New Faces Choreograph for the Australian Ballet in ‘Bodytorque’ by Andrew Miller

Amy-harris-luke-marchant-in-ke
The Australian Ballet has of course a long history of commissioning new works, often from Australian choreographers. For the last several years, the Company has encouraged this activity under the 'Bodytorque' moniker — five dancers from the company with an interest in choreography are given the opportunity to create a short (15-20 minute) ballet with dancers from the company, which they produce for the general public in a smaller theatre (smaller than the opera house, anyway) — a safe enough environment for experimentation. We balletomanes get the opportunity to see fresh creativity and serious, experimental modern ballet choreography and dancing, as well as what the future holds for the larger national company. This year's program is certainly varied in inspiration and execution even though, or perhaps because the scale of the productions is small. Some have plots and some have concepts, more like 'interpretive dance,' if I can use that term without a negative connotation.

Read the full review on The Berkshire Review, an international journal of the arts.

Alan Miller

Educating Agnes at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, by Caroline Bottger


Educating Agnes (L’école des femmes)
Written by Molière, translated by Liz Lochhead
The Lyceum
The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh
8 April – 7 May

Director: Tony Cownie

Arnolphe – Peter Forbes
Alain – Steve McNicoll
Georgette – Kathryn Howden
Agnes – Nicola Roy
Horace – Mark Prendergast

“You have to laugh,” Horace (Mark Prendergast) says to Arnolphe (Peter Forbes), the antagonist of Molière’s play, newly translated into rhyming couplets by the Scots Makar Liz Lochhead and revived by Tony Cownie for the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh this spring. This adage is repeated twice more, and the audience must take comfort in it. The world of Educating Agnes is disturbing, devoid of human feeling, and the only coping mechanism for both the audience and the characters is to laugh. The Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh is perfectly suited to taking on this type of 17th-century drama, both in atmosphere and sheer theatrical clout.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!






Beethoven’s Last String Quartet, Mozart, the Renaissance and Ian Munro with the Brentano String Quartet , by Andrew Miller


Corio (Geelong Grammar School across Corio Bay), c.1943 by Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack. National Gallery of Australia.

City Recital Hall, Angel Place: 23 May 2011
Organized by Musica Viva. The Quartet tours Adelaide 27 May Melbourne 28 and 31 May, Canberra 2 June, and returns to Sydney Saturday 4 June.

Brentano String Quartet
violins - Mark Steinberg and Serena Canin
viola - Misha Amory
cello - Nina Maria Lee

Mozart
String Quartet no. 15 in d minor, K421

Ian Munro
String Quartet no. 1, From an Exhibition of Australian Woodcuts
I. Sails in the Wind
II. Corio Magnolias
III. Tarantella on a Sydney Tram

William Byrd
In Nomine a 4 no. 2

Orlando Gibbons
Fantasia a 4 no. 1

William Byrd
In Nomine a 4 no. 1

Orlando Gibbons
Fantasia a 4 no. 2

Beethoven
String Quartet no. 16 in F Major, opus 135

The string quartet often served as a kind of guinea pig for composers' experimentation and innovation, especially in the Classical period, and the peculiar bright, sometimes astringent (generally in a good way) sound of this arrangement of instruments foreshadows that of 20th Century Music. (Scientifically, this sound partly owes the violin's unique quality that its first harmonic can be louder than the fundamental, though this depends a great deal on personal style). A good example is perhaps Mozart's String Quartet no. 19 in C major K465, dubbed 'Dissonance,' which many balked at when first played. Mozart and Haydn, and later also Benjamin Britten, were keen violists, and they sometimes played the alto part in their own and their friends' works, entrusting the first violin to a professional musician while retaining some control over the piece's early performances. Perhaps if Schoenberg could have participated in the first performances of his atonal music it would have had more early success.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!






U.S. Department of State features Omar Sangare for a video project that will appear as part of President Obama’s trip to Poland in May 2011.


Omar-194x300
Omar Sangare

Omar Sangare, who is currently starring in John Guare’s “Erased” with Glenn Fitzgerald at the Atlantic Theatre Company, has been selected by the U.S. Department of State for a video project that will appear as part of President Obama’s trip to Poland in May 2011.

This series of short documentaries focuses on Polish Americans who contribute to the innovation, creativity and vibrancy of America, featuring a wealth of prominent Polish Americans who are proud of their heritage while having an impact on America’s social and cultural fabric.

Three documentaries will cover Omar Sangare’s career as an actor, director, writer, producer and educator. The films contain footage from rehearsals at the Atlantic Theater in New York City, as well as from Williams College, where he teaches in the Department of Theatre. Omar’s Polish roots and international accomplishments have been highlighted as a valuable cross-cultural model of the contemporary artist and scholar.

The videos have been posted in media that includes the official channel AmericaGOV on YouTube, American Embassies, and other government institutions.

Read the full notice in New York Arts

Two Hearts, Four Hands are Better Than One: Two Piano Recital with Pascal and Ami Rogé, by Andrew Miller

Pascal Rogé and Ami Rogé.

Sydney Recital Hall, Angel Place: 16 May 2011
Pascal and Ami play again at the Australian National Academy of Music, Melbourne, Monday 23 May

pianos - Pascal Rogé and Ami Rogé

Robert Schumann arr. Claude Debussy
Six Études in Canon Form, Op. 56

Johannes Brahms
Sonata in f minor for two pianos, Op. 34b

Francis Poulenc
Élegie
L'Embarquement pour Cythère — Valse-musette for two pianos

Paul Dukas arr. Dukas
The Sorcerer's Apprentice — Scherzo after a ballad by Goethe

Maurice Ravel arr. Ravel
La Valse (poème chorégraphique)

While a piano soloist has special control over their music, and complete polyphonic music at that, that is to say melody, harmony and range and all the parts or 'voices' where contrapuntal, and this endows the pianist also with solitude, there is a romance fundamental to piano music, the two hands creating a relationship and complementing each other, at the very least in register. Piano music for 'four hands' is then even more romantic, the chamber music-wise relationship of the two musicians, the complexity of the music and the ease with which it can slip into a thick intensity, a knife's edge from chaos, the twice infinity combinations of expression, unanalyzable on the fly and loss of a degree of control, leave even more to faith, and make this music an especially creative performing art form. This is partly why Mozart called the organ the 'king of instruments,' though a pair of pianos of course has fewer stops, it is capable of greater percussion and so a peculiar rhythmic sense which the organ can't express in the same way. On top of all this, Pascal and Ami Rogé chose some very difficult music for this concert, which showed off their technical ability, but more importantly gave them the material to produce a vivid operatic sound, singing duets in their fingers while playing the orchestra part as well.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!







(download)

Mahler’s Ninth. Vladimir Ashkenazy Conducts the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, by Andrew Miller


Mahler-1909
Gustav Mahler.

Sydney Opera House, Concert Hall: 18 May 2011

Sydney Symphony Orchestra
conductor - Vladimir Ashkenazy

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concerto No. 13 in C, K415
piano - Steven Osborne

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 9
I. (Andante comodo)
II. (Im Tempo eines gemächlichen Ländlers. Etwas täppisch und sehr derb.)
III. Rondo. Burleske. (Allegro assai. Sehr trotzig.)
IV. Adagio. (Sehr langsam und noch zurückhaltend.)

Vladimir Ashkenazy's programs for his Mahler cycle are very generous, invariably opening the already enormous symphonies — though he makes them seem short — with a concerto, sharing disinterestedly with the fine soloists. I already admired Steven Osborne as a very artistic pianist from his recording of the Rachmaninoff Préludes. He seemed here to have in his mind the peculiar thematic unity of this Mozart concerto and his close relationship with the orchestra, sometimes leaving sublime and well judged silent moments between them and his cadenzas, gave the piece wholeness.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!






Mahler’s Ninth. Vladimir Ashkenazy Conducts the Sydney Symphony Orchestra by Andrew Miller

Mahler-1909
Vladimir Ashkenazy's programs for his Mahler cycle are very generous, invariably opening the already enormous symphonies — though he makes them seem short — with a concerto, sharing disinterestedly with the fine soloists. I already admired Steven Osborne as a very artistic pianist from his recording of the Rachmaninoff Préludes. He seemed here to have in his mind the peculiar thematic unity of this Mozart concerto and his close relationship with the orchestra, sometimes leaving sublime and well judged silent moments between them and his cadenzas, gave the piece wholeness.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an international journal of the arts!

Alan Miller

Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Menotti’s The Medium Coming Up at Hubbard Hall

Hubbard Hall Opera Theater presents:
Mosaic Arts in
Suor Angelica by Giacomo Puccini
semi-staged and costumed

A PAY WHAT YOU WILL EVENT!
Suggested Donation: $7
Thursday, May 26th
8pm, Hubbard Hall mainstage
Kelly Hutchinson: Director
Adam Zagotti: Conductor
Josh Tanis: Piano
Irina Petrik: Suor Angelica
Aleks Romano:  La Zia Principessa
Nacre Dance Company will provide beautiful choreography for Puccini’s masterpiece.
Suor Angelica is a one act opera by Giacomo Puccini and is the second of three operas known as Il Trittico.  The opera received its world premier at the Metropolitan Opera on December 14, 1918. Suor Angelica takes place in a convent, the convent to where Angelica was sent after a life-altering youthful indiscretion.  After seven years of waiting, Angelica is finally visited by a member of her family, her Aunt, the Principessa.  La Zia Principessa explains that Angelica’s sister is to be married and that Angelica must sign over all of her rights of inheritance to benefit the new bride. 

Read the full preview on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!






Barangaroo: Not so Fast?, by Alan Miller


The western flank of the Sydney CBD seen from Pyrmont. Barangaroo is the blank concrete expanse at center left. Photo © Alan Miller 2010.

The saga of Sydney’s Barangaroo has finally reached the point where its twists and turns are no longer predictable. The developer Lend Lease and its resolutely faux design, once paced to a seemingly unassailable lead by a compliant government and a shameless PR operation, has punctured a tire. Without a spare tube or pump, they wait by the side of the road for a team car which itself has been totaled. Meanwhile “sandal-wearing, muesli-chewing, bike-riding pedestrians” are gaining fast. No one knows how many kilometres there are to go. Consider recent events:

Read the full article on the Berkshire Review, an International journal for the Arts!






Barangaroo: Not so Fast? by Alan Miller

Barangaroo-from-pyrmont

The saga of Sydney’s Barangaroo has finally reached the point where its twists and turns are no longer predictable. The developer Lend Lease and its resolutely faux design, once paced to a seemingly unassailable lead by a compliant government and a shameless PR operation, has punctured a tire. Without a spare tube or pump, they wait by the side of the road for a team car which itself has been totaled. Meanwhile “sandal-wearing, muesli-chewing, bike-riding pedestrians” are gaining fast. No one knows how many kilometres there are to go. Consider recent events:

Read the full article on The Berkshire Review, an international journal of the arts!

Alan Miller