Vocal & Opera

Jan Friedl sings Brecht

Jan Friedl and pianist James Voss present Bertolt Brecht theatre songs with music by Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler and Paul Dessau, among the sharpest of the twentieth century.

Hymne à l’amour is an exquisite collection of art songs from soprano Siobhán Stagg and pianist Amir Farid. The programme traces the frailty of the human condition through flirtation, deep love and heartbreaking truths.

Ambient Voice

Ambient Voice places Dean Frenkel’s haunting harmonic vocals over and within works by outstanding Australian composers, among them Mark Clement Pollard, George Dreyfus, Andrew MacGregor and Invention in Time.

A Shropshire Lad

Baritone Blake Fischer and pianist Claire Cooper, winners of the 1998 Song Recital Award, present English and American folk, traditional and art songs by Butterworth, Copland, Finzi and Britten.

Tyrannick Love

The Orpheus Ensemble with Vivien Hamilton. Songs for soprano, harpsichord, baroque cello (viola da gamba and baroque violins on occasion), each written for famous singers and actresses in popular Restoration dramas of late 17th-century England.

ABC of American Art Song

Melanie Duncan blitzed the 1999 Mietta Song Recital Award, taking the Popular Choice award and the Musical Partnership with accompanist Claire Cooper as well as the Award itself. This is her recital of twentieth-century American art song.

Adele Johnston sings Wagner and Korngold Lieder

Adele Johnston, 1997 winner of the City of Melbourne Song Recital Award, sings rarely heard Wagner and Korngold lieder with pianist Andrew Greene, including Australian and world premiere recordings.

A Classic Case of Love

Soprano Helen Noonan and guitarist Peter Constant present an intimate programme of love songs spanning centuries, from folk and early music to Schubert, Satie, Villa-Lobos and the twentieth-century stage and songbook.

Louise Page sings Richard Strauss

Soprano Louise Page, with pianist Phillipa Candy, sings lyrical and romantic Strauss lieder spanning early Op. 10 songs, the Op. 48 cycle, the Ophelia songs and the late Fünf kleine Lieder. Winner of the 1995 City of Melbourne Song Recital Award.

Bards of Faith and Passion

Jim Minchin sets poems by writers at play or at odds with eternity: soul-poet lyrics across the centuries, from anonymous Latin verse and the metaphysicals to Yeats, Shakespeare and living voices.

Night and Dreams

Soprano Merlyn Quaife and guitarist Jochen Schubert present songs by Mozart and Schubert, among them the Serenade and Nacht und Träume, with Spanish and Argentinian folksong settings by Moretti, Gerhard and Guastavino.

A Night at the Opera

Highly acclaimed wind arrangements of favourite operatic excerpts, given as they were heard in Vienna between 1792 and 1821, when Harmonie ensembles carried the latest stage hits beyond the opera house.

Australia Who? – America's Cup winner 1983

In 1983 Australia won the America's Cup, the first time a non-American yacht took the trophy in the race’s 132-year history.

Australia's Billy Williams

Recorded between 1907 and 1914, these 23 songs offer a fascinating historical overview of one of Australia's first pop recording stars and music-hall favourites.

Fly: An Australian Opera

Barry Conyngham’s opera Fly, to a libretto by Murray Copland, dramatises the life of inventor and explorer Lawrence Hargrave. The Victoria State Opera premiere recording is conducted by John Hopkins.

Le Rossignol

Margaret Lynch, soprano, and Peter Lynch, guitar, present works from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. The recital was recorded in the natural acoustic of the Great Hall at Montsalvat in Eltham, Victoria.

Polyphony

The Phones were an a cappella group with a comedic bent. This 1984 album largely reflects their interest in contemporary music of the preceding twenty-five years, mixing pop classics with Australian songs and original pieces.

Great Bass Ballads

Baritone Alan Light brings operatic presence to fourteen popular bass ballads, from drinking songs and sea shanties to Australian bush songs, in orchestral and choral arrangements by Eric Gross.

Moonlight Reflections

A recital album full to the brim with exquisite art song, this recording gathers hidden treasures and classic favourites performed by Opera Australia star Stacey Alleaume.

Amy Castles: Court Singer

Amy Castles, the Australian dramatic soprano once hailed as the “Australian nightingale”, left landmark gramophone sides from London and Australian sessions in the early twentieth century. This disc gathers eighteen restored arias, salon songs and ballads.

Lotus Dreams

Soprano Shu-Cheen Yu and pianist Katherine Day present eighteen favourite songs and ballads, from Brahms and Schubert to Chinese and Irish folk airs, a personal path through Lieder and art song.

Dream Song

A charming collection of well-known songs, sure to delight. Immortal sacred favourites sit beside theatre and film themes, from Franck’s Panis Angelicus and Lloyd Webber’s Pie Jesu to Blake, Rodgers and Bart.

Birds Bees and Butterflies

Songs of love and springtime sung by Pamela Wainwright and accompanied by Andrew Frampton.

The Shepherd and the Mermaid

The winning combination of voice, clarinet and piano delighted intimate gatherings and inspired many lovely works. Australian soprano Elena Xanthoudakis is joined by clarinettist Jason Xanthoudakis and pianist Clemens Leske as TrioKROMA.

I Heard You Singing: Songs My Father Taught Me

Baritone Jonathan Morton's first solo album is a personal programme of English art song, drawn from cycles and favourites his father once sang around the family piano.

Silver: Celebrating 25 Years

Pot-Pourri marks twenty-five years with Silver, a seventh album that mixes contemporary classics, Broadway, and opera into one sparkling programme.

Fortune My Foe

Roger Heagney’s song cycle Fortune My Foe sets poems by Graeme Ellis. Soprano Merlyn Quaife and pianist Andrea Katz also perform Schumann’s Liederkreis, Op. 39, on this fund-raising recital.

Burns and Beyond

This recording, Burns and Beyond, gathers art songs for voice and modern piano drawn from Robert Burns, and includes Percy Grainger’s Three Scotch Folksongs, built on ancient Scottish tunes.

The Magic of Operetta

Soprano Louise Page and pianist Phillipa Candy have long delighted Australian audiences with a partnership of varied and entertaining programmes for Musica Viva, the ABC and many other organisations.

Voyage

"Life is not about the beginning of the end, but rather the journey from one to the other . . . the Voyage." The songs are dedicated to the artists’ children Isabel, Natasha, Ricky and Macushla – who, for better or worse, are constantly inspirational.

Repose

Beautiful lullabies and cradle songs by Australian composers from 1890–1999. Soprano Linda Thompson and pianist Deviani Segal present world premiere recordings drawn from a century of Australian cradle song.

Maid in Sweden

Swedish-Australian soprano Monique Brynnel brings cabaret intimacy to a programme of musical theatre, jazz standards, Swedish art song and operetta, spanning Arlen, Gershwin, Stenhammar, Lehár and Strauss.

Something Familiar! Something Peculiar!

Pot-Pourri’s second Move album ranges freely across Broadway, opera, musical theatre and popular song, pairing cherished favourites with sharper comic turns in chamber-scale arrangements.

Rhythm of Life

A delicious blend of highlights from Broadway shows, popular music theatre, traditional songs and operatic hits, sung with style by Melbourne vocal ensemble Pot-Pourri.

Where have you been all these years?

Claire Patti (vocal and harp), Louise Godwin (cello) and Tony Gould (piano) join in a warm tribute to musical friendship, bringing fresh interpretive colour to traditional songs they love.

Elephantasy: Orchestral and Operatic Music of Eve Duncan

Orchestral, chamber and operatic works by Eve Duncan spanning 2012–2018: a piano concerto shaped by the Sydney Opera House, excerpts from her Malouf–James opera The Aspern Papers, and smaller chamber pieces for varied forces.

Life Cycle

Life Cycle traces the emotional journey of impending motherhood in music by the highly regarded British composer Emily Hall and words by the acclaimed poet Toby Litt. Gian Slater (vocals), Sonya Lifschitz (piano) and Zoe Knighton (cello) present the cycle.

Home

Pianist Tony Gould and singer Emma Gilmartin offer intimate voice-and-piano readings of cherished songs, including three Gould originals, centred on home, family and childhood memory.

Laughing

The internationally acclaimed Choir of Ormond College, directed by Douglas Lawrence, turns to the lighter side of a cappella singing across jazz, madrigal and spiritual repertoire.

Cosmosis

The album explores the many combinations throat singing can take. Dean Frenkel pairs overtone singing with a children’s choir, guitar and mandolin, Australian birds, contemporary piano, vibraphone duet, and a female vocal duo in song form.

Anna Magdalena Bach's Book

Harpsichordist Elizabeth Anderson and boy soprano Jacob Lawrence present the complete musical contents of the 1725 notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach, from the beloved Bist du bei mir to suites, chorales and the aria later known from the Goldberg Variations.

George Dreyfus ... Live!

In 1978 George Dreyfus staged a live one-man show of his own music, with Paul Grabowsky at electric piano and synthesiser. The long-out-of-print LP has been remastered and reissued on CD.

Songe

Emma Gilmartin’s follow-up to her collaboration with Tony Gould, Tomorrow, just you wait and see, is a poised jazz vocal set: standards, two of her own songs, and a clear, understated delivery.

Sing Together Alleluia

Hymns sung by the Sing Alleluia Music Ministry Team, drawn from Sing Alleluia, appear in Together in Song: Australian Hymn Book II. The selection favours material not already on the earlier two-disc companion set.

Prism

Years in the making, Tabula Rasa’s debut Prism blends thought-provoking lyrics with a strikingly original mix of classical, Celtic and jazz, coloured by Spanish influences and Brazilian rhythms.

Tomorrow, just you wait and see

Pianist Tony Gould and vocalist Emma Gilmartin share a programme of standards and originals, shaped as first-take, spontaneously conceived duets. Favourites sit beside less familiar songs, all chosen for melodic beauty and meaning.

Little Wing: Standards Inspired by Angels

Tried-and-true jazz standards fashioned around the theme of angels. Vocalist Debra Blaquiere is joined by award-winning pianist Joe Chindamo and bassist Philip Rex.

A Souldiers Resolution: The First Part of Ayres

Countertenor Christopher Field and viol player Miriam Morris present Tobias Hume’s The First Part of Ayres (1605), the first English collection devoted exclusively to the lyra viol and bass viol, ranging from bawdy humour to fashionable melancholy.

Australian Songs

A comprehensive survey of Richard Peter Maddox’s vocal music, with the composer at the Stuart & Sons piano, joined by soprano Samantha Smith and, in the closing cycle, his brother Graham Maddox on oboe.

Music of the Spanish Renaissance

La Compañia's first CD gathers seventeen Spanish Renaissance works on period instruments with soprano Vivien Hamilton, including cues heard in the film Elizabeth but omitted from its commercial soundtrack.

The Marvellous World of George Dreyfus, Vol. 2

The second volume of marvellous music from one of Australia’s favourite composers, George Dreyfus. The programme ranges across folk ballads, choral suites, film and television themes, chamber works and solo showpieces, and gives a clear view of his many-sided craft.

John Heuzenroeder sings Mozart

Tenor John Heuzenroeder, winner of the 1996 City of Melbourne Song Recital Award, joins pianist Jennifer Marten-Smith in a recital of Mozart songs both celebrated and rarely heard.

The Fair Dinkum Matilda

Songs of the Australian bush, including the first ever recording of the original Craigielea setting of Waltzing Matilda. Another disc of bush songs? You bet – and brought to life by one of Australia’s most respected folk singers, Denis Gibbons.

What if a Day or a Month or a Year

Elizabethan lute songs and Ayres sung by Gerald English, a founding member of the Deller Consort, with Jonathan Rubin on lute and Sharyn Wicks on gamba.

Iberian Triangle

La Romanesca presents a portrait of the musical diversity of Spanish song in the years just before the great expulsion and Columbus's voyages: music of Christian, Moorish and Jewish Spain before 1492.

Just For The Record

Renowned jazz singer Linda Cable gathers moody ballads and up-tempo standards in a polished set that moves from cool and slinky to full swing.

Sydney Carter In Concert

Poet and songwriter Sydney Carter visited Australia in 1972 for concerts and workshops across the country. This recording captures one of those live events in full, preserving his wry, questioning songs as they were heard on the tour.

A Florentine Annunciation - The Music of the 14th Century Vol. 4

The Music of the Fourteenth Century series presents some of the earliest and most significant polyphonic settings of late-medieval lyric poetry. This volume offers music for the Feast of the Annunciation, performed by Les Six.

I am Music - The Music of the 14th Century Vol. 3

The Music of the Fourteenth Century series presents some of the earliest and most significant polyphonic settings of late medieval lyric poetry. Songs by Francesco Landini, performed by the Ensemble of the Fourteenth Century.

Every Delight and Fair Pleasure - The Music of the 14th Century Vol. 2

Northern Italian music from the second decade of the 14th century to the early 15th. Anonymous Rossi manuscript songs sit beside madrigals and ballatas by Maestro Piero and Bartolino da Padova.

Two Gentlemen of Verona - The Music of the 14th Century Vol. 1

Two Gentlemen of Verona gathers secular polyphony from the first known generation of Italian composers. This volume presents madrigals, caccie and a motet by Jacopo da Bologna and Giovanni da Firenze.

Larry Sitsky: De Profundis

This disc presents Larry Sitsky’s intense De Profundis, drawn from Oscar Wilde’s prison texts, with Violin Concerto No. 2, Fantasia No. 2 and the solo piano work Petra.

Did You See the Wind Today?

Many of these songs will be remembered from the ABC's famous Kindergarten of the Air radio programme. The 25 songs follow a child's day from dawn through to bed-time.

Monodies

Music from twelfth- and thirteenth-century Spain and southern France. The programme centres on Martin Codax’s sea-haunted Cantigas de amigo, with songs by the troubadour Marcabru and anonymous fourteenth-century istanpittas.

Love Lyrics and Romances of Renaissance Spain

This is the first recording by the early music group La Romanesca, devoted to Spanish villancicos and romances of the Renaissance.

Victoria Victoria

A double CD of Victoria’s 150th Gala Choral Concert, given in the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne, in 1985. A thousand-voice choir and orchestra under Richard Divall frame Léon Caron’s prize-winning Victoria Cantata of 1880.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

A favourite since its 1968 school premiere, this Canadian recording of Lloyd Webber and Rice’s biblical musical features the dramatic vocals of soloist Rob Gillespie.

Gabriel's Mother's Highway

Franciscus Henri presents songs by Sydney Carter, Elton John and Arlo Guthrie alongside three of his own. Produced by Brian Cadd, the album settles into a gentle folk-rock style with clear acoustic colour.

The Present Tense: Songs of Sydney Carter

The songs of Sydney Carter are an enigma. Folk, religious, satire and protest never quite fit. They have depth and integrity, and they press us to face and question our innermost thoughts and conflicts.

Seven Whole Days: Music for the Contemporary Church

Seven Whole Days is Jim Minchin’s second Move album of contemporary church song, recorded across Melbourne and Singapore in 1969 with singers and instrumentalists from both places.

Words, Love, Music: Sydney Carter

Songs and poems by Sydney Carter from the 1950s to the 1970s, spanning social protest, faith and everyday life, performed by Carter and guest singers including Sheila Hancock, Franciscus Henri and Nadia Cattouse.

Move Two Mix: Music for the Contemporary Church

Move Two Mix gathers religious songs and hymns with music by Jim Minchin, marrying familiar sacred texts to jazz- and folk-inflected settings. First issued in 1968, this pioneering Melbourne recording brought contemporary idioms into church worship.

Homegrown

Themes of nature, motherhood, and a profound spiritual connection to place pervade Homegrown — art song by Australian women composers, performed by soprano Rebecca Cassidy and pianist Alex Raineri.

Sun Fun and other Disappointments: The music of Michael Easton

This compilation gathers British–Australian composer Michael Easton’s output from 1981 to 1993: solo and duo piano, a flute sonata, a piccolo concerto, song cycles, and four songs from his one-woman show Dorothy Parker Says.

By the Winding River: songs from old Chinese Poems by Lachlan Brown

In the tradition of Gustav Mahler’s The Song of the Earth, Lachlan Brown shapes ancient Chinese poems into a modern song cycle of wonder, nature, friendship and longing.

The Night Sky Glory: Songs and Choral Works by Lachlan Brown

Vocal works by Lachlan Brown: songs on poems by Victor Hugo, Heinrich Heine and Rainer Maria Rilke, with wordless vocalises and choral meditations for multi-tracked voices.

Threading the Light

Threading the Light was composed between 2008 and 2012 as the cornerstone of a PhD in composition. Spurred by its 2022 world premiere by The Cooperative after a decade’s wait, Felicity Wilcox presents this personal, ethereal and strongly symbolic work.

Australian Monody

The Marais Project is joined by countertenor Russell Harcourt for a collection of largely Australian songs and instrumental works, spanning light and darkness, love and loss.

Becoming

Becoming is Johanna Selleck’s hour-long song cycle for soprano, countertenor, bass, shakuhachi and string quartet, setting haiku and renga across French, English and Tibetan.

Siegfried's Story

"Brassy revamp for Wagner" (The Age, 29 April 2020). Mark Papworth’s arrangement of highlights from Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung for horn, tuba and piano traces the cycle as chamber drama.

Winter Journey

For this recording of Schubert’s Winterreise, Op. 89 (D. 911), pianist Brian Chapman prepared a new English translation and, with baritone Nathan Lay, recorded the full cycle in English and German across two CDs, presented with a lavish 56-page book of 24 paintings by Lucy Chapman.

What should I say

Australia’s only electric viola da gamba band, Elysian Fields joins Jenny Eriksson with jazz colleagues Matt Keegan and Matt McMahon in new repertoire that sets Renaissance verse beside contemporary improvisation.

The Dew Gatherers

Playing its own arrangements and realisations of the songs and arias of Johann Philipp Krieger, the Cole, Heymink and Brewer trio (voice, harpsichord and bassoon) has created a ground-breaking recording. Krieger (1649–1725) is one of the important forerunners of Bach and Handel.

Lady Sings the Viol

The concept behind Lady Sings the Viol was a CD of “covers”: five singers, alone and together, take songs from 1300 to the present, from Piaf and Schubert to John Paul Jones and Elena Kats-Chernin.

Just A Dreamer

Linda Cable’s 1997 Move EP gathers five original songs in a jazz-vocal vein, led by the title track.

Are you dancing too?

Cool Black: Chamber Works by Rosalind Page

Inspired by Apollinaire, Lorca and Harðarson, Cool Black gathers three contrasting chamber song cycles by Rosalind Page, performed by the Australian vocal ensemble Halcyon.

Magic Sounds

Magic Sounds moves through meditation, ambient, chill-out, fine world, soundtrack, spiritual (non-religious) and contemporary choral territory, built from authentic human voices rather than synthesizers.

Looking to the Light: Songs of Christmas

Looking to the Light is an easy-listening Christmas collection of favourites such as O Holy Night, The Little Drummer Boy, Ave Maria and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, with Australian carols, lesser-known songs and children's numbers including All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth and I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.

Love Rhapsody

Emma Sidney’s debut jazz album Love Rhapsody traces love in every mood, from triumph to loss. Standards sit beside three of her own songs, sung with swing, Latin colour and intimate ballad feeling.

titlewave

On their first Move disc, titlewave, Loco Tempo – vocalist Colleen Hunt and pianist/arranger Rick Freeman – are joined by a first-rate jazz combo, including guitarist Mark Viggiani and trombonist Jordan Murray, in standards chosen for their timeless quality.

Songs from Georgia

Unique for its sound, melodies, harmonies, polyphony and modes, Georgian music was declared by Igor Stravinsky a stimulus for modern Western music. Australian ensemble Golden Fleece collects, teaches and researches this tradition, painting a vivid portrait of a rich cultural heritage.