Latest news with #AustralianChamberOrchestra
Sydney Morning Herald
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
If you're only going to see one musical this season, let it be Beetlejuice
Everyone from a Pollyanna-ish girl scout (Rebecca Ordiz) to a dead beauty queen (Angelique Cassimatis) – not to mention Beetlejuice's own chain-smoking mother (Noni McCallum) – gets in on the action as the door to a bureaucratic underworld opens, and Lydia must find a way to cope with her loss before all hell breaks loose. Everything about Beetlejuice is super-slick and timed to perfection. The musical is so jam-packed with visual gags and satirical lyrics and outre musical hijinks you'd probably need to see the show twice to catch them all. Perfect is in his element as an equally appealing and offensive agent of chaos, poking fun at every musical theatre rule with scruffy charisma, riding a hometown vibe with some of the ad-libbed jokes. Opposite him, Karis Oka is ideally cast as Lydia, playing the show's beating black heart with a winsome but slightly vicious undertone that might just bring about a goth revival and certainly won't disappoint fans of Winona Ryder in the original movie. McCann and Johnson leap into parody as a couple diminished by suburban life – channelling shades of Brad and Janet from Rocky Horror, only, well, dead. And camp comedy is embraced with wild abandon by the supporting cast. Loading Dinner party guests are possessed into performing Harry Belafonte songs; Claire's ditzy Delia butts heads with the goth heroine in a duet that pits mindless positivity against nihilistic angst; and an entire chorus of Beetlejuices conquers the stage with gruesome … glamour is not the word. Pigs' genitals might have been removed from the show, but Beetlejuice still revels in rebelling against the appropriate and its highly orchestrated chaos does, in the end, achieve comic catharsis. We are all strange and unusual, after all, and never more so than when we refuse to admit how fleeting life is, or to embrace life knowing we're all going to die. Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead MUSIC Theremin and Beyond ★★★★ Australian Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Centre, May 17 German theremin virtuoso Carolina Eyck is a musical conjurer. Making mysterious hand gestures between the two antennas of her electronic instrument, she seemingly creates music out of thin air. Named after its Russian inventor, the theremin led the way in electronica. Because of its eerie sounds, the theremin has been a godsend for movie and television composers. Surely, Midsomer's reputation as the most murderous place in England could not have been cemented without its spooky theremin theme, nor would Hitchcock's Spellbound be so compelling without composer Miklos Rozsa's appropriation of the instrument. In this eclectic program, the Australian Chamber Orchestra celebrated the theremin's place in popular culture, creating a party atmosphere with The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations, Morricone's music for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and an arrangement of the Star Trek theme. Classical repertory was not neglected with empathetic accounts of Bach's so-called Air on a G String, extracts from Saint-Saens' The Carnival of the Animals including its celebrated swan, and at the other end of the spectrum, a clever take on Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. Glinka's The Lark also appeared – the song with which Theremin introduced his invention to Lenin. Holly Harrison's Hovercraft, commissioned by the ACO for Eyck, brilliantly opened up the expressive capabilities of the theremin as did Eyck's own composition Strange Birds. Reduced to some 10 players, the ACO strings led by Richard Tognetti provided diverse connective tissue with works by Brett Dean, Erwin Schulhoff and Shostakovich's Japanese friend Yasushi Akutagawa. Enlivened by the colourful addition of pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska and percussionist Brian Nixon for much of the program, rhythmic interest also came with Offenbach's famous Can-can and Jorg Widmann's 180 Beats per Minute.
The Age
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
If you're only going to see one musical this season, let it be Beetlejuice
Everyone from a Pollyannish girl scout (Rebecca Ordiz) to a dead beauty queen (Angelique Cassimatis) – not to mention Beetlejuice's own chain-smoking mother (Noni McCallum) – gets in on the action as the door to a bureaucratic underworld opens, and Lydia must find a way to cope with her loss before all hell breaks loose. Everything about Beetlejuice is super-slick and timed to perfection. The musical is so jam-packed with visual gags and satirical lyrics and outre musical hijinks, you'd probably need to see the show twice to catch them all. Perfect is in his element as an equally appealing and offensive agent of chaos, poking fun at every musical theatre rule with scruffy charisma, riding a hometown vibe with some of the ad-libbed jokes. Opposite him, Karis Oka is ideally cast as Lydia, playing the show's beating black heart with a winsome but slightly vicious undertone that might just bring about a goth revival and certainly won't disappoint fans of Winona Ryder in the original movie. McCann and Johnson leap into parody as a couple diminished by suburban life – channelling shades of Brad and Janet from Rocky Horror, only, well, dead. And camp comedy is embraced with wild abandon by the supporting cast. Loading Dinner party guests are possessed into performing Harry Belafonte songs; Claire's ditzy Delia butts heads with the goth heroine in a duet that pits mindless positivity against nihilistic angst; and an entire chorus of Beetlejuices conquers the stage with gruesome … glamour is not the word. Pigs' genitals might have been removed from the show, but Beetlejuice still revels in rebelling against the appropriate and its highly orchestrated chaos does, in the end, achieve comic catharsis. We are all strange and unusual, after all, and never more so than when we refuse to admit how fleeting life is, or to embrace life knowing we're all going to die. Reviewed by Cameron Woodhead MUSIC Theremin and Beyond ★★★★ Australian Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Centre, May 17 German theremin virtuoso Carolina Eyck is a musical conjurer. Making mysterious hand gestures between the two antennas of her electronic instrument, she seemingly creates music out of thin air. Named after its Russian inventor, the theremin led the way in electronica. Because of its eerie sounds, the theremin has been a godsend for movie and television composers. Surely, Midsomer's reputation as the most murderous place in England could not have been cemented without its spooky theremin theme, nor would Hitchcock's Spellbound be so compelling without composer Miklos Rozsa's appropriation of the instrument. In this eclectic program, the Australian Chamber Orchestra celebrated the theremin's place in popular culture, creating a party atmosphere with The Beach Boys' Good Vibrations, Morricone's music for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and an arrangement of the Star Trek theme. Classical repertory was not neglected with empathetic accounts of Bach's so-called Air on a G String, extracts from Saint-Saens' The Carnival of the Animals including its celebrated swan, and at the other end of the spectrum, a clever take on Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee. Glinka's The Lark also appeared – the song with which Theremin introduced his invention to Lenin. Holly Harrison's Hovercraft, commissioned by the ACO for Eyck, brilliantly opened up the expressive capabilities of the theremin as did Eyck's own composition Strange Birds. Reduced to some 10 players, the ACO strings led by Richard Tognetti provided diverse connective tissue with works by Brett Dean, Erwin Schulhoff and Shostakovich's Japanese friend Yasushi Akutagawa. Enlivened by the colourful addition of pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska and percussionist Brian Nixon for much of the program, rhythmic interest also came with Offenbach's famous Can-can and Jorg Widmann's 180 Beats per Minute.
ABC News
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Violinist Richard Tognetti tells Virginia Trioli there's a fine line between success and failure
For the virtuoso violinist Richard Tognetti, the difference between success and failure is as fine as a single ridge of his fingerprint. He demonstrates, as I sit with my nose to his violin bow, trying to detect on the strings a finger movement that could be measured in microns. Richard's compelling performances have earned him an impressive international reputation. ( Supplied: Aaron Smith ) He begins to climb the daily music scales that he can never afford to shirk, talking me through each picked out note — good and bad. He starts playing: "Flat! Start again," he barks at himself. A good note, a good note and then … "Bad string crossing!" Another note: "Sharp!" Then … "Flat! Bad shift! Squeaky!" I'm laughing now — this is a pitiless performance, Richard's dread of scales just as alive for him today as the leader of the acclaimed Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) as it was when he was a seven-year-old "street urchin". Photo shows On pink background, Virginia Trioli faces side and smiles, with text: Creative Types with Virginia Trioli. Richard finds the problem: "Now this is what I was talking about," he says waggling his little finger at me. "That's out of tune — and you can't even see the finger moving!" No, I really can't. And to be honest, I can't even tell the notes that Richard says were bad — they all sounded superb to me. But the line of work that first called to Richard as a child in Wollongong is one that requires a measure of exactitude that is shared by precision engineers and the Baroque geniuses who carved the violins he plays. It's the key to his success: that the work, the very hard work of remaining exceptional, is what he wakes to do. Loading Instagram content In conversation with me for an episode of Creative Types, Richard is playful but fractious, expansive in his thoughts about the antique classical music that he makes so vividly current with his ensemble, and yet still a little defensive about the battle to maintain the excellence it requires. I can hear that there is still a prickle under his collar. "Every idea that I've had and that I've implemented has been met with a big thick wall and a bunch of naysayers," Richard tells me. "You asked me about what I learned at the beginning? I was very defensive and argumentative, maybe a bit aggressive. Now I just go about my business and wait … I play more the Pied Piper … they all come around the wall, eventually." The ACO has been described by some of the world's leading music critics as the best chamber orchestra alive. But it's clear that's never going to be enough for Richard. He seems to need to share his restlessness with others, casting for provocative and stimulating collaborations with filmmakers, artists, contemporary, classical and rock musicians like Jimmy Barnes to see if there's anything else on the other side of that wall that's worth sharing. "Why the collaborations? Because our repertoire is about that big," Richard says, his fingers a millimetre apart. "People have earmarked a date … and paid money … and I want to give them an experience that astral travel takes them on — an extraordinary trip." Photo shows Virginia Trioli and Kate Ceberano stand together smiling in a room with art on wall behind them. In the 1980s, Kate Ceberano was experiencing the wrong kind of recognition: backlash for snide comments she'd made about Kylie Minogue. When I visit him, the orchestra is rehearsing in collaboration with the mesmerising Scottish guitarist, Sean Shibe, for a sequence of old and new Scottish music. In a wildly beautiful piece, incorporating spoken word and electric guitar, Richard, Sean and the players read each other just as they do the music on their stands. As ever, there is no conductor, but they respond to each other like the surface of skin. " People look at it as being magic … They're just really subtle nuances that we read from each other. It's not just a sonic transmission. " It's also a kind of confidence game, an enmeshed state of skill and instinct. But even so, Richard says that when he is in the thick of it, playing perhaps a Bach fugue and producing several voices at once from the one strike of the bow, he can't think about it too much: "It's a bit like the story of the centipede who is asked, 'Which foot do you move first?' and could never walk again." Watch Creative Types with Virginia Trioli: Richard Tognetti on Tuesday May 6 at 8.30pm on ABC TV, or stream the whole series now on .
AU Financial Review
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- AU Financial Review
Get 20% off Theremin & Beyond with the Australian Chamber Orchestra*
As a subscriber, you can save 20% on tickets to Theremin & Beyond with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, directed by Richard Tognetti.
The Guardian
23-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
ACO/Tognetti review – a masterclass in chamber music-making
Concerts don't usually start before the ensemble arrive on stage, but the Australian Chamber Orchestra aren't your usual orchestra. Most pianists don't warm up for their concerto with a cameo on continuo harpsichord, either – but Alexander Melnikov isn't most pianists. Bach's Ricercar a 6 from The Musical Offering exploded into life with most musicians still in motion. Arranged by ACO's director, violinist Richard Tognetti, the opening was starkly dissonant. Bow attacks were vicious (more rhythm than pitch), the tone both supremely blended and anarchically nasty. That's the thing about an elite ensemble whose 17 core string players perform on exceptionally valuable historic instruments: if you can weave magic from gut and horsehair – and their Ricercar also featured passages of liquid smoothness and an ending with vivid, organ-like intensity – then ugliness becomes another expressive effect. Melnikov joined a smaller group for Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 3. The outer movements were fast and bottom-heavy, the violins' relentless energy earthed by the ensemble's three cellos and double bass (the latter's pizzicatos dropped like massive anchors) while Melnikov sat serene in their midst. His second-movement cadenza with Tognetti was ultra-stylish and a welcome change of pace. Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No 1 was a masterclass in chamber music-making: faced away from Tognetti, Melnikov remained in intimate contact. Shifts of mood were constant and collective – a hint of Chopin here, a blush of Romantic passion there, biting neoclassicism all over the place. Trumpeter Jeroen Berwaerts's solos were crystal-toned, injecting a flash of circus pizzazz when needed. In the second half, the exquisite fragments and half-remembered counterpoint of Sofia Gubaidulina's Reflections on the Theme B-A-C-H spooled out in near-darkness – newly poignant after the composer's recent death – and ran straight into more Bach. Those baroque surroundings also coloured Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony, where contrapuntal themes were handled as if precious relics. Elsewhere melodies were starkly vibrato-free, open strings raw, bows like cleavers. The ACO turns 50 in 2025; Tognetti has been its leader for 35 years. The young firebrand has gradually become its senior figure. But some things haven't changed: the intensity, the fearlessness, the curiosity. This remains rule-bending at its most revelatory.
