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MAESTRO RICHARD BONYNGE celebrates his 80th birthday
on 29 September. Melba congratulates him and wishes
him a long and productive career still to come.
We
are proud to have Mr Bonynge, as both a Patron
and a recording artist, associated with Melba
Recordings from our foundation. The Bonynge Edition
forms a solid core of our discography.
Richard Bonynge recently talked of his career –
both the past and projects yet to come – with
Michael Shmith.
Read the interview here >>>
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LADY PRIMROSE POTTER AC [seen here in a 1964
photo with her poodle Yogi] was a
founding Chair of the Melba Foundation. Her
advocacy has brought sponsorship and other support,
without which Melba Recordings would not have
been able to undertake the recording projects of
which we are so proud.
Ian Perry asked Lady Potter
to look back over her long involvement with the
performing arts and
the interview is here >>>
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[Lolita Marriott,
Cheryl Barker & Joan Hammond]
CHERYL BARKER'S relationship
with Melba Recordings stretches back almost to
the label’s beginning.
Puccini≡Passion, her 2003 collection of arias with
Richard Bonynge conducting
Orchestra Victoria – was only Melba’s sixth release
since launching three years earlier.
Now, the much-in-demand Australian-born soprano has
returned to record her long-overdue follow up – A
Tribute to Dame Joan Hammond. It’s a disc, she says,
“that feels as if it’s been a long time coming”
and which takes her back to another beginning – of her
own career.
"I
studied with Joan Hammond at the Victorian College of the
Arts, where she was Head of Voice. On first impressions
she was formidable in a way, had a certain air about her
that was a little bit frightening. But actually, when
you were one of her pupils, she was fantastic.”
When Barker left the VCA, she remained a student of
her renowned elder, who, she discovered, “let her
guard down in private and you got to know the real Joan
Hammond. In a class situation she was very much the
Diva, but in a one-to-one lesson she had a wicked sense
of humour and you could have a laugh with her”.
[Cheryl
Barker's conversation with Michael Quinn is
here >>>]
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Viola
player Roger Benedict’s first recording for Melba,
Volupté, has been one of the highlights of our year,
attracting unanimous praise at home and abroad for
playing described as “compelling”, “deeply affecting”,
and “mesmeric”. Michael Quinn, Associate Editor of
theclassicalreview.com, offers a personal introduction
to a revealing and wide-ranging interview Roger gave to
Melba’s Ian Perry…
When
Melba released viola player Roger Benedict’s acclaimed
recital recording debut, Volupté, earlier this year, its
ravishing pairing of music by Koechlin and Jongen
(accompanied by pianist Timothy Young) introduced to
record buyers around the world a talent that concert
goers have long held in the highest regard.
That
Benedict – Principal Viola of the Sydney Symphony
Orchestra and Artistic Director of its Fellowship
Program, whose career has encompassed work as a soloist,
chamber musician, orchestral player, teacher and
conductor – should have come so late to recording is
surely one of the great mysteries of modern musical
life. A seasoned veteran on the concert platform and in
the classroom, Benedict spent nine conspicuous years as
Principal Viola of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London,
has guested with all of the UK’s major orchestras, and
regularly fills the lead viola chair with the Chamber
Orchestra of Europe. As a chamber musician, he has
played alongside luminaries of the calibre of
Lorin Maazel, Sir Simon Rattle, Louis Lortie and Leif
Ove Andsnes. Benedict, in other words, really is that
good.
What emerges most eloquently from his
interview with Ian
Perry is an image of a passionate but refreshingly levelheaded musician in thrall to music and in love with
music making.
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