Adelaide Festival – Music Theatre
This imaginative song cycle uses jazz, poetry and sublime singing to remind us urgently that the injustices of the past are not yet over.
Murray Bramwell
The more time passes, the more extraordinary Josephine Baker becomes. Born in St Louis, Missouri in 1906, she moved to Paris at the age of nineteen and was star of the Folies Bergere by 21. As her popularity and celebrity expanded in France she broke all barriers.
At her …
Continue Reading Back to topDirector Ian Scobie and Associate Director Annette Tripodi, unveil some of the logistics and highlights (including their favourites) in the program for WOMADelaide 2026
Murray Bramwell
It is three weeks out from opening night for WOMADelaide 2026 and Ian Scobie is quietly confident. “It’s always touch wood” – his familiar caveat. But he is noting the positives. “We got the crazy heatwave out of the way. And we don’t have huge travel logistical challenges. No cranes and feathers. It’s looking …
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Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide
February 22.
Murray Bramwell
Once again the gods arrived by car. Last time they played in Adelaide, in 2016, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings drove across the Nullabor from Perth. This time, it was a non-stop journey from Canberra via a visit to a Murray Cod fishing competition in Barham -Koondrook in New South Wales . “They made us very welcome” drawls Rawlings.
They are also very welcome on …
Continue Reading Back to topPeter Sellars makes Adelaide Festival return: ‘I hope I am coming back as an old friend’
Nearly a quarter century since his own tenure as Adelaide Festival artistic director was controversially cut short, Peter Sellars reflects on his onetime home and the timely body of work he is bringing to the 2026 festival.
Murray Bramwell
It has been 24 years since I last spoke to Peter Sellars and, at that time, both he and the Adelaide Festival were facing considerable …
Continue Reading Back to topAdelaide Festival
Music Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert
The acclaimed Cat Power and a set of songs unparalleled in almost sixty years. What could be better? Unfortunately, among many musical highpoints, there are lows and hesitations, leaving both singer and audience frequently on edge.
Written by Murray Bramwell
If you want to hear Bob Dylan at his best, there couldn’t be a better setlist than the Royal Albert Hall concert in 1966. Never mind that …
Continue Reading Back to topAdelaide Festival: Music
Camille O’Sullivan’s Loveletter is an Irish toast to absent friends. Singers Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan, along with David Bowie, are both mourned, and splendidly celebrated, in this mercurial musical tribute .
Written by Murray Bramwell
Arriving on stage in a flurry of waves, curtsies and glittery smiles, Camille O’Sullivan, from County Cork, surveys the audience at Her Majesty’s with a flustered exuberance. She moves straight into a snippet of “Summer in Siam”, a perky ditty by …
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Music
Preview Interview WOMADelaide 2025
Now one of Australia’s most durable outdoor festivals, WOMADelaide prepares for another four day event featuring music and performances that are, you might say, out of this World. Associate Director, Annette Tripodi talks about the line-up for 2025.
Written by Murray Bramwell
WOMADelaide, with its rather odd portmanteau name, has become a very familiar fixture in Botanic Park in the second weekend in March. This year will be its 28th iteration and …
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Herbie Hancock
Festival Theatre.
October 20.
It was (almost) fifty years ago today that Herbie Hancock got the band to play : Head Hunters. The million-seller jazz fusion break-out of 1974. It was a much acclaimed album along with the first releases from Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra and indicative of Hancock’s versatility and keen sense of the way the wind was blowing.
A classical prodigy, at the age of eleven he played a Mozart piano concerto with the …
Continue Reading Back to topThe Rolling Stones Revue gathers some of Australia’s best and fairest singers and instrumentalists for the celebration of a classic album and a non-stop, knees-up eisteddfod of Greatest Hits.
Written by Murray Bramwell
Last year’s Adelaide Guitar Festival featured an excellent tribute to the incomparable Jeff Beck. This time around it is the pre-eminent rock and roll guitar band, The Rolling Stones. Sixty years on, and they are still out there on the (gold paved) road, filling stadiums like there …
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