ABC Classic 100 (June 2024)
With a thousand years of music history to choose from, every year the ABC’s Classic 100 countdown has a particular theme to help voters from the general public narrow down their choices, with 2024’s theme being “Feel Good”. “We know that ‘feel good’ means different things for everyone and that was reflected through voters’ music choices,” says ABC Classic Manager Kat McGuffie.
Topping the list this year was Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, with pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska‘s performance with the Australian Chamber Orchestra of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ concerto featuring at #4, pianist Simon Tedeschi‘s recording of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Northey at #5, and Elena Kats-Chernin‘s Eliza Aria from Wild Swans at #17, the highest-voted Australian composer and female composer in this year’s Classic 100! See the whole list and listen again here.
Pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska at Canberra International Music Festival 2024:
- “Peter Sculthorpe’s Djilile, composed nearly four decades ago, has been adapted for various musical forms. In this version, for solo piano, this sparse work from the heart sounded out. Almost transfixing, its construction, a soundscape. Playing as in a dream, Cislowska let the notes drip from her fingers. … Never has the High Court of Australia heard anything so pertinent or spectacular.” [5 stars]
– Limelight, May 2024 (live review of High Stakes, with Veronique Serret, William Barton and Aunty Delmae Barton, High Court of Australia, Canberra)
Pianist Simon Tedeschi with John Bell in ‘With love, Amadeus’ / Elena Kats-Chernin & Tamara-Anna Cislowska / Orava Quartet at Sunshine Coast Chamber Music Festival 2024 (QLD):
- “Thursday evening saw the Orava Quartet playing Schubert and Schulhoff as well as a Queensland premiere from Holly Harrison, while Friday … evening was also Elena Kats-Chernin and Tamara-Anna Cislowska in four-hand piano format playing Kats-Chernin’s own music, which I hear was an absolute cracker.
On [With Love, Amadeus’] premiere last year, Limelight wrote that it was “part-recital, part cabaret and a must-see for anyone who wants to know the man behind the legend”. I can wholeheartedly agree. Neither Bell nor Tedeschi ever give a half-hearted performance, and they were on top form here … Tedeschi was clearly having a lot of fun with the pieces… Bell ripped into the puns, wordplay, and all-around goofiness of some of Mozart’s letters” [4.5 stars]
– Limelight, June 2024 (live review, various venues)
Flautist Sally Walker as Guest Principal Flute for the Australian Chamber Orchestra, in its national tour, Mahler’s Song of the Earth (May 2024):
- “divinely played by Sally Walker”- Australian Stage
- “Particular praise is due to…Sally Walker’s plaintive flute solos” – Sydney Morning Herald
- “A standout moment was the ‘duet’ between Catherine Carby and flautist Sally Walker, a moment of sheer beauty and mutual musical respect, vocal and instrument sublimely interwoven..”
– Eastside FM, 13 May 2024
Read more here.
Still to come this year: 3 highly-anticipated album releases – for flautist Sally Walker, pianist Andrea Lam, and violinist Emily Sun.