Índex per May 2026 a Limelight

Clive Paget Clive Paget is a former Limelight Editor, now Editor-at-Large, and a tour leader for Limelight Arts Travel. Based in London after three years in New York, he writes for The Guardian, BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, Musical America and Opera News. Before moving to Australia, he directed and developed new musical theatre for London's National Theatre. Jane Albert Jane Albert is a Sydney-based arts writer who has spent two decades covering theatre, dance, the visual arts, music and film for publications including The Weekend Australian, the Australian Financial Review, Good Weekend, Broadsheet (Sydney) and Vogue Australia. Elissa Blake Elissa Blake is a Sydney-based journalist and editor. She learned the trade at The Age, edited Australian Rolling Stone magazine and has written for mastheads including The Sydney Morning Herald, Harper's…

Several years ago, I was stunned while investigating the Vivaldi manuscript collection. It's not held in Venice, where he was born and composed most of his music, but – long story – in the National University Library of Turin. When I told the curator that Orlando furioso was my favourite Vivaldi opera, she disappeared for a moment and came back with his original manuscript, complete with annotations in the margins, and placed it in my hands. It was the closest I've come to experiencing Stendhal syndrome. It was a profound aesthetic and emotional reaction. It may help to have musical training, but any ardent music lover might feel the same if shown a manuscript or even an early edition of the sheet music for a piece they love. Then there's…

Are There Any Questions? Joe Chindamo's remarkable Requiem premiered in March in Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's Stravinsky & Chindamo concert. Listen to it on ABC Classic. There is no escaping the spectre of death in this Melbourne Symphony Orchestra program. It opens with Ravel's Pavane pour infante défunte, a tribute to untimely corporeal death. Then comes the world premiere of Joe Chindamo's Are There Any Questions? (subtitled A Requiem for the Vanishing Self). The finale of this emotionally charged program is Stravinsky's groundbreaking depiction of human sacrifice, Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring). The MSO, under the sensitive direction of Principal Conductor Benjamin Northey, gives an atmospheric performance of the Pavane and an electrifying Rite of Spring. But Chindamo's Requiem, the first work completed during his tenure as MSO…

Do you remember that old Australian hit All My Friends Are Getting Married? I wish Skyhooks had been around long enough to write the follow-up, All My Friends Are Getting Operations. I suppose it's only to be expected. As you get to a certain age, things start to fall apart - hips need replacing, cataracts and prostrates need removing, various bits of plumbing need updates. Over the last few months, I've visited some friends in hospital and been amazed by the high-tech, minimally invasive surgical procedures they have been through, only to be followed by a very low-tech, highly invasive recovery. A hospital ward is not a restful place; it's a busy procession of nurses taking readings and giving medication set to the constant beeping of drips, drains, catheters and…

CLASSICAL MUSIC Tone List: Audible Edge ‘26 Artist-led, international and delightfully unpredictable, this annual festival of exploratory music is housed in Fremantle's Victoria Hall, creating a space for virtuosic and “anti-virtuosic” improvisation, forward-thinking club sets and participatory play. Seed-funded artists include composer Simon Charles and poet John Kinsella, experimental electronic music producers Lia T and R. Glacken, place-based sound artist amby downs and flautist Saskia Willinge, alongside trumpeter Uma Volkmer and saxophonist Naoko Uemoto. Jansson J. Antmann 1–3 May, Victoria Hall, Fremantle, Western Australia, tonelist.com.au Big Deal Touring: Daniel Verstappen: The Cinematic Piano Experience Belgian pianist-composer Daniel Verstappen returns following his 2024 debut, performing alongside Melbourne-based violinist Yena Choi. The program combines Verstappen's own works with film music staples including Gabriel's Oboe from The Mission and Cinema Paradiso by Ennio…

The town of Murgon in outback Queensland was not a big place when Leah Purcell was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. But life was hectic enough for Purcell, a Goa-Gunggari-Wakka Wakka Murri woman, who helped her mum Florence raise her six siblings after her father left when Purcell was very young. There wasn't much in the way of pop culture, but Purcell made the best of what she had – a treasured, oft-handled, coverless book of Henry Lawson's short stories, with The Drover's Wife a particular favourite, and a weekly escape into the world of opera, broadcast on the ABC, one of only two TV channels they received. “I would copy Joan Sutherland, the Dame. I'm pretty sure that's where I learned to have a big singing voice,”…

Suzy Izzard is a woman for all seasons – and all roles, it seems. This month, the British actor and comedian – still happy to be known as Eddie in a professional context – is touring Australia in The Remix, reimagining highlights from her 35 years in comedy. Then in June, she returns with her unique take on Hamlet, adapted by her brother Mark, in which she plays all 26 characters in Shakespeare's great tale of grief, revenge and vulnerability. “We did a Q and A after a very early show in New York and one person said, ‘I see Ophelia as a twin soul of Hamlet.’ We liked and ran with that,” says Izzard via video conference. Having performed the solo work on both sides of the Atlantic, she…

ABC listening highlight Shanghai Symphony Orchestra 16 May at 1pm This long-awaited visit by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra is a real indulgence for classical music lovers. Performing at the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House as part of its ambitious Asia-Pacific tour, the 70-piece orchestra is led by world-renowned conductor Long Yu in a challenging program of contemporary and timeless classics. Frying, sizzling and pot-banging aren't sounds one would normally expect in a concert hall, but the program opens with a cacophony of such noises in Chinese Kitchen: A Feast of Flavours, concocted by 31-year-old composer Elliot Leung. A cleverly crafted sonic realisation of Chinese cuisine, each movement is based on a traditional dish, musically brought to life by the composer's inventiveness and deft orchestration. Long Yu's dynamism matches…

Music has always been part of our family life - not in any formal structured sense; it's music for enjoyment and coming together. That's been the soundtrack of just about every family get-together, particularly on my Dad's side. I began playing the piano when I was seven. Studying an instrument where I grew up in Malaysia is almost an expectation academically. It sits alongside your regular school studies, so a lot of people learn to play piano. My parents thought it would be a good fit for me, so they bought a piano. I remember it being shipped in and landing in the lounge room. I had some lovely piano teachers starting out, and my mum learned to play alongside me as well, so that was fun. As I advanced…

Sheridan Harbridge looks relaxed with a takeaway coffee in hand and her faithful dog Rabbit at her feet. It's a warm Saturday morning in Sydney's Surry Hills. We meet on a day she is posing for artist Liam Nunan, who is painting her portrait for this year's Archibald Prize. “I'm posing lying down on the couch because I'm so tired,” she says with a quick smile. “It's emblematic of me.” She scrolls to a photo of the work in progress, in which she is seen curled on her side, eyes closed, a vase of drooping sunflowers on the floor beside her. So not nude then, I ask. “I did offer!” she says throwing her arms wide and letting out a throaty laugh. The Archibald Prize, Australia's most prestigious portrait competition,…

When English tenor Alfie Boe comes online via Zoom, he's in Shanghai starring as Jean Valjean in Cameron Mackintosh's arena staging of Les Misérables – a run that follows last year's 40th anniversary tour of Australia. First appearing in the role during the musical's 25th anniversary concert at London's O2 Arena in 2010, he has since reprised his performance in the West End, on Broadway and during the current world tour, becoming synonymous with Victor Hugo's convict who finds redemption through altruism. During those 16 years, Boe developed something of a symbiotic relationship with the character. “When I started performing the role, I was at a different stage in my life,” he says. “And every time I've reconnected with the character, my life has moved on.” Rewatching early footage alongside…

Growing up in Sydney, Eric Avery – a violinist, composer, vocalist and dancer of the Ngiyampaa, Yuin, Bundjalung and Gumbaynggirr people of New South Wales – began playing a toy violin at age 12. His mother bought it for him after he was captivated by Wes Craven's film Music of the Heart, starring Meryl Streep as American violinist Roberta Guaspari, who fought for music education in public schools. He soon learned to play Beethoven's Ode to Joy on the toy instrument, so his parents purchased an adult violin and then sent him to lessons a year later. They saw the “immense benefits a musical education could give a Black child,” says Avery, as he walks through the park and streets near his Sydney home, chatting esoterically about nonlinear time, bush…

I trained as a jazz saxophonist at ANU and WAAPA. Although I loved jazz standards, I was always interested in composing music for ensembles and leaning more towards improvised music. I moved to Copenhagen to do my Masters at the Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium (Rhythmic Music Conservatory). Towards the end of the Masters, the Coronavirus happened. Then I was offered an artistic research position at the conservatorium, and due to the pandemic, we decided to stay put. My wife is from New Zealand, and we have two kids now. I definitely miss Australia, but family life is pretty good in Copenhagen. It's a small city – only one million people – so everything is closer together, and things exist in a different context. Working as an artist and musician, there is perhaps…