Gary Rowley and Jacqueline Porter in Victorian Opera's Rembrandt's Wife
Rembrandt's Wife
- a critical success
May 2009. The premiere season of Andrew Ford and Sue Smith's opera, Rembrandt's Wife has received considerable critical acclaim. The first full commission by Victorian Opera, the new work received five performances by the company under its music director, Richard Gill. Bass baritone Gary Rowley was “compelling and impressive” in the demanding central role of Rembrandt, Jacqueline Porter sang the twin roles of his late wife Saskia and his final muse, Hendrickje Stoffels (“truly a 21st century Bathsheba”), mezzo-soprano Roxane Hislop was “glowing” and “riveting” and tenor Paul Biencourt brought “energy and individuality” to his six roles. Read more reviews.
Read composer's note.
Read the libretto (pdf 111 KB) of Rembrandt's Wife by the award-winning TV writer Sue Smith (Bastard Boys, The Leaving of Liverpool, Brides of Christ). Read librettist's note.
July 2009. Andrew Ford's music will be featured at this year's Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville, Queensland. The program includes two world premieres. Soprano Margaret Schindler will sing the festival commission, Three Shakespeare Songs (with pianist Kevin Power) and countertenor Russell Harcourt with the Camerata of St Johns will give the long-awaited first performance of The Past, a setting of the poem of the same name by Oodgeroo Noonuccal, cross-cut with entries in Captain Cook's ship's log from April 1770. Ian Munro will play a selection from The Waltz Book and Paul Dean will become the latest clarinetist to play Ford's quintet Oma kodu (with the Goldner Quartet).
A wide selection of CDs with music by Andrew Ford is available from the Buywell online CD store. For a full list of CDs, please see also the CD subpage.
Some of Andrew Ford's books are no longer available in bookshops. Contact Andrew directly to purchase a copy of In Defence of Classical Music or Speaking in Tongues - the Songs of Van Morrison (AUD 25 + postage). For a full list of books, please see the Books subpage.
The Music Show website:
Listen online:
Dots on the Landscape is a six-part oral history of Australian classical music.
Music and Fashion casts a far wider net, the programs ranging from the 12th-century composers of Notre Dame to Cyndi Lauper, from Andrea Bocelli to Elvis Presley, and from electronica to the Elizabethan volta.
Freud's
final hours
on CD
July 2008. July. Decca Eloquence has released on CD Andrew Ford’s music-theatre piece, Night and Dreams: the death of Sigmund Freud. Composed with librettist Margaret Morgan, for veteran tenor Gerald English, Night and Dreams is set in London in September 1939. We find the exiled Freud listening to gramophone records of Schubert and radio reports of Nazis in his homeland, dreaming of an unidentified naked girl and contemplating his death.
English’s performance – a tour de force of acting and singing – was recorded by the ABC, and is coupled on this super-budget priced CD with Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon, recorded in 1973 with the London Sinfonietta. Read more.
Buy the CD from the Buywell online CD store.
Latest additions
to work list
“ . . . in Paradiso” for flute ensemble
Willow Songs for soprano, mezzo-soprano and ensemble
Variation on a Waltz by Schubert for piano trio
Three Shakespeare Songs for soprano and piano
Bright Shiners for solo violin and string orchestra
Rembrandt's Wife, an opera
Symphony for orchestra
A Singing Quilt for mixed choir, prerecorded voices and percussion ensemble
The Tears of Geertje Dircx for two clarinets
Golden Slumbers for voice and piano
Chorales from an Ox Life for viola and double bass
Domestic Advice for soprano and piano
Lullaby and Fire Dance for two violins
Bagpipe Music for recorder and harp
Free sheet music
downloads
Thin Air for solo piano (pdf 188 KB)
Broadway Boogie Woogie (pdf 150 KB)
for solo piano
Fear no more . . . (pdf 155 KB)
for solo piano
