In Conversation 2MBS Fine Music Sydney

In Conversation is on location this week at Melbourne's Hamer Hall to speak with an artist who truly deserves the title of Broadway Royalty. Audra McDonald has won six Tony awards – more performance wins than any other actor, and the only person to win for leading and featured roles in both straight theatre and musicals. Her wins include turns in Carousel, Ragtime, A Raisin in the Sun, and perhaps most notably, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill. She’s featured in many well-loved television shows, such as The Good Fight, and The Gilded Age, as well as feature films including the live action version of Beauty and the Beast.

As a classical soprano, she's performed with the Houston Grand Opera and the Los Angeles Opera, has sung with many symphony orchestras including the Berlin and New York Philharmonics, and she’s won two Grammy awards.

In this conversation, Audra takes us through her career from her childhood roles at a dinner theatre in Fresno, California, through her time at Juilliard to her subsequent success and how that's shaped her career choices and advocacy for civil rights.

Audra McDonald performs in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House on Saturday May 11, QPAC in Brisbane on May 15, and Hamer Hall in Melbourne on May 17, having already presented concerts in Perth and Adelaide at the time this program was published.

One of this country’s pre-eminent directors, Neil Armfield has a list of credits which is vast, spanning original works and revived classics, directing shows across the world, including on the West End and on Broadway. He’s also of course no stranger to opera, having directed several productions for Opera Australia, as well as for some of the world’s other great opera houses including Covent Garden and the English National Opera. A founder and former artistic director of Belvoir Street, he has been a key figure in the shape of Australian theatre for nearly five decades. 

His current project is directing a revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, a production which ran in Melbourne last year when Limelight magazine called it “outstanding" and The Guardian said Tony award winner “Anthony LaPaglia leads an electric, devastating tragedy”. 

Neil speaks about why this piece of mid-20th Century American theatre is so iconic and relevant in today's world. We hear about his life in the theatre, which began with directing his school play in his final year of high school, to working with some of the greats in both Australia and internationally in the subsequent decades.

Death of a Salesman plays at Sydney's Theatre Royal from 17 May.

Watershed, which Neil directed as part of the Adelaide Festival in 2022, will be presented by Opera Australia in the Joan Sutherland Theatre of the Sydney Opera House from 14-16 June.

Hamlet, which Neil directed for Glyndebourne in 2017 and has since been performed by many opera houses around the world including The Met in New York, will be presented by Opera Australia in the Joan Sutherland Theatre of the Sydney Opera House from 20 July - 5 August.

A distinguished conductor with a large repertoire of recordings, Osmo Vänskä has been chief conductor of orchestras in many parts of the world, including the Lahti Symphony Orchestra in his native Finland, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and the Minnesota Orchestra. His repertoire may be vast, but it’s the music of his native Finland, and in particular the music of Sibelius, for which the New York Times noted that Osmo is “one of the most important contemporary interpreters”.

Osmo discusses the music of Sibelius and its importance to Finland, as well as sharing inspirational stories from his life as a conductor.

Osmo Vänskä conducts the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for selections of Sibelius’s original and profound music 24-27 April, and conducts the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra for Sibelius and Beethoven on 3-4 May.

Mandela Mathia is actor who has had an extraordinary journey from his origins in war-torn South Sudan, leading him to the stage of the Belvoir Street Theatre. It’s that remarkable story of joy and loss, perseverance and hope, that is now the subject of his one man show, Lose to Win, which plays at the Belvoir Theatre from 25 April to 19 May.

Mandela takes us through his life of uncertainty, loss, famine and war, to settling in Australia as a refugee and his vocation as an actor that helps share that story more broadly.

A flautist who has been described by one critic as “playing her way into the hearts of music lovers”, Bridget Bolliger has performed regularly in Australia, Switzerland and Brazil. In Europe, she’s played with several orchestras including as principal flute of the St Gallen Symphony Orchestra as well as with the Zurich Opera Orchestra, the Basel Symphony Orchestra and the Zürich Chamber Orchestra. In Brazil, she was principal flute of the Sinfonica de Sao Paulo, and in her country of birth she’s played with the Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland Symphony Orchestras amongst many others. She’s well and truly settled back in Australia, and in 2008 founded the Sydney Chamber Music Festival.

Last year she released her latest album, Pearls, a collaboration with her brother Philip.

Bridget takes us on a journey through her remarkable life and career, through the many challenges, inspirations and lighter moments she has experienced, and thoughtfully introduces some of the music that has carrier her along the way.

One of Australia's most notable and well-loved composers, Elena Kats-Chernin has written for ensembles large and small – from operas and piano concertos to the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Her work is a mainstay of performers at home and internationally, and the number of recordings of her works are countless. Not resting on her laurels, she’s created a new arrangement of her Ornamental Air for Basset Clarinet, which is to be performed by David Rowden and the Omega Ensemble as part of their upcoming tour Re: Classica. She is also an artistic patron of 2MBS Fine Music Sydney.

In her always engaging and infectiously positive manner, Elena takes us on a deep dive into her background and how she brings her compositions to life.

Her Clarinet Concerto Ornamental Air (new version) will be performed by David Rowden and the Omega Ensemble in Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and Penrith between the 12th and 20th of April.