National Music Camp

1. Alexander Orchestra encore - Tchaikovsky Symphony No.4
(Gallery/Video Gallery)

After a stunning performance of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.4, the Alexander Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Renes received a standing ovation. The audience was rewarded with an encor

2. A Long Night's Journey Into Day
(News/Latest)

...or Words About Music (WAM) participants, sleep is of secondary importance when set alongside 'the deadline'. Sleep is a wonderful thing. Why else would we have so much of it, every day?...

3. Like children in a lolly shop: WAM participants visit the National Library
(News/Latest)

...crossed Lake Burley Griffin in our complimentary Tarago. “Look! It’s a burst water main in the pond,” said Anne-Marie Mousley when she saw the lake’s famous water fountain. Fin...

4. Composers in Time
(About WAM/Writings)

In this year's Musica Fever we devoted two pages to the four composers at National Music Camp. But composers are interesting people, and we found that we had more information on them than we were

5. Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

Don Juan, Op.20 [1888] Don Juan, Op.20 [1888] Beginning in the summer of 1886 with Aus Italien, the young Strauss had established a reputation as a vivid musical illustrator. Don Juan was the third

6. Digital Rhythm Clock
(About WAM/Writings)

...tempted Musica Fever's "Rhythm Clock" and would like to see how well you fared, here are the answers...   1.     Richard STRAUSS – Don Juan 2.   &nbs...

7. Richard WAGNER (1813-1883)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

...Liszt of his idea for an opera based on an idealisation of love: “As I have never in life tasted the true joy of love, I will raise a monument to this loveliest of dreams, in which from first to...

8. Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis [1910] Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis [1910] Ralph Vaughan Williams spent many years searching for a distinctively English compositional voice, delving int

9. Béla BARTÓK (1881-1945)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

...ary. Burdened by repeated financial strains, he also suffered continual ill health, which proved to be the onset of leukemia; yet it was during this time that he wrote the Concerto for Orchestra, whic...

10. Philip Arkinstall: Alumni Profile
(About WAM/Writings)

...mp 1991)   What are your earliest memories from camp? I was sixteen when I first came to camp, in the early 1990s. It was in Sydney, at Kings School. I was in the Alexander orchestra. I remember ...

11. Ian Cleworth: Alumni Profile
(About WAM/Writings)

...(First National Music Camp 1981)   Can you describe your first camp experience? I came to camp in the years 1981-83. The first one was at Geelong, then at Griffith University in QLD, then Kings S...

12. Kate Salvatore: Alumni Profile
(About WAM/Writings)

...It was in 1991 at Kings School in Sydney.  Phil Arkinstall was playing principal clarinet. It was the first time I had played [clarinet] in a full symphony orchestra. I went with my friend Louise...

13. Janis Laurs: Alumni Profile
(About WAM/Writings)

... 1963)   Cello tutor (First National Music Camp 1963)   Why are youth orchestras important? The young students remind you of passion and enthusiasm, where sometimes it’s ‘not co...

14. Genevieve Lang: Alumni Profile
(About WAM/Writings)

...inal year of school), a harp string broke during a performance. We had borrowed a harp from London for the tour, and within the first week about nine strings had broken. The Program was Pavane pour un...

15. W. F. BACH (1710-1784)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

...     Andante III     Allegro IV     Menuetto I and II In the pre-Classical dawn following the death of Johann Sebastian Bach in 1750, the direction of Wes...

16. Elliott GYGER (born 1968)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

...rticals of light: nocturnal concerto for orchestra [1994] Deep and dissolving verticals of light Ferry the falls of moonshine down. Five bells Coldly rung out in a machine’s voice. Night and wat...

17. Anton WEBERN (1883-1945)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

Passacaglia in D Minor, Op. 1 [1908] Passacaglia in D Minor, Op. 1 [1908] Arnold Schoenberg, the composer famous for developing serial music, found two very loyal students in Anton Webern and Alban

18. Henry PURCELL (1659-1695)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

The Double Dealer, Z.592 [1693] I       Overture          II      Hornpipe          III 

19. The Definitive 1949 National Music Camp Crossword: Answers
(About WAM/Writings)

The answers to "The Definitive 1949 National Music Camp Crossword" as found in Musica Fever 2010, page 6.

20. Radio Feature: Inside Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra
(Gallery/Audio)

..._wk2 Saturday night’s recital concludes with a performance of Bartok’s modern masterpiece, the Concerto for Orchestra. This week’s interval feature attempts to tell the story behind ...

21. Radio Feature: Who Comes to Camp?
(Gallery/Audio)

...assic-FM, 8:55pm, 9 January 2010 WAM2010_radiofeature_wk1 Who Comes to Camp? was produced by the students in the Words About Music program, and explores the many different backgrounds of&nbs...

22. Banquet in six courses: a report on the first Staff Concert
(News/Latest)

The lights dimmed. The students waited expectantly. So great was the desire to burst into applause that the stage managers received credit for the night’s work before the performances even bega

23. A Night Not To Be Missed... Or Else
(News/Latest)

...Camp (NMC) participants were treated to a special screening of two DVD features in Manning Clark Hall. The first, a documentary from 1949, gave a snapshot of the second-ever NMC, held at Point Lonsdal...

24. New Dog Learns Old Tricks
(Snippets/Snippets)

Anton Webern - looked up to by many as modernism’s flag-bearer, leading the charge to break all links with musical tradition – actually had a strong interest in Renaissance music. Before

25. A Gripping Death
(Snippets/Snippets)

When Richard Wagner died in his wife Cosima’s arms, she stayed in the room with him for a whole day and night until persuaded by a doctor to leave. Some reports go so far as to claim that she c

26. The Rich List
(Snippets/Snippets)

We tend to think of composers as rather tortured souls, struggling to make ends meet, eking out an existence with few financial rewards. Mozart certainly died penniless and was buried in a common gra

27. The Power of Rhythm
(News/Latest)

“The power of rhythm is all around us: in the stars, the way the earth turns, the seasons. [It’s] one of the first things we become aware of in the form of our mothers’ heartbeats.

28. ‘Hip-hips cost extra’
(Snippets/Snippets)

When was the last time you heard Happy Birthday in a film? Can’t remember? Maybe that’s because, since first published in 1893, the song has been under exclusive copyright. In order to av

29. Ross EDWARDS (born 1943)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

...within our country and overseas. While elements of his music can be traced to numerous cultures around the world (including Buddhist, Aboriginal, Indonesian, Judaic, African and Christian), he maintai...

30. A double dose
(Snippets/Snippets)

...uccessive years in 2010 and 2011: this year is 150 years since his birth (1860), and next year will be the centenary of his death (1911). Gustav Mahler will have celebrations over two successive years...

31. An orchestral appetiser
(Gallery/Video Gallery)

Individual parts lie open on music stands, pencils are sharpened, the orchestra is tuned and the musicians quietly await their conductor to lead them to the music – it’s time for another r

32. Here comes the sun
(News/Latest)

...t after lunch on Monday, with a total of zero square centimetres of sunburn reportedly suffered during the taking of the Camp Photo.   A new National Music Camp record was set just after lunch on...

33. Bedrich SMETANA (1824-1884)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

Má vlast (My Fatherland) [1874-9]     II    Vltava (The Moldau) [1874-9] Má vlast (My Fatherland) [1874-9]     II    Vltava (

34. Pyotr Il’yich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

...;   Finale. Allegro con fuoco A traumatic time for Tchaikovsky personally, 1877-78 was nevertheless one of his most fruitful compositional periods. His ill-fated marriage to Antonina Ivanov...

35. Josef SUK (1874-1935)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

... presto Suk’s Serenade for Strings ranks with those of Dvořák and Tchaikovsky among the finest examples of writing for string orchestra.  Seventy-five years after Suk’s d...

36. I got rhythm
(News/Latest)

“Picture a flock of birds – they all move together, changing directions quickly, yet it’s so hard to tell which bird leads the change. It’s so smooth and fluent that they seem

37. John ADAMS (born 1947)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra [1985] The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra [1985] Composers love commissions, but the sign of a successful composer is having more commissions than

38. Sergey PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
(About WAM/Concert Program Notes)

...p;   I    Montagues and Capulets     II    The Young Juliet     III    Friar Laurence     IV&nb...

39. “We’re ready for you”: student cricket captain Pauperis
(News/Latest)

...ith only one day to go until National Music Camp’s infamous staff versus students cricket match, the pitch has been prepared, the bales have been found and the double-headed coin set aside for t...

40. What a Suk!
(Snippets/Snippets)

...al Music Camp, 75 years after Czech composer Josef Suk’s death, we are celebrating his life with the performance of one of his most loved pieces - the Serenade for Strings in E-flat Major, Op. 6...

41. Shh...the maestro is (de)composing
(Snippets/Snippets)

... him out on a frosty winter’s night. Anton Webern (1883-1945) may have been chuffed at surviving the Second World War, but didn’t live long to celebrate. Stepping out for some air one nigh...

42. Czech your baggage on arrival
(Snippets/Snippets)

Czech Airlines plays the main theme from Bedrich Smetana’s Vltava (The Moldau) in its planes after they land. Smetana’s work will be performed in the first week of National Music Camp.

43. “What did you have for breakfast?”
(News/Latest)

Despite knowing the answer to this question perfectly well (having sat together at breakfast time), the six Words About Music participants found themselves asking each other this question at the begi

44. An eye for an eye
(Snippets/Snippets)

J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel - considered the two greatest composers of the High Baroque period – were both born in the same year (1685), and both blinded by the same quack eye-doctor, “C

45. Interpreting Words
(News/Latest)

“Naturally the Words About Music [WAM] course covers words about music. But words can also be for music,” declared Gordon Williams, one of our WAM tutors. “Let’s not underesti

46. Ronald Gaynor: An Orchestral Personality
(About WAM/2010 Participants)

Ronald describes to me the qualities of the viola – an instrument that often stands alone, carrying an independent (and essential) line in the music, and one that is inevitably noticed when it

47. David Lang: When Two Worlds Collide
(About WAM/2010 Participants)

This is not the first time David Lang has come to National Music Camp, having participated last year as a composer. As soon as David began playing the piano and trumpet he discovered his desire to wr

48. Anne-Marie Mousley: An Opening Book
(About WAM/2010 Participants)

...ilarating story, such is her enthusiasm. When asked what draws her to music, she talks passionately of the stories that music itself can tell. “I love its ability to transcend time and bring the...

49. Claire Tomlin: Consuming Passions
(About WAM/2010 Participants)

...drawal symptoms," Claire explains, “I’m remembering what I love most about it." The trial separation came about when Claire decided to defer her Master in Music at the end of 20...

50. Hugh Davidson: “There are things you were born to do”
(About WAM/2010 Participants)

...gh Davidson admits that this cliché sounds a bit pretentious, but for him, a career in music is the only option. 2010 Words About Music participant Hugh Davidson admits that this cliché ...