Canberra International Music Festival, Concert 17,
“Waltz to Tango”, at the Fitters’ Workshop, May 7. Reviewed by LEN POWER
THE waltz of 18th century Vienna and the “nuevo tango” of Argentina seem at first glance to be worlds apart.
The waltz was popular in Europe but social unrest in the 19th century resulted in emigration to the Americas. With a melting pot of musical influences, imported and local, new musical genres arose.
By the end of the 19th century, the tango was gaining in popularity in Argentina. In the early 20th century, Astor Piazzolla, who earned his living playing in tango clubs, introduced classical and jazz elements, creating a new repertoire known as “nuevo tango”.
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Legendary Australian adman Neil Lawrence was a long-time fan of the American singer-songwriter Randy Newman. One of his most treasured possessions: an autographed copy of
Little Criminals, the 1977 LP that included the cheeky single
Short People.
So Newmanâs
Feels Like Home was a no-brainer when, in 2014, ideas for a new Qantas marketing campaign were percolating in Lawrenceâs head.
Martha Marlow, who was approved by Randy Newman to sing Feels Like Home, at Gordons Bay.
Credit:Louie Douvis
The song had been written for Bonnie Raitt to sing in Newmanâs 1995 musical
Faust. Fifty-odd performers have recorded it since, including Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond and Diana Krall with Bryan Adams.
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Didgeridoo, voice and guitar artist William Barton and his partner, the virtuosic violinist Veronique Serret, will perform “Heartland” as part of the festival. Photo: Anthony Browell.
WHEN it comes to planning the Canberra International Music Festival, artistic director Roland Peelman wants to have his
Sachertorte and eat it.
For he has no intention of being straitjacketed by whatever title he puts to the festival, so that the 2021 motif, “The Idea of Vienna”, will be balanced by a formidable program of indigenous Australian music performed on each day of the event.
To be sure, as the program reads, Vienna is “the city where Schubert and Strauss were born. The place where Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven made history. The opera house that Mahler transformed for the 20th century. The circles where Schoenberg foreshadowed the tragedy of two world wars”.