In Conversation

It’s difficult to find a more well-rounded musician than violinst Henning Kraggerud. The Norwegian virtuoso has had a career that covers everything – a soloist, composer, arranger, improviser, plus he’s the Artistic Director of the Arctic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra.

The discussion, from when he was visiting Australia in 2017 to guest direct the Australian Chamber Orchestra, provides some fascinating insights  into his multi-faceted approach to music-making in his composing, arranging and improvising.

If you’ve ever had the chance to see Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto perform live, you’ll know he is quite the entertainer. It’s been said that he strips every piece, however familiar it is, back to first principles, and we get to hear it as if for the first time.

At the time of this conversation in 2016, he had just been appointed artistic director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s emerging artists ensemble – ACO Collective – a position he held until 2019. 

A  great friend of Australia and of the ACO, Pekka is always an absolute joy to talk to. In this program, he gets out his violin in the studio to  underscore some of his points, and we even get a live performance of a Finnish folk tune.

Olli Mustonen is music's ultimate triple threat – a virtuosic pianist, an extraordinary conductor, and an outstanding composer. He speaks to host Simon Moore about his start playing the harpsichord from the age of 5 in his native Finland, as well as sharing a story about a misprint in a program which led to him to having to rearrange one of his chamber works for full orchestra, and how he prefers the simple word “musician” to cover his many talents.  

This conversation is from 2016 when he was visiting Australia to guest direct the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Dean Bryant is a multi-award winning theatre director and writer. He has a string of directorial credits, including (with the Melbourne Theatre Company, where he was associate director from 2016 thru 2019): The Lady in the Van and An Ideal Husband; for Opera Australia Anything Goes; and for the Hayes he directed Assassins, as well as their debut production Sweet Charity, for which he won the Helpmann award for 'Best Director of a Musical', and to top it all off, he’s the worldwide Associate Director of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. 

His creativity doesn’t stop with direction, as he’s the co-writer of the musical version of Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career, as well as many others. He's currently in Sydney directing Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, which will be back at the Hayes Theatre at the conclusion of the present lockdown.

(Originally aired in June 2021)

Shane Placentino has made the move from ballet dancer, to choreographer, and now opera director. He began his career with the Australian Ballet in 1991, dancing the entire classical and contemporary repertoire. He went on to be with the Sydney Dance Company from 2002, but more recently he’s hung up his dance shoes and moved into direction with Opera Australia - currently being the Revival Director for Aida, which opened at the Sydney Opera House on 22 June, and is due to return again after the current lockdown.

Sam Allchurch is at the forefront of the next generation of choral music. In 2019 he became artistic director of the Sydney Chamber Choir at just  29, following in the footsteps of the late, great Richard Gill. He’s also Associate Artistic Director of Gondwana Choirs, and Director of Music at Christ Church St Lawrence which has a musical tradition going all the way back to 1845. He’s been praised for polished and deeply satisfying performances of smart and sophisticated programs.

Natalie Aroyan is an Armenian-Australian soprano whose voice has graced the stages of Opera Australia as a principal artist since 2013. She has performed leading roles in Aida, La Boheme, Ernani, and Carmen to name just a few. 

In 2019 she was nominated for a Helpmann Award for Best Female Performer in a Supporting Role, and later this month, she will be hitting the stage once again as Odabella in Attila, Verdi’s story of Attila the Hun.

Neal Peres Da Costa is Australia’s authority in historically informed performance on the keyboard. Whether it’s the harpsichord, fortepiano or  organ, Neal has performed with all of this country’s leading ensembles, including the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, the Australian Haydn  Ensemble, the Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra, and several of the top orchestras in this area internationally, most notably the  Academy of Ancient Music and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. This month, he’ll be performing with Bach Akadamie Australia for JS  Bach’s Obligato Sonatas.

Neal talks us through the art and the science that is “historically informed performance”, how he came to be a passionate advocate for it, and the  various historic keyboards he’s collected over the years.

It’s 35 years since The Phantom of the Opera opened on London’s West End, making it one of the most successful musicals of all time. It was still  playing there until COVID hit early last year, where Australian Josh Piterman was performing in the title role.

Josh Piterman will be donning that famous mask once again in September, this time at the Joan Sutherland Theatre at the Sydney Opera House. Kicking off his career in The Ten Tenors, he’s appeared in musicals as diverse as West Side Story, Hairspray and Beautiful: The Carol King Musical, as well as having an Aria and iTunes number 1 album.

Alexander Briger is a conductor who has worked with more orchestras than can be easily listed – pick an orchestra in Australia or Europe, and you can be pretty certain he has conducted them, and that’s before you start adding his work in opera. He counts luminaries like Charles Mackerras and Pierre Boulez among his mentors. Alexander is back in Australia to once again conduct his brain child, the Australian World Orchestra, this June.

In the 2016 Australia Day Honours, Alexander was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished services to the arts as a leading conductor, and as founder of the Australian World Orchestra.