Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Back to Melbourne - with OV for the rest of the year

Back to Melbourne - with OV for the rest of the year
My time with the Tasmanian Symphony ended in June 2015. What a great orchestra. I will be back soon.

After a stint in the UK (where I finally sold my house, yay) I am now back in Melbourne, on an acting principal contract with Orchestra Victoria.
After a chamber and orchestra season in Bendigo we move into the ballet season - 20:21 (Stravinsky symphony in three movements) then Sleeping Beauty. October has a series of smaller scale orchestral projects then the opera season features the Marriage of Figaro and Elixir of Love. That should keep me busy up until Xmas!

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

2015 is off and running

Where do the years go? I must be getting old when I come out with lines like this.

So here we are in 2015 and it looks very much like I will be spending most of it in Tasmania with the remarkable TSO. And why not, they are fantastic in every way.

We started in mid January and since then have done some CD recording sessions for Giselle, with Nicolette Fraillon and the Australian Ballet. David MacAllister came along for the sessions. He is crucial in setting dancable tempi for the recordings. It was fascinating to watch him work. We see the singers in the Sitz rehearsals for the operas but we only work with the dancers in the pit. It was insightful to watch Nicolette and David work together. They are an amazing team. Everything stems from the dance, and Nicolettes main job is to shape the music to make it fit the stage.

Between the two weeks Giselle recordings we had conductor workshops with Johannes Fritsch and his excellent young trainee conductors. Some stars for the future in that class.

October 2015

In October the weather can be varied - so too the gigs.

The month began with an interesting program with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. There were two guitar concertos in the middle (that I was roster off) - by Rodrigo (the famous one) and Tan Dun. I was there for the two glorious Debussy pieces, LÁpres Midi and Images 2 - Iberia. The older I get the more I love impressionist French music.

Next I was down to Fish Creek for a new program in a new venue. Waratah Hills Vineyard is making wonderful pinot noirs as well as a great range of other top drops. Its a spectacular setting in the midst of rolling Gippsland hills, and has an intimate space for chamber concerts. I took my group Kammermusik down for a quartet concert on 4th Oct. Great audience, really buzz, fun all round. And I got a chance to play Failing again, which is always fun. We gave the world premier of my version of the 6 German Dances by Mozart, K600.

Next it was off across the Bass Strait for 3 programs with the TSO:-
Ballet music - Nutcracker and Swan Lake, as well as Barbers quirky Cello Concerto
Education concert - features Little Red Riding Hood
Conductor workshops - where for one session I was the only bass, playing Shostakovitch Symphony no 9!! Among other gems

And finally we did started our last major Kammermusik program for the year with a concert at the Celia Rosser Gallery at Fish Creek. We played Rossinis string sonata no1 in G in between two Dvorak epics - the Terzetto and quintet in G