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New music

March

Richard Cobden, the veteran Sydney barrister, is a patron of new works for Omega Ensemble and wants others to join him.

How this top barrister became a ‘Medici’ of classical music

Senior counsel Richard Cobden has now funded three works for Sydney’s Omega Ensemble. He wants you to know that commissioning is not as hard as you might think.

February

Green Day: Tre Cool, Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt are punk culture talismans - with a sideline in Seinfeld-friendly ballads.

Seven shows you must see in March

From a Michael Jackson musical to an anniversary tour of Green Day’s breakthrough album, there are plenty of performances to get you off the couch.

January

Spotify has changed modern music.

How Spotify’s playlists changed the culture of listening

Streambait? Spotify-core? The Swedish streaming giant has birthed genres that a new book argues has taken the edge off modern music.

December 2024

Charlie XCX’s album title became an adjective.

The 10 best albums of 2024 (if Taylor Swift isn’t your jam)

Soulful singer songwriters, rising indie superstars, Australian up-and-comers and a floor-filling techno god. Welcome to the year’s best sounds.

October 2024

“If I hear a song by another artist that I really love, there’s always that feeling of, ‘I wish I could have written that’“: Paul Kelly at the Sydney Opera House in 2022.

‘I didn’t know who Angus was’: Paul Kelly on ‘How To Make Gravy’ film

‘Give my love to Angus, and to Frank and Dolly’ goes the refrain from Australia’s best-known Christmas song – but until recently its author had no idea who any of those people were.

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October 2024

Jaddan Comerford, the founder of UNIFIED Music, will invest $10m in Australian artists over the next three years.

Young Rich Lister matches major labels with $10m for local music

Jaddan Comerford’s cash injection into Australian music is of a scale rarely seen in the streaming era.

September 2024

Kylie Minogue, nominated for ARIA Album Of The Year, might just attend the award ceremony for the first time since she was inducted into ARIA’s Hall Of Fame in 2011.

It’s the Kylie and Troye show as ARIAs go for the masses again

After a concept album about a cockroach won in 2023, the industry voters for Album Of The Year in 2024 have picked more mainstream fare.

People don’t want ‘challenging’ music, says Peaceful Piano king

Chad Lawson writes music to improve your mental health – which has meant this stalwart of Spotify’s Peaceful Piano playlist repressing some of his own creative impulses.

Missy Higgins

Why Missy Higgins stopped therapy to make an album

Two decades on from the multi-platinum The Sound Of White, Missy Higgins is looking inward again – only this time it’s to cope with being a newly single mother of two.

Nuanu Suara Festival

It’s Asia’s answer to Burning Man. And why not buy a villa, too?

Meet the Russian tech multimillionaire who’s building a 44-hectare playground for adults in Bali.

August 2024

Australian Chamber Orchestra artistic director Richard Tognetti.

The ACO is 50 years old and still rebelling

Born out of disaffection with the strictures of symphony orchestras, the Australian Chamber Orchestra has a typically wild and eclectic party planned for its golden jubilee.

Australian Chamber Orchestra violinist, Satu Vanska, in collaboration with Sydney Dance Company dancers Emily Seymour and Liam Green, rehearsing at the City Recital Hall.

This is why a ‘Frankenstein’ violin can still be worth millions

The Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Satu Vanska is in a dream collaboration with the Sydney Dance Company, but has nightmares about losing her violin.

Paul Dempsey (left) and Bernard Fanning have joined forces.

Oz rock legends unite - but expect to be surprised

Australian songwriters Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey have joined forces and released a collection of bombastic, synth-laden sideways pop tunes. The arrangements are scintillating and the interwoven vocals charm.

July 2024

Matthew Gudisnki has shited all of Mushroom’s recording and publishing functions  under one roof.

‘Bunnings of music’: why Matt Gudinski remade Mushroom

Most roads in the Australian music business used to lead to the Mushroom Group, and a restructure announced on Thursday seeks a return to those glory days.

June 2024

French art collective Inook has made giant, AI-assisted karaoke singers of the portraits from the Art Gallery Of South Australia’s Reimagining The Renaissance exhibition.

Renaissance renditions of Bee Gees? Only at one festival

With portraits ‘singing’ Aussie pop classics, fires in the botanic gardens and dinosaurs at the zoo, Adelaide’s Illuminate Festival wants to lure you out this winter.

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Xavier de Rosnay and Gaspart Augé of dance music duo Justice.

Electronic duo Justice return to the dance floor

After an eight-year hiatus, the disruptive Parisian dance music duo unleash an overdose of electronica à la française.

May 2024

The Wu-Tang Clan’s single-copy, unstreamable 2015 album Once Upn A Time In Shaolin, which comes in a silver jewel-encrusted box.

$6m Wu-Tang Clan album to be played in MONA

The two CDs are the only physical copy of a Wu-Tang Clan album recorded in secret over six years, and sold for millions at auction.

Opera Australia bets on musicals, property development as losses widen

Australia’s largest performing arts company will produce more musicals, and play more cannily with its property, as it tries to turn losses around.

Irish punk-traditionalist band The Mary Wallopers.

What Shane MacGowan told this rebellious folk band

Like a more political Pogues, Dundalk’s The Mary Wallopers have won acclaim for a rousing live show they bring to Australia this month.

March 2024

Drummer Yussef Dayes and his Experience play Sydney Opera House, March 5, 2024.

This genius drummer puts on a show - with no drum solos

Yussef Dayes is a virtuoso with the sticks, but at this Sydney show he preferred to blend in with the band on his progressive jazz jams.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/new-music-1ntm