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Victoria Chorale: Misa Criolla – Classic Melbourne
Concerts given by Victoria Chorale are increasing in their popularity as choir numbers grow, and audiences are at record levels for programs that are fresh, innovative and entertaining, often bringing the joy of the unexpected. The Collins St Baptist Church sits in the centre of a bustling theatre precinct, so 5pm on a Saturday is...
Melbourne Chamber Orchestra: Musette, with guest artist, Li-Wei Qin – Classic Melbourne
"Musette" was (almost) all about the cello. The opening work – and the only one not for or by a cellist – was a re-imagining of six pieces “From Anna Magdalena Bach’s Notebook”, by Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin. Kats-Chernin wrote that she had decided to re-work her favourite pieces, to give them both “a chance...
Jasper Ly and Peter Dumsday: TENERA – Classic Melbourne
Last Saturday, two consummate musicians gave a flawless performance called TENERA at the Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre. Jasper Ly and Peter Dumsday have honed a formidable partnership for oboe/cor anglais and piano. The word “tenera” means tenderly, and the mood of the music met this brief with a concert focusing on works all...
Nightingale Performing Arts Australia: Stories That Must Be Heard – Classic Melbourne
Last year, Nightingale Performing Arts Australia brought two exciting works to Melbourne at fortfivedownstairs (a review can be found on the Classic Melbourne website), so this year’s performances were definitely not to be missed. Like the Two Acts (Krystyna and Gad) of Two Remain, by notable American composer Jake Heggie, Stories That Must Be Heard explores important social...
Musica Viva Australia: Takács Quartet with Angie Milliken – Classic Melbourne
It felt like a royal visit. The Takács Quartet’s Melbourne performance was a hugely anticipated event, and Elisabeth Murdoch Hall was buzzing well before the Quartet appeared on stage. The Quartet, now in its fiftieth year, comprises founding cellist András Fejér, leader Edward Dusinberre (since 1993), Háarumi Rhodes (2018), and violist Richard O’Neill (2020-21). Melbourne...
Royal Melbourne Philharmonic: 2025 RMP Aria Final and Forrest’s Requiem for the Living – Classic Melbourne
Now in its 19th year, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Aria has become something of an institution for lovers of oratorio and classical music singing. The Finalists Concert is an event eagerly anticipated every year, along with the final of the German-Australian Opera Grant, both generally at The Edge, and with the financial support of Hans and...
Australian Chamber Choir: Renaissance Requiem – Classic Melbourne
It is always a great joy and spiritual inspiration for audiences to hear the most beautiful qualities of the human voice in solo and choral settings in the special enriching acoustic of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Here is where the Australian Chamber Choir creates perfection in pitch, tone and harmony bringing us the most...
Victorian Opera: Abduction – Classic Melbourne
This “reimagined” version of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio), now running at the Palais Theatre, St Kilda is among Victorian Opera’s more adventurous projects. Audiences have become accustomed to the spoken part of Mozart’s two major singspiel operas, Il Seraglio and The Magic Flute, being adapted to include topical references and contemporary idioms, but Abduction takes...
News: Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Season 2026 – Celebrating 120 Years – Classic Melbourne
On Wednesday night we had an important double treat: a “Symphonic Send-Off” in the form of a preview of some of the works to be played during the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s European Tour, and the “2026 Season Unveiling”. Between the three items played: a very lively Overture to Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla, then Elgar’s In the South and...
Omega Ensemble: Elevator Music – Classic Melbourne
It seems to be quite a fashion to brand fine music concerts with a pithy title - alluring signage to whet our appetites and stir our curiosity? Elevator music was first found in the elevators of the 1930s, soothing music (later referred to as “Musak”) designed to alleviate the anxieties and “noise” of modern life....
Australian Chamber Orchestra: Gershwin and Shostakovich – Classic Melbourne
t may be the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s 50th birthday this year, but it is the audience that continues to receive special gifts. This tour (rather unimaginatively titled Gershwin and Shostakovich) delivered a generous and diverse program with much beyond those two composers. The evening also delivered the typical sense of occasion that few outside of the...
Australian Contemporary Opera Company: Danielle de Niese – Classic Melbourne
As one of Australia’s most enterprising small independent opera companies, Australian Contemporary Opera Company (ACOCO) has continued to bring a range of innovative performances to Melbourne audiences since 2008. Showcasing an international opera star of the calibre of Danielle de Niese, however, is an unusual achievement even for them. What was less unexpected was the inclusion...
Changing Wilds Ensemble: Our Duty to Care – Classic Melbourne
What does it mean to care about something? Deeply and truly care about a subject or idea. In our fast-paced world, where everything from politics to culture feels fickle and made especially for the instant gratification of the internet, how many times do we admit to caring about something deeply? In the latest performance by...
Kimberly Akimbo: A Musical – Classic Melbourne
How can a storyline about a teenage girl with a fatal disease become a musical full of joy, laughter and positivity? That was the question in my mind when heading to the opening night of the latest Melbourne Theatre Company production at the Playhouse, the musical Kimberly Akimbo, by David Lindsay-Abaire and Jeanine Tesori. Despite the...
Here You Come Again – Classic Melbourne
Here You Come Again is the epitome of a feel-good musical, and don’t we need some of that in the middle of a very cold Melbourne winter? Although it features the hits of country singer Dolly Parton, it’s not necessary to be a die-hard Dolly fan, although there were plenty of those in the opening night...
Musica Viva Australia: Mozart’s Clarinets – Classic Melbourne
On Tuesday July 22, Musica Viva Australia presented a fascinating insight into the early clarinet with “Mozart’s Clarinets”. The concert was given at the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre, by the internationally renowned Nicola Boud on basset horn and period clarinet, with Erin Helyard on fortepiano and Simon Cobcroft on cello. The program featured...
Orchestra Victoria: Prismatic Echoes – Classic Melbourne
“Their Moment is now”, said conductor Jonathan Lo at the end of Orchestra Victoria’s outstanding performance at the Hanson Dyer Hall on Friday, July 25. The night before, they had held their Meet @ The Market performance at the North Melbourne Meat Market. Here Jonathan Lo and the orchestra were up on a large dais...
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra: Journey to the Americas – Classic Melbourne
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s musical journey to the Americas captures three quite different musical trips. The contemporary composer Jimmy Lopez was born in Peru; Czech composer Antonin Dvorak made the journey to America and was living there when he wrote his second cello concerto; while Australian composer and jazz pianist Joe Chindamo makes a musical...
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Short Black Opera – Yinya dana: lighting the path – Classic Melbourne
NAIDOC: “National Aborigines and Islanders day Observance Committee”. Initially the name of the committee originally responsible for organising the national NAIDOC Week activities, over time, the acronym has become the name for the entire festival now celebrating its 50th anniversary. And what a week of celebrations it has been. Kicking off with a special AFL match...
Melbourne Chamber Orchestra: Pastorale – Classic Melbourne
The Melbourne Chamber Orchestra really is the musical gift that keeps on giving. A tantalising Melbourne Recital Centre Series, radio broadcasts, an annual Spring Chamber Music Festival in Daylesford – these are just a few of their extensive and diverse concert events. In mid-winter, we were given a very warm and beautiful escape from the...
Crossroads Live: Annie – Classic Melbourne
Annie is one of those timeless old-fashioned musicals in the best sense. It’s funny, light-hearted but with moments of pathos, and has a story with a feel-good ending – not to mention cute kids and an exceptionally charming furry mutt called Sandy, played on opening night by Bodhi, who kept an eagle eye on his trainer...
Musica Viva Australia: Jess Hitchcock and Penny Quartet – Classic Melbourne
Many people are to be congratulated for this terrific collaboration, conceived by Musica Viva Australia’s Artistic Director, Paul Kildea, which brought a truly Australian and original cultural concept to the stage. Always supporting new artistic projects, MVA timed this special event for NAIDOC week, especially celebrating the success of female composers and contemporary music by...
Live at Yours: Richard Tognetti and Konstantin Shamray – Classic Melbourne
Live at Yours is an artist-led organisation presenting distinguished local and international artists in most joyful and memorable performances in “alternative” concert venues. Tonight we were given far too much magic in a superb program that received a long standing ovation at its close. On a national tour with highly acclaimed artists Richard Tognetti and...
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra: Ryman Healthcare Winter Gala – Lang Lang – Classic Melbourne
Lang Lang returned to Hamer Hall last Saturday night for the Ryman Healthcare Winter Gala and brought the cachet and excitement that a gala performance promises. The concert opened and closed with two Ravel orchestral works – more of them later. Lang Lang took on Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 22...
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra: Baroque Unleashed – Classic Melbourne
Australia’s flagship Baroque music ensemble returned to Elizabeth Murdoch Hall for this series of concerts dedicated to music of the Italian Baroque, with three outstanding soloists all emerging from the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra ranks. Sporting a semi-casual look in smart all-black T-shirts and blazers, the ABO players took their positions around the harpsichord for this...
Melbourne Conservatorium of Music: L’incoronazione di Poppea – Classic Melbourne
If one composer could be considered to put early Baroque opera prominently on Melbourne’s musical map, it would have to be Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643). Multiple performances of his Orfeo (1607) and L'incoronazione di Poppea (1643) have met with huge success and played to full houses in recent decades. Despite the inclusion of non-human entities, the composer’s last opera explores...
Lang Lang in Recital – Classic Melbourne
“We have been, let us say, to hear the latest Pole Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and fingertips. 'So intimate, this Chopin, that I think his soul Should be resurrected only among friends Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom That is rubbed and questioned in the concert room.” T.S. Eliot: Portrait...
ANAM AT THE CONVENT: ELISION ENSEMBLE – Classic Melbourne
ELISION Ensemble is a tour de force in the world of new music, described as “Australia’s international contemporary music ensemble”, who “engage with co-creative processes of dialogue with composers, in which musicians imagine, develop and build new technical and expressive means”. What an exciting week it was at the Australian National Academy of Music for...
Speak Percussion: Pigeons – Classic Melbourne
What do pigeons and percussionists have in common? More than you think, actually, as Speak Percussionists revealed during a mind-bending performance of “Pigeons” at the Melbourne Recital Centre on June 14. “Pigeons” is the brainchild of Speak Percussion Director Eugene Ughetti. The idea for this creation, he explains in program notes, came from watching the...
Royal Melbourne Philharmonic: Franz Joseph Haydn’s The Creation – Classic Melbourne
On a cold Melbourne winter Saturday afternoon, when all the news seems grim, and even your footy tips aren’t delivering, what better antidote than to hear a performance of Haydn’s The Creation. For singers, instrumentalists and audience it is the most joyous of music. While in London in 1791, Haydn was given a text for an...
Musica Viva Australia: Northern Lights – Classic Melbourne
In her warm welcome, Musica Viva Australia’s CEO, Anne Frankenberg, referred to this concert as “Music Makes Memories”, a celebration of eighty years of the organisation’s recital series, inspiring youth program Strike A Chord, masterclasses and concerts in schools. Swedish-Norwegian violinist, Johan Dalene, performed with a remarkable 1725 “Duke of Cambridge” Stradivarius, and has, at...
Woodend Winter Arts Festival 2025: Ode on St Cecilia’s Day; From Bach to Glass: Cello sound across time and space – Classic Melbourne
The Woodend Winter Arts Festival has established a solid reputation for staging large vocal and instrumental works in St Ambrose Church. Artistic directors Jacqueline Ogeil and John O’Donnell are passionate in re-creating historical works, and as a result of their long leadership with one of Melbourne’s most respected chamber choirs, Ensemble Gombert, and the Baroque...
Woodend Winter Arts Festival: Berta Brozgul – Variations on a Theme: Works by Brahms, Mozart, Chopin and Scriabin – Classic Melbourne
This year’s 20th celebration of the Woodend Winter Arts Festival included a range of captivating events that offered exciting, stimulating and heart-warming performances in the intimate atmosphere of the popular rural region of the Macedon Ranges. Run by outstanding volunteer networks, the focus this year on Music, Words & Ideas, Theatre and Film offered visitors and...
Melbourne Recital Centre: Stephen Hough – Classic Melbourne
It was with a great deal of anticipation that I attended Monday night’s piano recital by Sir Stephen Hough in the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, as just a few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to hear Hough deliver a truly majestic reading of Brahms’ mighty Piano Concerto No 1 in D minor, a performance however...
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra: Grieg’s Piano Concerto – Classic Melbourne
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Elim Chan, presented a spirited and evocative program of British and European works at Hamer Hall on Saturday afternoon. Anchored by Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, the performance conjured a vivid array of textures and emotional colours, led by the supple touch of Ukrainian Australian...
Melbourne Opera: Samson et Dalila – Classic Melbourne
A social context changes out perceptions. Saint-Saëns’ Samson et Dalila was initially rejected by Paris on a number of grounds: its portrayal of biblical subject matter as an opera rather than an oratorio, its suggestively erotic “Bacchanale” scene, and the belief that Saint-Saëns was a composer of symphonies rather than opera. Its success in Weimar in 1877...
Australian String Quartet: Rapture – Classic Melbourne
The Melbourne Recital Centre audience was already cheering when the Australian String Quartet (ASQ) – Dale Barltrop, Francesca Hiew, Chris Cartlidge and Michael Dahlenburg – emerged onstage to begin the final performance of its national tour of Rapture. But this rapturous welcome nevertheless paled in comparison with the thunderous applause the ASQ received at the end...
fortyfivedownstairs Chamber Music Festival: Michael Leslie – Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, Schumann – Classic Melbourne
In an exciting and varied series of chamber music concerts curated by Coady Green, one extraordinary soloist performed a recital of rarely heard repertoire for piano, giving us a memorable evening with an impressive recital with the added wisdom, artistry, and maturity that can only come from his many decades of experience. International concert pianist...
fortyfivedownstairs Chamber Music Festival and Lyric Opera: Their Voices will Rise – An evening of new Australian Queer Art Song – Classic Melbourne
Queer voices illuminate the nature of identity in a world that continues to push such voices to the fringe. Despite continuing personal and social challenges, Queer musicians continue to rise in song to question, provoke, inspire and lay bare their stories in this mid-week concert presented by Lyric Opera as a part of fortyfivedownstairs Chamber...
fortyfivedownstairs Chamber Music Festival 2025: Beethoven, Czerny and Liszt Piano Duets and Songs – Classic Melbourne
It was a pleasant experience indeed to be sitting in the intimate yet generous space of fortyfivedownstairs, glass of rosé in hand, attending to a charming chamber music program directed by Coady Green. For this occasion, Coady Green invited pianist Glenn Riddle and mezzo-soprano Sally-Anne Russell for an intriguing concert of works by Beethoven, Carl...