Latest News

The Hot North Wind blew into the Bangalow Pub on Wednesday, providing some relief from the incessant rain! Musical relief, that is.

Teasing the crowd with Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, these three melodically equipt musicians tempted us with snippets of what will be in store come the Bangalow Music Festival middle of August.  

Followed by the Southern Cross Soloists (the resident and premier ensemble at QPAC) with Tania Frazer at the helm, romancing a Beethoven selection (you could feel the music through the timber floor, oozing up into your soul) the launch of the Bangalow Music Festival was under way.

Glad to be part of this annual Music Festival, I grabbed many brochures to hand out to everyone I come across from now until August 15, when locals (yes, I am a local, thank you very much) will be able to feast on the smorgasbord of headline festival artists, together with local Northern Rivers musicians, showcased at the Festival Prelude on Thursday evening.  

The Bangalow Music Festival, now in its 12th year, will “present the soaring classical music sounds of international and Australian artists in Bangalow from 16th - 18th August, 2013”. This is a truly unique festival with a world-class program, musicians coming from near and far, to be part of the whole.

Tania Frazer, Creative Director of the Bangalow Music Festival is excited (as are we all) that most of the international musicians vie for a space at this world class event. Tania says, incredulously, that the heritage listed A & I Hall has accoustics to rival the best venues in the world, almost by accident. Musicians look forward to perform within these walls and having been to quite a few of the festivals over the years, I can attest to this claim: awesome sound indeed.

Let me outline a few of the performers/performances: Israeli Piano Duos, the acclaimed Silver-Garburg Piano Duo performing at four of the concerts; Jayson Gillham, our own Commonwealth Musician of the Year 2012 (now based in London) will return home for the BMF; German soprano, Felicitas Fuchs and leading violinist Qian Zhou from China; Aussie flautist Emma Scholl; direct from the Met in New York, Alexander Lewis; The Flinders Quartet; The Southern Cross Soloists and the Bangalow Music Festival Orchestra.  

Nine world class concerts presenting music from Mozart, Ravel, Turina, Haydn, Brahms, Lutoslowski, Hahn (not just a great beer!), Liszt (after a few Hahns), Andrew Shultz, Ysaye, Schubert, Hindson, Beethoven, Debussy, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Cage (take a five minute break - only joking), Canteloube, Paul Dean, Britten, JS Bach and is there anyone left????

Over three days of music, where I live, the beautiful hills of Northern NSW, with Peter Sculthorpe famously describing this festival as “the most exciting festival, outside a capital city, that I have ever attended”. Here here!

For a full program of what is in store, check out www.southernxsoloists.com and make plans for a wicked weekend that fills the soul full of music and ambience that is the Bangalow Music Festival, in Bangalow, Northern NSW!  I’ll be the one with the tissues in the back of the hall, all misty-eyed and musically overwhelmed.