Music lovers are expected to flock to the city this weekend for highly anticipated events of the seventh Newcastle Music Festival.
Harold Lobb Concert Hall (Newcastle Conservatorium of Music) is the centre of action on Saturday with Nexas Quartet playing A Saxophone in Paris at 2.30pm. Stunning memorable music by Ravel headlines the program.
On Saturday at 7.30pm the brilliant Ben Mingay, with dazzling fellow Novocastrian singers Sue Carson and Heather Price, and Bev Kennedy on piano, perform opera and musical theatre hits to a near sold-out show at the same venue.
Mingay's career as a singer goes from strength to strength, as he appears in Sweeney Todd in Melbourne in September.. One of the hilarious songs from that show, A Little Priest, is on the paly list for this show.
(Door sales may be available, - check the festival's website).
FESTIVAL CHOIR
On Sunday Christ Church Cathedral hosts Festival Choir in Concert, with this year's group of local singers, conducted by Chris Allan, performing excerpts from Carmina Burana, one of the greatest choral works of all time. Works for piano and voice by Brahms round out this program, including two of his famous Hungarian Dances.
A special treat for Newcastle audiences is the return of Peter Guy, who will play four-handed piano duets with Erin Sweetman at the Sunday show.
DESTINATION SWING
The next festival event is Thursday, August 15, at 7.30pm with Destination Swing, performed by the city's beloved Dungeon Big Band, with Heather Price. Destination Swing celebrates jazz-loving places from all over the world, including Newcastle. Back in 1975, Bob Hudson wrote The Newcastle Song and Girls in our Town. It's difficult to locate any other songs celebrating our city... until now.
This concert features the world premiere of Steel City Suite: Places and Memories, written by Andy Fiddes, who grew up in the city and knows it well. It's a jazz tribute to landmarks, streets and areas around the Newcastle region. Movements include Breakwater Boogie, Honeysuckle Strut, and A Glenrock Sunrise. The show is at Adamstown Arts at Adamstown Uniting Church.
GERSHWIN AND MORE
Adamstown also welcomes Simon Tedeschi and George Washingmachine in Gershwin and More at 7.30pm on Friday, August 16.
Tedeschi needs no introduction to Australian audiences, as he has graced our concert stages on piano for most of his life. Joined by George Washingmachine on violin, this talented pair display their musical versatility in an evening of jazz, playing popular works by George Gershwin and others. Gershwin is a favourite composer of Newcastle audiences and no fewer than four of this year's concerts include works by him.
A CAPELLA CHOIR
The superb voices of Festival Chamber Choir present beautiful a capella (unaccompanied) works for your enjoyment in Consolation and Exultation, with conductor Christopher Allan on Saturday, August 17, 2.30pm, in Harold Lobb Concert Hall.
The choir, made up of selected local singers, who in most cases have had great professional singing careers, will bring works by legends such as Bach and Monteverdi, as well as songs by modern masters Eric Whitacre and Nigel Butterley.
KALEIDOSCOPE
Cedar Newman (violin) and Simon Tedeschi (piano) perform beautiful compositions in Kaleidoscope, including virtuosic works by Schubert, Gershwin and Ernest Bloch. This concert is Saturday, August 17, at 7.30pm at Harold Lobb Concert Hall.
This pair of great musicians were described by Frances Gould last year as offering "a shared perfectionism of technique and meticulous collaboration... moments of exquisite grace and beauty."
Cedar Newman, only 20 years old, from the NSW South Coast, is one of Australia's finest violin talents, and performs on her great-grandmother's violin. She gained a scholarship to study with legendary Russian violinist Albert Markov at the Manhattan School of Music at age 13, and has continued her studies ever since in New York at the same school, on a President Scholarship with Professor Lucie Robert.
FESTIVAL FINALE
The traditional Festival Finale concert at Church Cathedral, on Sunday, August 18, at 2.30pm is titled Rachmaninoff Meets Paganini. Erin Sweetman combines with the Christ Church Camerata under the baton of David Banney.
The concert will include Rachmaninoff's unforgettable Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, as well as works by Banney, Groh and Kilar.Christ .
