John Shand Posts

July 7, 2018 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Concert Hall, June 23 7.5/10 Patti LuPone knows a stage like koalas know gum trees and pandas bamboo. It’s her natural habitat, her instincts taut and senses zinging. She owns it, commands it, nurtures it and prowls it so completely that you’d think she was born on one. Nine years…

July 6, 2018 / Album Reviews - Archive

VIENNA DREAMING (http://mattkeeganmusichub.com/) 8.5/10 Put on this album and slide through a rent in time and space to another world. Matt Keegan, always an exceptional saxophonist, shows ever more intriguing compositional ambitions, Vienna Dreaming being dedicated to his pianist great grandfather, Heini Portnoj, who had to flee the City of…

July 5, 2018 / Theatre Reviews - Archive

 Kings Cross Theatre, June 20 7.5/10 In a note in the program the playwright Justin Fleming asks why various events in Dresden between 80 and 180 years ago might “reach” us in Sydney today. His answer is that “we live at a time when world leaders fuse fiction with fact”.…