April 2025 issue Archives

High Five with Carl Dewhurst

April 2025 issue Barry O'Sullivan CD Reviews Fine Music Magazine Jazz posts

Carl Dewhurst, who has been a stalwart of the Sydney jazz scene for over 30 years, is considered one of the country's finest jazz and improvising guitarists. He has played with a Who's Who of mainstream and contemporary Australian jazz artists and has released over a dozen albums of original music as a leader or collaborator. He is currently an Associate Lecturer in Jazz at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

CD Review- The Stars, They See

April 2025 issue Barry O'Sullivan CD Reviews Fine Music Magazine Jazz posts

On his latest release pianist and composer Aaron Blakey leads a nimble quartet through its paces in six charming and sometimes upbeat gems he composed and arranged. The pianist and his team, Will Vinson (alto saxophone), Tom Botting (bass) and Tim Firth (drums), chart a trim yet steady course, avoiding well-worn paths and managing to wrest the utmost elegance and allure from each of these gems.

CD Review – Ghosts Between Streams

April 2025 issue Barry O'Sullivan CD Reviews Fine Music Magazine

The titular theme of this recording is the bold exploration of the interplay between nature and urbanisation, which again is simply another means towards connection and communion. Inspired by his daily walks through Stringybark Creek (North Sydney) and facilitated by a Freedman Fellowship Award, Avgenicos embarks on his creation and presentation of a new multidisciplinary masterpiece, in collaboration with his established jazz quartet, Delay 45, in partnership with Ensemble Apex String Quartet.

CD Review – Mountain to Sea

April 2025 issue Barry O'Sullivan CD Reviews Fine Music Magazine Jazz CD Reviews

This latest recording from the pianist/composer is engrossing music of the highest quality; a masterclass in how to be full of sound without necessarily being furious. Bringing together musicians from different backgrounds and generations

Ferrucio Busoni, Composer, Teacher and Dog Lover

April 2025 issue Fine Music Magazine Michael Morton-Evans

You couldn’t miss Busoni wherever he went for he was sure to be accompanied by his dog. And not just any dog. First it was a huge Labrador retriever called Lesko, and when Lesko died he was succeeded by a behemothian St Bernard called Giotto. Busoni, whose birth we mark on 1 April, always thought big, a trait he inherited from his father, Ferdinando, a handsome bibulous womaniser who just happened also to be a virtuoso clarinettist.

The Case of Giacomo Antonio Perti (1661-1756)

Andrew Dziedzic April 2025 issue Fine Music Magazine

Giacomo Antonio Perti (1661-1756) is one of the longest-lived significant Baroque composers. During his lifetime his name was almost as well known as that of his great predecessor, Monteverdi. While much of Monteverdi’s music has survived and the composer is revered today, Perti’s music has all but disappeared. Is Perti’s fall into obscurity a fair and understandable judgement of history or the result of unfair and unjust neglect?

Nexas Quartet – A Tribute to Nadia Boulanger

April 2025 issue Fine Music Magazine

As part of the 2MBS Fine Music Sydney’s Artists in Residence, Nexas Quartet showcased their extraordinary talent, performing works by Boulanger’s students, including George Gershwin, Astor Piazzolla, and César Franck.

Andrei Hadap – 2MBS Stefan Kruger Scholar

April 2025 issue Catherine Peake Fine Music Magazine Interviews

Andrei Hadap, who has a wide-ranging knowledge of keyboard instruments, and corresponding experience in performing on them, studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He began his orchestral career in 2018 with Brahms' First Piano Concerto, playing with the Penrith Symphony Orchestra, and is also a composer, scholar and teacher.

Sons and Mothers: Grief and Loss

April 2025 issue Catherine Peake Fine Music Magazine

Christopher Bowen’s An Australian War Requiem was commissioned by the Sydney University Graduate Choir to commemorate the beginning of World War I in 1914 and the Gallipoli campaign in 1915. It was premiered at the Sydney Town Hall in 2014. To evoke the time and place of World War I librettist Pamela Traynor uses Godfrey’s poem, together with letters written by soldiers on the battlefield to their families back home.

André Caplet, Composer Extraordinaire

April 2025 issue Fine Music Magazine Rex Burgess

When one looks at a chronological list of French composers one cannot fail to be impressed by the number of those born in the final quarter of the nineteenth century: 27 in all. Among the more enduring names are Ravel, Aubert, Canteloube, Le Flem, Varèse, Dupré, Tailleferre, Lili Boulanger, Ibert, all of Les Six and, not least among them, André Caplet.