Musica Viva’s proud claim is to have brought inspirational music to Australia for more than 60 years. Artistic director Carl Vine says this year’s series is ‘setting a new benchmark in musical inspiration with some unprecedented concert experiences and treasured revisits’, like the Tokyo String Quartet who return this month to perform Haydn with Brahms and Beethoven with Mendelssohn. Both programs are contrasted with Carl Vine’s String Quartet no5 (commissioned for Musica Viva by its patron, Kenneth Tribe AC). This year is the first time the chamber music organisation’s artistic director is also its featured composer. Vine studied composition at the University of Western Australia, moved to Sydney in the mid 70s and by the early 80s was considered to be one of Australia’s leading contemporary composers.

However by the late 90s he had stopped composing and felt there was no reason to return. In our cover story Sarah Noble finds out how Musica Viva restored Carl Vine’s passion for composition. Read more ...

Also in this issue … Morag White chats with award winning Australian composer and performer Fiona Joy Hawkins about her latest album Blue Dream. The classically trained pianist debuted in 2005 with Portrait of a Waterfall yet it wasn’t until last year when she won the MusicOz award for best Jazz/Classical artist that recognition of her music started to grow in her own country.

From 26 May to 14 June Sydney is transformed into a spectacular living canvas of light, music and creativity during Vivid Sydney, Australia’s first sustainable light festival. Combining seminars, workshops, performances, light installations and music concerts Vivid Sydney is set to become the biggest international music and light festival in the Southern Hemisphere. Julie Simonds finds out more from festival director, light artist and composer Mary-Anne Kyriakou.

I say, let there be light …

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