2MBS Fine Music Sydney

Music is a powerful force that binds the social and natural worlds together to delight the listener in ways that are more than purely physical. To create music is to move sound waves of high and low pressure from a source, shifting molecules as it travels in a harmonic pattern. It is amplified into the social world of time and place. This has been the case since the earliest humans began to mimic or respond to sounds in the world around them and create meaning.

What is it about Orlando Gibbons that made him Glenn Gould’s favourite composer? Gibbons, who died 400 years ago, on 5 June1625, was the best-known member of a musical family dynasty, a leading composer of vocal, consort and keyboard music and a transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

The French composer Georges Bizet was born in Paris in 1838, living most of his life on the southern slopes of Montmartre before dying just 36 years later, on 3 June 1875. He became a highly accomplished pianist, and also wrote orchestral music, piano pieces and almost 50 songs and various choral and incidental works, including music for the ballet L’Arlèsienne. But for all practical purposes his career may be seen as beginning and ending with opera.  

Joyeux Anniversaire celebrates the 150th anniversary of the birth of Maurice Ravel. Kathryn Selby joins with the violinist Daniel Dodds and the cellist Julian Smiles to deliver a sparkling evening which tests the fortitude of both Kathryn’s fingers and a splendid Steinway! The concert starts in Vienna with Mozart’s Piano Trio No. 5 in C major.

What a blessing to classical music lovers is the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, the brain child of the late Richard Gill, and now led by co-artistic director, conductor, director and concertmaster, Rachael Beesley.

This is a collection of traditional folk music from England, Ireland, Scotland and (strangely) Sweden given what I can only describe as an intellectual 21st century polish by these three gifted classical musicians. The result is mixed. Claire Patti has a beautiful voice, perfectly attuned to these folk songs, but on occasion the sweetness overcomes the meaning, as in the first track Sweet Lemany.

Sydney-based pianist and composer Glenn Doig began his musical journey on the keys then progressing to the trombone, until jazz educator Mike Nock heard him play the piano at the Conservatorium of New South Wales where he was studying at the time and suggested that he concentrate his studies on pianoforte.

A tribute to the Founders of 2MBS with music of significance to them. Includes brief words from Professor Neil Runcie, David James, Charles Barton, Max Benyon and Vincent Plush with tributes to the late Trevor Jarvie, David Rumsey and jazz pioneers.

The 50th Anniversary of 2MBS Fine Music Sydney brings with it a fresh new look for our station!

Since the re-introduction of the 2MBS call sign a few years ago, it became apparent that the existing logo was no longer fit for purpose. The emphasis was essentially back-to-front, with ‘2MBS’ playing too small a role, despite that being the way we are to be found on DAB+ (for instance) and a “short hand” way of describing the station.

The Hungarian-born Australian pianist, Julie Adam, has recently recorded a number of Bartók’s works in Budapest, Bartok Piano Works, Land of my Early Childhood. Of this endeavour she says: it is one thing to return to the country of one’s birth and feel at home. It’s another to be able to record there the music which has symbolised a lost and cherished childhood.