, but they must be the only two whose debut CD is in the charts across most of Europe.
Source: The Australian
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Brazilians are celebrating a very important decision of the National Congress, who has recently approved a Law that brings music education back to schools after 38 years. Since 1971, Brazilian school children only had arts education as a compulsory art subject, where one teacher was teaching all the arts in a few hours per week. During that time, only few schools, mostly private offered music education as part of the school education.
Source: International Society for Music Education)
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A leading cinema chain is trialling a plan to allow its patrons to watch major sporting events and opera.
Source: SMH
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A simple new device allows music students to quickly locate the scale or mode they are looking for. The Decodamode®Scale and Mode Decoder is a simple to use reference tool that gives access to 264 scales/modes. It has received glowing endorsements from leading musicians and music educators and is now available to the general public and educational institutions.
Source: Jazz Queensland
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In a meeting with the cabinet of EC President Barroso (on July 3rd at 9:00am) and in a public declaration read today at a press conference (July 3rd at 10:30am), Robin Gibb, Patrick Doyle, Laurent Petitgirard and David Ferguson – on behalf of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) and the entire creative community – reiterated their call to EC President:
Source: mi2n
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Teaching music has been a lifelong work for Nehama Patkin, and now she's taking it to a bigger stage.
Source: The Age
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"Most classical musicians couldn't improvise a fart at a Hungarian wedding," says Simon Tedeschi.
Source: SMH
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State Opera will undertake its biggest production since the 2004 Ring cycle with its remounting of Graeme Murphy's acclaimed Turandot.
Source: Adelaide Advertiser
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Two composers have collaborated on a work which captures their response to a picture book story about a little girl's bad day, writes Clare Morgan.
Source: SMH
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Singing regularly with others makes you happier, according to Australian research which suggests choristers have a better quality of life.
Source: SMH
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A Lehman Brothers analyst downgraded the entertainment industry Monday and slashed forecasts for its five major companies, saying digital downloads of movies and TV shows posed a huge threat to profits from DVD sales that the companies rely on.
Source: SMH
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There was plenty of love in the room during last week's ARIA Hall of Fame bash at Melbourne Town Hall, not least towards the star attraction, Rolf Harris.
Source: The Australian
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Most people consider digital music - that is, tracks stored in a computer-friendly file format - is somehow inferior to what comes out of a CD. This was certainly true in the early days of the digital music revolution. The first MP3 players had very little memory and internet connections were exceptionally slow, so a digital track had to be relatively small. Small files could be downloaded faster and you could fit more onto your portable music player but the music wasn't substantially better than you'd get from a clear FM radio signal.
Source: SMH
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Roger Bell, 1919-2008
ROGER Bell was the younger of the two Bell brothers who spearheaded the resurgence of improvised jazz in Australia after World War II. He was a gifted and virtually self-taught player and inimitable vocalist, his bright, driving but melodic and lyrical trumpet lead was much of the striking sound that characterised the Graeme Bell Band from the 1940s onwards.
Source: SMH
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Japan will stop pushing for legislation to charge royalties on the sales of iPods and other portable digital music players, giving in to opposition from electronics makers, officials said Thursday.
Source: SMH
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Last.fm to help unsigned bands
The music website has launched a new programme that ensures unsigned acts receive the same royalty privileges as those signed to major labels
Source: Guardian UK
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Renowned singer David Campbell has been appointed artistic director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival - and will take over next year's event.
Source: Adelaide Advertiser
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Zubin Mehta has led the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra through times of war even as it spreads a message of peace, writes Nicolas Rothwell
Source: The Australian
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In 1919, Leon Theremin, an electronics wizard who had migrated from the Soviet Union, created one of the simplest musical instruments in existence, all of two metal rods protruding from a base. It didn't have to be touched to elicit positively ethereal sounds: spaceship noises invented before anyone knew what a spaceship was.
Source: IHT
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After two painful operations to straighten his spine, 13-year-old Charley Baylor is about to receive a morale boost from Melbourne's music community.
Source: The Age
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Neil McCormick explains why recorded music sales are just one component in a commercial equation
Source: Telegraph UK
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When Australian Michael Lynch opened the letter from Whitehall saying he had been recommended as a Commander of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours, for services to the arts, he could almost hear people saying "but you're a republican". He is a republican but that's in Australia, he says.
Source: The Australian
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The next phase in the evolution of the humble record is being spearheaded by an unlikely innovator. Veteran Australian rocker Jimmy Barnes is taking a bold step away from the world of CDs by selling his new album in a unique format: via a USB wristband.
Source: The Age
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Paris Wells used to stand on top of a milk crate to sing to punters in a Melbourne laneway. Now she is hoping to top the charts with her debut album, with a little help from pop superstar Justin Timberlake.
Source: SMH
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The bargain bin isn't always the end of the road for songs that have faded into obscurity. There's another, more lucrative, place for them to go: television.
Source: SMH
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The brainchild of creative producer Annie Peterson, Women in Voice was originally based on a desire to find additional performing opportunities for Queensland's many talented female artists.
Source: Courier Mail
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Swedish pop group ABBA will never reform despite the success of "Mamma Mia!", the musical and film based on their hits, former member and songwriter Bjoern Ulvaeus said in an interview.
Source: The Age
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Germany's annual Bayreuth opera festival is going digital, streaming video and audio of its opening performance of "Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg" live via the Internet. The catch is the price _ $77.
Source: SMH
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It got the thumbs up from Sir Elton John, now Billy Elliot the Musical looks set to sweep the Helpmann Awards, picking up 11 nominations including best musical.
Source: The Age
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Proof that digital downloads are killing the CD has been revealed in new industry figures showing a 30 per cent fall in chart-topping album sales.
Source: Courier Mail
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Queensland's arts scene has suffered its third high-profile defection this year, with the Government again blamed for mismanaging funding allocation.
Source: Courier Mail
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Queensland's arts scene has suffered its third high-profile defection this year, with the Government again blamed for mismanaging funding allocation.
Source: Courier Mail
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Via modified musical equipment, found objects and custom-built instruments, Rafael Toral has unearthed a raw and primitive approach to making electronic music, writes Dan Rule.
Source: The Age
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Sydney vocal ensemble the Song Company is a finalist in four categories for the 2008 Classical Music Awards, announced yesterday.
Source: SMH
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The first years of Women in Voice were "pretty dodgy", says the founder of the concert series, Annie Peterson. "We didn't have any idea what was required to put on a show, but I was very fortunate to have the connections that made it work.
Source: The Australian
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Hymns are losing out at funerals to rock songs like Stairway to Heaven and Highway to Hell, says a leading funeral provider.
Source: SMH
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Kasey Chambers had a special reason for wanting to perform with veteran muso Max Merritt at last night's ARIA Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
Source: The Australian
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Now she's discovered, Sara Bareilles' biggest concern is overexposure, writes Andrew Murfett.
Source: The Age
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The boys have grown older, their limbs longer and their voices lower since they sang about life "down river" as the Wilcannia Mob. Lendal King was only 10 when international fame brushed this unlikely bunch of young indigenous rappers - taking them from the dusty obscurity of far-west NSW to centre stage at the Sydney Opera House and the Homebake music festival.
Source: SMH
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The growing success of Facebook - now well ahead of MySpace - has forced the latter to revamp itself, building on its core strength of music. If MySpace becomes more of a niche player, albeit a huge one, then it may simply be part of a trend. Niche is the new buzzword. There are already lots of niche networking sites including linkedin.com, plaxo.com, xing.com and asmallworld.net. But there are new niche networks in the pipeline including two - would you believe it - from Britain with global ambitions. They are simple and, unlike the start-ups in the dotcom boom, they think they know how to make money.
Source: SMH
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ROGER EMERSON BELL, MUSICIAN
4-1-1919 — 17-6-2008
Roger Bell, the younger of the two Bell brothers who spearheaded the post-World War II resurgence of improvised jazz in Australia, has died of kidney failure at the Epworth Hospital. He was 89.
Source: The Age
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Rolf Harris, one of Australia's most famous exports, returned home to be inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.
Source: SMH
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After countless accolades and awards during her long reign as pop princess, Kylie Minogue will add a royal honour to her collection tomorrow.
Source: SMH
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Three releases by Queensland artists appear in the top 10 of a list of the top 50 Australian independent albums of all time.
Source: Courier Mail
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The heart of Frederic Chopin, one of the world's most cherished composers, could hold the secret to his untimely death. The renowned 19th-century Polish-French pianist died at the age of 39 of what is believed to be tuberculosis. But leading Polish medical experts are betting that DNA tests on his heart - perfectly preserved in what appears to be cognac - could prove he suffered from cystic fibrosis.
Source: The Australian
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Squeezed off radio playlists, some performers are taking their music directly to the people in private party shows as an easy way of fitting another paid performance into the schedule.
Source: Courier Mail
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Master saxophonist Michael Duke is returning to Sydney to teach at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music after 10 years of academic and performance exploits in the USA.
Source: Sydney Conservatorium of Music
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Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia said Tuesday that the Warner Music Group had agreed to join its soon-to-be launched music service programme, giving its device users access to music published by Warner.
Source: SMH
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There is a confusing period just after an interview with a famous person, during which you and the famous person may be wandering the corridors of the same building and could therefore run into each other again. There is no approved etiquette for such a meeting. On the one hand, you have recently been chatting as if you were lifelong friends, so should you greet the famous person in the corridor with the same warm friendliness and pick up where your conversation left off? Or should you remember that you don't know this person at all, that they were only speaking to you because it's their job, and that people who don't know them acting like they do know them is probably the principal irritant in their lives, and therefore nod, smile and walk quickly by?
Source: The Australian
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The Bee Gees' Robin Gibb and other European music composers warned Thursday that standardizing music royalties across Europe could hurt musicians and the songs they write.
Source: IHT
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Edgar Vincent, who represented Placido Domingo, Beverly Sills, Mikhail Baryshnikov and a bevy of stars in classical music during a six-decade career, died Thursday following an operation in New York. He was 90.
Source: IHT
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Western musicians, administrators, and critics who visit China have lately come away murmuring observations along the lines of “classical music is exploding” and “the future of classical music lies in China.” Between thirty million and a hundred million children are said to be learning piano, violin, or both, depending on which source you consult.
Source: The New Yorker
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San José’s leading concert ensemble is Symphony Silicon Valley. Born in 2002 out of the ashes of the old San José Symphony (see a story recounted by SFCV here), it has grown cautiously over the years, with surprising and gratifying success. The orchestra was artistically mature from the beginning, drawing most of its personnel from its predecessor. Where SSV has really grown is in scheduling.
Source: San Francisco Classical Voice
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Be afraid, be very afraid: David Cronenberg's 1986 horror flick, "The Fly," has undergone a bizarre metamorphosis. It's now an opera.
Source: AP
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The City of Sydney is working with dozens of potential small bar operators keen to open Sydney's first laneway bar in Sydney ahead of tomorrow's changes to the NSW Liquor Act which reduce the price of some liquor licences.
Source: Sydney Media
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Q Music is thrilled to announce the finalists for Q Song 2008.
Source: Q Music
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The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia today begins its exciting future as an independent statutory authority, with the aim of increasing Australian public access to preserved moving images and sound recordings.
Source: National Film and Sound Archive
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UNESCO director general Koïchiro Matsuura opened the first extraordinary session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions on June 24, 2008, at UNESCO headquarters. Executive Board chairman Olabiyi Babalola Joseph Yaï attended the opening ceremony.
Source: UNESCO
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Connected by their shared passion and dedication to classical music; composers, performers, educators, promoters, musicologists and critics will once again gather for Australia’s annual celebration of classical music.
Source: APRA
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Anyone can copy anything, anywhere with the latest technology.
Source: SMH
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Over-regulation of potential live music venues has seen a long decline in live music performance in NSW. As has been so often reported over the last year, Sydney, once the music capital of the country, has lost many of its finest musicians to other cities, especially Melbourne. There, the licensing of live venues has been flexible and the costs low. Venues can afford to present live music and it is found in great diversity in small bars and restaurants all across Melbourne.
Source: MCA
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L’Heure Bleue (2007) for orchestra by Japanese composer Misato Mochizuki (born 1969) and Mémoire du vent (2006) for orchestra by young French composer Florent Motsch (born 1980) are the works selected by radio music producers participating in the 55th International Rostrum of Composers (IRC) held at the RTÉ studios in Dublin, June 9 to 13, 2008, organised by the International Music Council and hosted by RTÉ lyric fm
Source: IMC
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Why has David Byrne built an organ that can play a whole building? Andrew Purcell finds out.
Source: SMH
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Don Burrows is determined to eat a slice of cake at his 80th birthday party. The Australian jazz legend missed out at his 70th, and his 75th, because he was too busy performing for guests.
Source: SMH
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Soul music is second nature to 17-year-old singer and guitarist Singa Bromfield.
Source: The Australian
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Avril Lavigne fans have issued a call to arms, attempting to manipulate YouTube so a music video of the pop musician's hit track Girlfriend becomes the most-viewed video of all time.
Source: SMH
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Tutti Ensemble has achieved a major honour in the first national Music in Communities Awards. The Adelaide choir for people with and without disabilities yesterday won Best Music Program for the Disadvantaged from the Music Council of Australia.
Source: Adelaide Advertiser
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The almost unconscious impulse to move to music has the synapses snapping at Leigh Warren and Dancers.
Source: Adelaide Advertiser
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Queensland's arts scene has suffered its third high-profile defection this year, with the Government again blamed for mismanaging funding allocation.
Source: Courier Mail
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One-time punk Glenn Perry is The Man for libretto, says Fiona Scott-Norman.
Source: The Age
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Life's pretty sweet for Aussie teen singer Gabriella Cilmi - gold records, high fashion, industry parties. But, as she tells Christine Sams, she still has to do her homework.
Source: The Age
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If you need to know the results of Bulgarian Idol, I may be able to help. Ever since I got hooked on YouTube at the start of the year, I have become a repository of musical trivia and, at the same time, an explorer of new routes of research.
Source: La Scena
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The heart of Frederic Chopin, one of the world's most cherished musical geniuses, could hold the secret to his untimely death.
Source: SMH
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