Fine Music Magazine

Musicians Hayden Chisholm and Jonathan Crayford, both New Zealand born, are contemporaries whose diverse careers in the past 30 and 35 years respectively have played out largely in foreign lands.

South African-born Guy Buttery is a multi-instrumentalist and composer. While his principal instrument is guitar, he also plays mandolin, sitar and thumb piano.

Hiding behind the name Seraphim Trio are three of Australia’s leading musicians, who have been playing together now for 27 years. Helen Ayres is the violinist,.

Isaac Stern was born on 21 July 1920 in the small Ukrainian town of Kremenetz. While he was still an infant, his family fled the uncertainties of the Russian Revolution and moved to San Francisco where his mother had relatives.

Composer and bandleader Hamed Sadeghi's connection with the landscape's unique physical beauty delivers music that sidesteps the mechanical rigidity of overly technical composition, opting for an emotional resonance that pulses through each track like a well-timed heartbeat.

The death of Henry Purcell in 1695 at the tragically early age of 36 was a disaster for English music. The greatest talent of the English Baroque was gone, and English music was condemned to enter the 18th century led by mediocrities and hacks.

Zodiac is a Sydney-based jazz quartet that fuses eclectic musical influences with heartfelt storytelling. Named 2MBS Fine Music Sydney’s 2023 Jazz Artist-in-Residence, they’ve since flourished, captivating audiences and evolving their distinctive, genre-blending sound.

Satie wrote no operas, no symphonies, no concertos and precious little chamber music, although others have produced various chamber arrangements of his works. He also wrote no sonatas.

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.

Shostakovich’s music will be relevant for as long as there are dictators and oppressive regimes in the world. That makes...