May 2025 Archives

CD Review – Between Spaces of Knowing

Barry O'Sullivan Jazz CD Reviews

Lucy Clifford's compositions (and her bass playing) provide balm for the soul, drawing inspiration from life's in-between moments of contemplation, where we meet our real selves.

High Five – Bonnie J Jensen

Barry O'Sullivan Jazz posts

Australian jazz chanteuse Bonnie J Jensen is part of a new wave of female jazz vocalists reshaping the genre with fresh energy and insight. Alongside talents like America’s Norah Jones, Britain’s Claire Martin, and Sweden’s Linda Pettersson, she brings a soft, sweet, sultry, and soulful spark to the modern jazz scene.

CD Review – After The Last Sky

Jazz CD Reviews

After the Last Sky is a jazz/classical fusion of folk-like and luxurious melodies and is highly recommended. All pieces were composed or jointly composed by Brahem.

CD Review – Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich

Classical CD Reviews Michael Morton-Evans 12 May 2025

The Australian Chamber Orchestra’s most recent CD release on the ABC Classics label runs the gamut of 19th-20th-century Russian music, opening with Tchaikovsky’s joyful 1880 masterpiece Serenade for String Orchestra and ending with the equally masterful, but much darker, 1960 Chamber Symphony in C minor by Shostakovich.

2MBS Ken Weatherley Scholar – Tiana Young

Emerging Artist Program Jazz posts

The winner of the 2MBS Ken Weatherley Scholar 2025, Tiana Young trained at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and has performed in public since her teens.

CD Review – Songs For Dead Sailors

Barry O'Sullivan Jazz CD Reviews Jazz posts

Toby Wren's seventh album of original music is a psychological exploration of love and loss in the era of tall ships, unfolding as a song cycle through a series of evocative compositions performed by a sextet of Brisbane's finest musicians.

Thomas Hardy: The lilt of his lyric wiles

Classical Fine Music Magazine

Some know Thomas Hardy, poet. More know Thomas Hardy, novelist. Few know Thomas Hardy, architect. How many know Thomas Hardy, musician?

A Musical Life in Brief – Miriam Hyde

Classical Fine Music Magazine

Miriam Hyde is one of Australia’s most respected and internationally acclaimed 20th-century pianists and composers. Her long and prolific career started when, as a youngster, she won a scholarship to the Elder Conservatorium in Adelaide.

Master of the grand motet: Michel-Richard Delalande

Classical Programs Rex Burgess

Among the many rich periods in French music few are more absorbing than the one that starts with the arrival of Lully in Paris in 1646 and ends with the death of Leclair and Rameau in 1764. The two are the last great exponents of the glorious French Baroque.

Antonio Salieri: On his own terms

Classical Fine Music Magazine

How well known would Antonio Salieri have been without the supposed Mozart murder connection, a story that predated Amadeus, the play and movie by more than 150 years and was the subject of contemporary gossip in Vienna during his lifetime?