Soprano Greta Bradman is described as one of Australia’s finest young singers. Until late last year, singing was a passion and a rather successful hobby, but it was still secondary to full-time study towards a Master of Clinical Psychology and a PhD.
With much prompting from friends and mentors, Greta finally decided to embrace singing as her primary career.
In March this year she recorded the album Forest of Dreams with renowned musician, producer and director, John Foreman. The album, released this month, is a collection of lullabies from around the world.
Greta is in Perth to perform with Aled Jones, who was my guest yesterday morning, at Burswood Theatre tonight and she joined me in the studio at 98.5 Sonshine FM this morning. It truly was a delight to speak to Greta this morning. She’s a remarkable young lady and I hope that her musical career goes from strength to strength.
You can hear our chat by clicking the play button at the bottom of this post.
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Aled Jones began singing in public around three decades ago. He joined the choir of Bangor Cathedral when he was just nine and was lead soloist within two years.
His remarkable voice led to a recording career and before his voice broke at the age of sixteen he had already sold more than six million albums, sung for the Pope performed a private recital for Prince Charles and Lady Diana, and sung at the wedding of Bob Geldof and Paula Yates.
After his voice broke he studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
In 1995 he secured the leading role in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and met his future wife, Claire Fossett, while touring in Blackpool. The couple married in 2001 and now live in London with their two young children, Emilia and Lucas.
These days he has a busy broadcasting career working in both radio and television.
In an age where those who find fame early tend to turn their careers and lives into a train wreck, it’s refreshing to see someone like Aled who still has his feet firmly planted on the ground.
He’s in Perth this week for a concert at Burswood Theatre and so I caught up with him during my morning programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM this morning.
I last spoke to Aled a couple of years ago by phone so it was a real delight to meet him face to face today. If you’d like to hear what we chatted about just click the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.
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For almost two decades Gina Williams has been dedicated to the telling of stories; both her own story and the story of her people.
Gina is a Balladong Noongar woman who uses the traditions of her elders to take audiences on an amazing journey of a proud Aboriginal woman who has struggled through the dysfunction of the past and embraced the hope of the future. Her story unfolded piece by piece in her younger years as she discovered that she was adopted and that she was indigenous. Life seemed to take turn after turn, as she went from one home to another. Gina says she’s one of the few people who can actually claim that she has four families.
Gina is a multi WAMi award winner including The Most Popular Local Original Indigenous Act and this Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings she’ll perform Downstairs at the Maj featuring songs from her album Brilliant Blue.
Gina was my guest during the morning programme on 98.5 Sonshine FM today. You can hear part of her story by clicking the play button on the audio player at the bottom of this post.
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I published a post a couple of days ago about the death of The Call’s Michael Been.
He was a great singer, amazing songwriter and brilliant bassist. This is a video from May 1986. Incredible.
I’m about to get on my bike to ride home. I think I’ll set the iPod to The Call and remember what a great contribution Michael been made to the world of music.
Australia voted on Saturday to decide who will run our country for the next three years. It looks like we have a hung parliament so both major parties are now scrambling to ensure the support of independents in an effort to form a minority government. It may be some time before we know who will be our next Prime Minister.
Voting is compulsory here in Australia so we’re guaranteed the largest possible number of Australians over the age of eighteen play a part in selecting who leads the nation.
We’ve moved house since the previous election so we’re in a new electorate and we had to find a new polling place. We’re used to turning up, walking straight in, voting, and then heading on our way. This time we had to wait in a queue for quite some time before finally casting our vote.
The people running the booth seemed completely unprepared for a big turnout. We were there around 10:30 a.m. and the senate ballot box was already crammed full. It was a struggle to get my vote into the box.
One of the electoral workers told us that it was the only box they were given for the entire day. It was expected that it would be a fairly small booth. I guess the electoral commission didn’t notice the huge amount of development in the area in the past three years. Hundreds of houses have been built in new housing estates in the area over the past few years. I can only imagine that some frantic phone calls would have been made to hurriedly rectify the situation.
Mind you, while it was an inconvenience to wait in line, I’m still very glad that we live in a country that gives us the opportunity to play a part in the democratic process.
Soprano Greta Bradman is described as one of Australia’s finest young singers. Until late last year, singing was a passion and a rather successful hobby, but it was still secondary to full-time study towards a Master of Clinical Psychology and a PhD.
For almost two decades 
Australia voted on Saturday to decide who will run our country for the next three years. It looks like we have a hung parliament so both major parties are now scrambling to ensure the support of independents in an effort to form a minority government. It may be some time before we know who will be our next Prime Minister.
