In Conversation, 2pm Wednesdays

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During her 20-year cultural management career, Emma Dunch has partnered with more than 125 creative organisations in the United States, the U.K., and Australia, and served in leadership capacities across every artistic discipline.

A respected authority on strategy, finance, and fundraising for culture, Emma, a classically-trained singer, began her career as a publicist for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. She says she kept her old name badge because one day she wanted to wear it again, and got the opportunity at the beginning of this year when she took up the reins of the orchestra when her predecessor, Rory Jeffes, left to become CEO of Opera Australia. So where’s she been all these years? Emma will be Michael Morton-Evans’s guest on In Conversation at 2pm on Wednesday, August 15th and we hope to find out.

THE BERNSTEIN SAGA
RANDOLPH MAGRI-OVEREND RECALLS A GREAT CONDUCTOR

PictureLeonard Bernstein
Sam Bernstein described his son Leonard as ‘… my gift to Uncle Sam … how could I know my son was going to grow up to be Leonard Bernstein!’

​On the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth it is time to reflect on what he has meant to the world, let alone to Uncle Sam. His importance to musical culture cannot be underestimated. He was composer, conductor, inspirational teacher, lyricist, motivator, soloist and many, many more disciplines besides. He rubbed shoulders with presidents, prime ministers, emperors, kings, queens and, above all, with normal people like you and me.

Remembering Ken Weatherley

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Following a protracted illness Fine Music jazz presenter Ken Weatherley passed away on Wednesday 4th July 2018. Ken had a career in radio spanning over forty years. He joined Fine Music in 2014 and until 2017 presented the Monday night program, Jazz Nice & Easy, a title which was not only musically apt but also an expression of Ken’s personality.
 
Ken was also a major contributor to the launch of Fine Music Digital by way of completing over two hundred programs.
 
As a young man Ken lived in London during an era of great English jazz performers including Stan Tracey, Tubby Hayes & Johnny Dankworth, and became a stalwart of the live London jazz scene. By profession Ken was a graphic design artist. He emigrated to Melbourne in the early 1970’s.
 
Ken became interested in broadcasting in the mid 1970’s. He undertook training at radio 3UW and for three years presented jazz programs at the ABC’s “low powered” community station.
 
Jazz was at the core of Ken’s life and the conduit to so many of his friendships. His radio career was inspired by his friendship with the leading jazz presenter, Ralph Rickman. His lifelong friendship with Richard Endacott included their visiting the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and Ronny Scott’s club in London.
 
Later Ken became a Sydney resident and long-time presenter at Eastside Radio, prior to joining Fine Music. He was particularly interested in the development opportunities for young jazz performers and the activities of the jazz department of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
 
Ken has left a generous bequeath to Fine Music for the purpose of progressing jazz broadcasting. He will be fondly remembered by those who knew him.

Fine Music presenters Rob Thomas and Robert Vale are currently working on a Ken Weatherley tribute program to air on Monday 13 August at 7.30pm.

​CD of the Week: Coppélia | Orchestra Victoria, Barry Wordsworth

Léo Delibes’s Coppélia might not have the profile of Tchaikovsky’s great ballet scores, but it is every bit as important. It was Delibes who brought the symphony orchestra to the ballet, composing new, rich and memorable music for dance rather than the messy mash-up of popular tunes it had been until then. This sparkling work comes to life in this recording by Orchestra Victoria under the baton of Barry Wordsworth, one of the world’s most celebrated ballet conductors.

Fine Music subscribers have a chance to win the CD of the Week courtesy of station sponsor Universal Music. Enter below for your chance to win. The winner is drawn at 10AM Monday to Friday.

​BRUCKNER AND HIS SYMPHONIES

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DAVID OGILVIE REVEALS THE MAN ​BEHIND THE MUSIC 

I’ve never been a fan of Bruckner’s music. 

​This stems partly from ignorance (how often do you hear Bruckner’s music on the radio or in concert?) and partly from the perception that all his works are a tribute to his devout Catholicism (true, although his Ninth Symphony is the only one that’s explicitly dedicated to God). Like Robert Stove (in Anton Bruckner and God), I agree that Bruckner’s music is something people either love or loathe, although in my case it wasn’t loathing, just indifference. 

August Magazine

Upcoming Events

​​Enjoy, Learn, Discuss: Is it on Tape?
Date: Sunday 19 August

Book and CD Fair
​Date: Thursday 20 - Sunday 30 September

ELD: Is it on Tape?

Derek Parker, who made his first broadcast over sixty years ago, remembers the triumphs and disasters of life as a radio man-of-all-work - programmes which soared and programmes which plummeted, and interviews with the famous and infamous, including Solti and Sargent, Fonteyn and Nureyev, Menuhin and Moore, Kenneth Williams and Arthur Askey. It was often easy enough to pin them down, but getting their voices safely on tape was another matter.

Details: Sunday 19 August, 2.30pm, Fine Music Centre