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Press
The Sydney Morning Herald
June 2006
"... The sequence of some tracks is so hard-hitting as to almost defy listening in a
single session."
Peter McCallum
June 2006
"... The sequence of some tracks is so hard-hitting as to almost defy listening in a
single session."
Peter McCallum
ABC Classic FM
CD of the week
for the week beginning Monday 24 April 2006
Lest We Forget
Tall Poppies TP185
Merlyn Quaife, soprano - Andrea Katz, piano
This is a remarkable and moving testament to human endurance and spirit.
This collection of songs is inspired by war and its appalling human cost, and by our
longing for peace. It's far from a run of the mill recital disc - the composers include
Poulenc, Victor Jara, Bax, Weill and John Lennon, among others.
There are art songs of all kinds, as well as cabaret songs from the infamous
Theresienstadt camp.
For more information, visit
www.tallpoppies.net
CD of the week
for the week beginning Monday 24 April 2006
Lest We Forget
Tall Poppies TP185
Merlyn Quaife, soprano - Andrea Katz, piano
This is a remarkable and moving testament to human endurance and spirit.
This collection of songs is inspired by war and its appalling human cost, and by our
longing for peace. It's far from a run of the mill recital disc - the composers include
Poulenc, Victor Jara, Bax, Weill and John Lennon, among others.
There are art songs of all kinds, as well as cabaret songs from the infamous
Theresienstadt camp.
For more information, visit
www.tallpoppies.net
Perth Festival, Wigmore Series
Gweneth-Ann Jeffers (soprano)
Andrea Katz (piano)
Fremantle Town Hall
February 2004
Wagner Wesendonck Lieder
"...His settings of six poems by Mathilde Wesendonck, (with whom the composer was having an affair at
the time) are very fine - and Gweneth-Ann Jeffers with Andrea Katz at the piano, were more than up to
the challenge of these deeply probing songs to which they responded with a depth of understanding that
invariably sounded entirely right.
Stehe Still! was memorably treated, its sense of urgency convincingly evoked.
Whether in revealing the high emotion that informs Schmerzen (Anguish), or evoking the melancholy of
Im Triebhaus (The Greenhouse), the two could hardly be faulted.
I particularly liked the piano postlude to the latter; it was finely crafted."
Reviewed by Neville Cohn
The Sydney Morning Herald
Sydney Festival 2001
Tango Sinfónico
Sydney Opera House
Concert Hall, January 25
A squeezebox is sexy? Try blaming tango
"... Opening the second half, Ziegler performed two piano duets with Andrea Katz, both arrangements of
Piazzolla orchestral works. This was a chance to demonstrate the musical imagination of Piazzolla,
especially in the intricate Bachian Fuga y misterio.
In the most static, brooding Buenos Aires Hora Cero, the glances, shrugs and musical exchanges
between the two were as dramatic and intimate as a pair of dancers.
Now, at last, I understand what Barry Otto was doing in Strictly Ballroom. A solitary, manic tango.It takes
two."
Reviewed by Harriet Cunningham
Sydney Festival 2001
Tango Sinfónico
Sydney Opera House
Concert Hall, January 25
A squeezebox is sexy? Try blaming tango
"... Opening the second half, Ziegler performed two piano duets with Andrea Katz, both arrangements of
Piazzolla orchestral works. This was a chance to demonstrate the musical imagination of Piazzolla,
especially in the intricate Bachian Fuga y misterio.
In the most static, brooding Buenos Aires Hora Cero, the glances, shrugs and musical exchanges
between the two were as dramatic and intimate as a pair of dancers.
Now, at last, I understand what Barry Otto was doing in Strictly Ballroom. A solitary, manic tango.It takes
two."
Reviewed by Harriet Cunningham
Sydney Morning Herald
11/11/1998
Guests spring pleasant surprises
"...The third and final recital in the Music for Spring series presented at St James's Church under the
auspices of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra maintained the high standards of chamber music
performance established in the first concert in September.
On this occasion, with the SSO on tour, the soloists could not be drawn from the SSO principal but were
two visiting musicians, Pekka Kuusisto (violin) and Andrea Katz (piano).
...
In all this enterprise, Kuusisto was fortunate to have Katz as his accompanist. From Argentina, Katz has
spent a number of seasons in Sydney working with Opera Australia as a repetiteur and as a freelance
accompanist.
This was the first time I had heard her, and I hope it won't be the last. Utmost technical authority
combined with a refinement of phrasing and tone assured her place as the ideal partner in a program
in which the piano is the equal partner of the violin."
Reviewed by David Vance
11/11/1998
Guests spring pleasant surprises
"...The third and final recital in the Music for Spring series presented at St James's Church under the
auspices of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra maintained the high standards of chamber music
performance established in the first concert in September.
On this occasion, with the SSO on tour, the soloists could not be drawn from the SSO principal but were
two visiting musicians, Pekka Kuusisto (violin) and Andrea Katz (piano).
...
In all this enterprise, Kuusisto was fortunate to have Katz as his accompanist. From Argentina, Katz has
spent a number of seasons in Sydney working with Opera Australia as a repetiteur and as a freelance
accompanist.
This was the first time I had heard her, and I hope it won't be the last. Utmost technical authority
combined with a refinement of phrasing and tone assured her place as the ideal partner in a program
in which the piano is the equal partner of the violin."
Reviewed by David Vance
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