Bob Dylan turns 71 today.
Music
Copenhagen Metro Flash Mob with a Difference
I’d take public transport far more often if I could catch this train.
In April 2012 Copenhagen Phil surprised the passengers in the Copenhagen Metro by playing Griegs Peer Gynt. The flash mob was created in collaboration with Radio Klassisk (http://radioklassisk.dk/). All music was performed and recorded in the metro.
The Most Beautiful Song
After wandering aimlessly around Melbourne for a while today I sat down to take a break for a few minutes.
A rather unkempt gentleman came and sat beside me. He asked me if I liked music. I couldn’t answer no to a question like that.
He then told me that if I gave him two dollars he would sing me the most beautiful song I’d ever heard. I had my doubts.
Somehow I couldn’t imagine sitting in the centre of a major city having another man singing to me. I said no.
I think I should have given Hume the two dollars anyway but I was a little surprised by the offer at the time. He was probably homeless or disadvantaged in some way and I should have coughed up two dollars or maybe a little more on the proviso that he didn’t sing.
The most beautiful song you’ve ever heard.
His promise to sing me the most beautiful song I’d ever heard got me thinking. Maybe I missed out on something amazing. Probably not. Either way, I’m wondering what you would consider to be the most beautiful song you’ve ever heard. Not your favourite or most popular but what is the most beautiful sing you’ve ever heard?
I’m trying to think what that might be for me. Maybe Diana Krall’s version of Joni Mitchell’s song A Case of You. If you haven’t heard it before you can check out the video, then tell me your most beautiful song.
Paul Daniel Previews WASO 2012
Paul Daniel became Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) in 2009.
He was Music Director of English National Opera from 1997 until 2005. He has worked with London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and far too many others to mention around the world. He’s conducted the internationally televised Last Night of the Proms in London with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1998 he received a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera and was awarded the CBE in the 2000 Honours List.
He’s now preparing for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra’s 2012 season and he joined me today on the Morning Café on 98.5 Sonshine FM. We talked about the very wide range of performances planned for the new year. Audiences are set to be taken on an incredible musical voyage.
Some people may think of classical music as pieces that were written hundreds of years ago, but WASO continues to premiere new works and be extremely innovative in taking their extraordinary talents to a wider audience.
The West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) is Western Australia’s largest and busiest performing arts company. Established in 1928, WASO is the state’s only professional orchestra, playing a central role in the cultural life of Western Australia.
WASO’s vision is to touch souls and enrich lives through music. Each year the Orchestra reaches out into the community and gives people across Western Australia and beyond the opportunity to experience the magic of classical music through concert performances, touring, education programs, and other initiatives.
The Orchestra performs over 140 concerts each year with some of the world’s finest conductors and soloists to an audience in excess of 200,000. In addition to its own concerts, WASO regularly performs with the West Australian Opera and West Australian Ballet.
You can hear our conversation by clicking the play button on the audio player below.
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Melinda Schneider in Perth
Melinda Schneider is a leading light of the new-breed of Australian Country music artists both in Australia and the US. She made her stage debut at the age of three and has developed into an accomplished singer, songwriter and performer.
Among the many awards she’s won, Melinda has picked up six Golden Guitars and her songs have been recorded by artists as diverse as John Farnham, Billy Thorpe, Jimmy Little, Olivia Newton-John and Paul Kelly.
Lately her career has seemed to take off in some surprising directions, firstly with her involvement in television’s Dancing With The Stars, and now a new album honouring Doris Day, Melinda Does Doris.
She has dazzled with her dexterity on television’s Dancing With The Stars and has put her country recording career on pause for a moment to indulge a passion that goes back decades. A passion that has resulted in a connection with Universal Music and the shimmering tribute album Melinda Does Doris.
It all began when, in childhood, she laid eyes on Calamity Jane, Doris Day’s 1953 film tour de force and was smitten by all she saw. “She was such a huge talent” she enthuses now, “a triple threat as they say – she could sing, dance and act. I thought then she was the best of everything a woman can be and when I grow up I want to be just like her! I’ve always loved musical theatre but I had to put a lot of that side of me away when I was making country albums.” But growing up with a yodeling mother and in a broad musical variety environment it was never going to all that far away.
She had been tossing the idea of a classy tribute albums around in the back (and more often than not, the front) of her mind for years and, after those five fine albums of deft, honest, effecting and widely acclaimed original country music, and the unstoppable rise of an instinctive almost visceral desire to revisit some of the sounds that had shaped her, this was an idea whose time had most definitely come. “It was meant to be,” she confirms. “The planets had aligned.”
She joined me on the Morning Café at 98.5 Sonshine FM today. You can hear our conversation by clicking the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.
Melinda will be bringing her show, Doris Day – So Much More Than The Girl Next Door, to the Regal Theatre in Subiaco from the 12th to the 16th of October.
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