CD Reviews

A look at music that is both on the rise, and causing waves around the globe.

Ottorino Respighi is a composer known for being something of a polymath, speaking eleven languages fluently. It’s therefore no surprise that this collection of songs features works in Italian, French and English.

Sarah Elise Thompson is a young Sydney-based composer who studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Gerard Brophy. She has received commissions from a wide range of artists, including The Song Company, Australian Youth Orchestra, Ensemble Offspring, PLEXUS and Deborah Cheetham, some of whom return the favour and appear on this album.

No music does heartbreak and loneliness like jazz, and Gregg Arthur’s tenth album The Ballad Collection tugs at your heartstrings with each tender tune. Listening to this album in its intended order is essential. Without the delicate balance of the lighter tunes between the more melancholic tracks, you risk being completely shattered by the emotions Arthur evokes.

The tunes evoke images of Aotearoa New Zealand. Searching for the Coast is a translation of the Te Reo Maori name for the Shotover River, and has the feel of such a river. It flows both physically and musically into The Remarkables | Kawarau. This is at once atmospheric and scenic, as it is deeply meaningful and imaginative jazz.

Wilcock has enormous skill and fluid versatility at the piano as well as on composition thus making this session an exciting (even though at times a blistering) summit of equals. Throughout, there is highly creative intergalactic listening to be had here, which was particularly enjoyable on the vinyl I played.

AVÉ is a recently formed, Queensland-focused a cappella vocal quartet, whose members are Katie Noonan, Fiona Campbell, Andrew Goodwin, and Andrew O’Connor.

American Quintets is the debut recording from the English musicians of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective.

Considered to be one of the greatest trombonists in the world and renowned for his swing improvisation, Brazilian Raul De Souza is credited with creating the Bossa Nova of the ‘50s and Samba jazz of the ‘60s.

Philipp Heinrich Erlebach was one of many German composers of the late 17th century whose work has fallen off the pages of history.