Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

There are some significant program changes on ABC Classic FM for 2015. After nine years of Saturday night programming, and five years of Friday night international programs on digital radio, the network has said goodbye to New Music Up Late. At Home has also ceased after eight years, with Saturday nights re-shaped as a single program arc from 7pm to midnight, presented by Graham Abbott.

Julian Day, the regular presenter of At Home, New Music Up Late and the Saturday Evening Concert, now brings his passion for new and Australian music to presenting Classic Breakfast, Monday to Friday. In place of our dedicated new and Australian music programs, manager Richard Buckham has committed the network to broadcasting more Australian music across the schedule, and to finding more space for new and Australian music in daily evening concert broadcasts. There's also a desire to grow the Australian Music online offering.

Right now the network is in transition, having lost many staff as a result of the recent funding cuts (a loss of $1.5 million per annum to the station), and awaiting the appointment of a key role in the new, stripped back structure, the network Music Director. This position will have a major role in shaping the future direction of music programming at ABC Classic FM.

Meanwhile, February programming includes a number of Australian music highlights. The month kicks off with three Evenings concerts from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra's 'Synaesthesia' project, recorded at the Museum of Old and New Art last August. Synaesthesia' part 2 includes new works by Michael Kieran Harvey and Genevieve Lacey, as well as music by Elena Kats-Chernin (with other parts including international C20th classics from Schoenberg, Ligeti and Messiaen).

Across the month highlights include world premieres of music by Gordon Hamilton with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, and by Georges Lentz with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. There's also an ANAM concert of music by some of Australia's accomplished composer-pianists of the past.

The month ends with a celebration of composer Martin Wesley-Smith, approaching another 'big 0' birthday. On Wednesday 25 February we join a collection of his colleagues in a celebration of his music at the Sydney Conservatorium, the institution where he taught composition and electronic music for so many years. And on Saturday 28 February Music Makers presents a new feature interview program with the composer, recorded at his home in the southern New South Wales countryside.

Online, the New Waves podcast wraps January with a special 'NMUL in Retrospect' conversation between presenter Julian Day and co-producer Stephen Adams, leading into February podcasts of great music and talk from the 'After Julia' event hosted by New Music Up Late at the ABC Ultimo Centre. The latest addition to Rewind is the live broadcast recording of James Hullick's post-apocalyptic hybrid song cycle/chamber opera Bruchlandung, performed by international guest baritone Guillermo Anzorena and Australians Michael Kieran Harvey on prepared piano and Judith Hamann on cello.

Australian music broadcast schedule

Thursday 5 February
9.30pm EVENINGS: MRC Local Heroes - Firebird Trio
Includes Andrián Pertout - Un brillo en la oscuridad

Saturday 7 February
8.00pm EVENINGS: TSO - 'Synaesthesia' part 2 - Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra; TSO Chorus; Michael Kieran Harvey, piano; Genevieve Lacey, recorder; Marko Letonja, conductor
Includes Elena Kats-Chernin / J.S. Bach - Reinventions; Michael Kieran Harvey - The Green Brain: 5. Scorpions; Genevieve Lacey - FADE

Monday 9 February
8.00pm EVENINGS: Musica Viva - American Brass Quintet
William Lovelock - Miniature Suite

Friday 13 February
8.00pm EVENINGS: Sydney Symphony Orchestra; Christine Brewer, soprano; David Robertson, conductor. Includes Peter Sculthorpe - Memento mori
9.30pm EVENINGS: Australian Octet; William Hennessy, violin/director
Includes Richard Mills - Lachrymae, Chorales and Postlude for Octet

Sunday 15 February
1.00pm AFTERNOONS: Queensland Symphony Orchestra; Gergely Madaras, conductor
Includes Gordon Hamilton - The Trillion Souls (world premiere)

Monday 16 February
9.30pm EVENINGS: The Song Company; Bo Holten, director
Includes Raffaele Marcellino - Due Madrigali

Friday 20 February
9.00pm EVENINGS: 'Australian Composer Pianists' - ANAM: Jacob Abela, Aidan Boase, Julia Hastings, Laurence Matheson, Alex Raineri, Timothy Young, pianos
George Boyle - The Lake (Nocturne), March in D, A Pastorale Picture, Minuet Antique, Danse Negre; William Murdoch - Three Roumanian Sketches; Ernest Hutcheson - Caprice for two pianos; Percy Grainger - Blithe Bells (after Bach's Sheep may safely graze), The Warriors

Saturday 21 February
7.00pm EVENINGS (LIVE): Australian Chamber Orchestra; Joseph Tawadros, oud; Richard Tognetti, violin/director
Joseph Tawadros Permission to Evaporate: selections

Tuesday 24 February
8.00pm EVENINGS: Sydney Symphony Orchestra; David Robertson, conductor
Includes Georges Lentz - Jerusalem (after Blake) (world premiere)

Wednesday 25 February
8.00pm EVENINGS: Martin Wesley-Smith - program details tbc.

Thursday 26 February
8.00pm EVENINGS: Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, brass section; TSO Chorus; Brett Kelly, conductor; June Tyzak, chorus director
Includes Calvin Bowman - To Daffadills'

Saturday 28 February
12.00pm MUSIC MAKERS: Martin Wesley-Smith - a life in action and reflection. Producer Stephen Adams visited composer Martin Wesley-Smith at home earlier this month to talk about his life, work, ideas and passions.