John Shand | Music & Other Spheres Posts

September 23, 2017 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Factory Theatre, August 31 9/10 One moment it was the popping, swooping song of some virtuosic bird, and then two such birds in perfect dialogue. It could ache with 10,000 years of human suffering, and explode with as many millennia of laughter and joy. David Krakauer is to clarinettists what…

September 17, 2017 / Features - Archive

What is the Monday Club, a group of improvisers with a penchant for using long, slow notes as musical building blocks, doing in the Sydney Sacred Music Festival? The answer lies both in the broader meaning of “sacred” and in the story of the group’s founder, Tony Gorman. A brilliant…

September 16, 2017 / Concert Reviews - Archive

City Recital Hall, August 26 8.5/10 Corralled into a show nearly three hours long, the songs, poetry and musings of Leonard Cohen became less a concert and more a diary of what it means to be human. Gathered like exhibits at our judgement were our lusts, sorrows, joys, betrayals and…