Thebarton Theatre. Frontier Touring. 24 Feb 2026
This is the seventh time that Ben Folds has played the Thebarton Theatre, the first being almost 20 years back in 1997. For a short period in the late 90s–early 2000s he and his (then) wife called Adelaide home, and the ease with which he played, sang and wooed the capacity ‘Thebby’ crowd tonight would indicate he still feels very much at home in Adelaide. But he seems to be the sort of person who can feel ‘at home’ anywhere—life is what you make of it—and his concert was very much an exploration of key moments in his life.
The concert begins with his support act Lindsey Kraft taking to the stage. She is unassuming and with self-deprecating humour. She was originally an actor (including playing Allison in the hit Netflix series Grace and Frankie) and eventually turned her hand to song and music making. As a pianist, she has modest abilities—simple melody in the right hand, chordal accompaniment in the left—but she has a straight-tone soprano voice that pitches true and creates a sweet and pure tone. Her song lyrics are meaningful, and she sings a song about her dad and one about her mum in her program. They are straight from the heart, and the audience warms to her very quickly.
Interestingly, she has written a musical We’ve Been Here Before that will be playing at the Holden Street Theatres during Fringe, and Ben Folds will be there as musical director. The relationship between Folds and Kraft helped create a structure to tonight’s concert – all the best concerts have one.
Solo popular concerts are very revealing. The solo artist is vulnerable and has nowhere to hide; there’s no backing group to disguise performance errors or lack of musical prowess; there’s no real opportunity to rest; the success (or otherwise) of the concert falls wholly on the prowess and skill of the soloist. Kraft succeeds as an opener, and Folds almost overwhelms the audience with his pianistic skill, song selection, and sequencing, high energy vocals, and entertaining conversation and smattering of irreverent patter.
As Folds walked on stage, One by Harry Nilsson was playing on the theatre’s sound system. Interesting choice. Gone are the days of Ben Folds Five. Gone are his marriages. He is unaccompanied, and alone on stage, with no flashy light show; just him with a grand piano. Exposed.
His first song is the poignant So There, which he follows with Don’t Change Your Plans. The deep melancholy and pathos of each song ripples through his whole body as he plays the piano with muscularity and purpose. The detailed passage work at the piano is impressive (but overamplified, arguably).
And then the audience erupted with heartfelt applause. He must have known they were with him.
It had never occurred to me that Ben Folds’ songs are rarely covered. In some ways, this is a testimony to the deeply personal nature of his material and consequently means so much more when they are sung by him. However, his next song, Boxing, was covered in 1998 by the iconic Bette Midler. It is an imaginary interview between famous American sports journalist, broadcaster and author Howard Cosell and boxer Muhammad Ali, in which the singer takes the perspective of Ali. Folds gives the final repeated phrase ‘Has boxing been good?’ a bravura treatment at the piano as he almost lifts himself off the piano bench. Again, over amplified to the point of distortion.
Then follows a range of songs interspersed with humorous anecdotes and comments about their genesis, ranging from how he approached song writing and music composition as a boy, through to the birth of his children, break-up of relationships, his musical responses during the COVID pandemic, sorting out junk, and through to the unexpected passing of a dear friend. His performance of What Matters Most becomes a moment of personal reflection for every member of the audience as they ponder the final lyric ‘Tell me, what matters most? Mmm.’ There follows a momentary silence. Then heartfelt and generous applause.
But the biggest thrill of the night is his inclusion of the song Adelaide, and Folds explains that the city of Adelaide and its inhabitants have surely outgrown the cultural cringe with which the city (and South Australia more generally) has been associated. To whoops of cheers and laughter, Folds states he no longer feels the need to be the “defence attorney for Adelaide” and offer apologies on our behalf. An admirable trait of Aussies is our ability to laugh at ourselves, and we do so as he sings every irreverent phrase from the song!
His program also included You Don’t Know Me first released on his 2008 album Way to Normal. It includes the repeated lyric ‘you don’t know me at all’ and the audience responds with ‘at all’ with full throated voice. But, to the contrary, after this deeply personal concert we do feel we know Ben Folds, at least a little bit better, and we want even more.
Kym Clayton
When: 24 Feb
Where: Thebarton Theatre
Bookings: Closed
Tour Continuing through Melbourne, Bendigo, Perth, Newcastle, Geelong, and Hobart.
More info: frontiertouring.com/benfolds
Prize-winning Adelaide author Sean Williams is well known for his apparently inexhaustible output of speculative fiction for young people. His realist novel Impossible Music (Allen & Unwin, 2019) is a fascinating portrayal of a young musician who must cope with suddenly becoming profoundly deaf.
Williams is also a senior lecturer in creative writing at Flinders University.
On top of all that, Williams is a composer and, writing under the moniker TheAdelaidean, he has released over 25 albums of what is broadly categorised as ambient music.
Ambient music has a long history, dating back to the first electronically produced music of Pierre Schaffer and Eliane Radigue and even before that to Erik Satie’s Furniture Music.
Ambient music is often arrhythmic and may appear to have little or no structure, so that the listener is immersed in long-duration tones and textures. Brian Eno is said to have coined the term ‘ambient music’ and is one of its principal exponents.
Ambient music stimulates an awareness of sound quite different from that induced by the melodic development, harmonies, rhythms and modulations of ‘conventional’ music. It may be produced using any form of instrumentation but is commonly created electronically, sometimes with recorded samples of live performance or of environmental sounds — musique concrète — which may be transformed, manipulated and repeated, and there can be similarities with Minimalism. The effect of such music is often soothing, and listeners might let their minds wander rather than focussing on the origin or nature of the sound as it progresses.
Williams’s work is frequently innovative and explores ideas beyond the simple generation of sound. For example, his three-CD, three-hour and 48-minute album, Hyperaurea (2023), is a sonic evocation of Antarctica and is accompanied by a detailed and enthralling memoir of the time he spent there on an Australian Antarctic Division Arts Fellowship. The album’s launch at the Flinders University Museum of Art was accompanied by videos of Antarctica, making for a thoroughly immersive experience for the audience.
Williams’s latest release, Nine Breaths, departs from his recent work in that it introduces the Japanese poetic form, the haiku, a form which he notes is short enough to be recited in a single breath. In the Japanese tradition, haiku typically comprise three lines of five, seven and five syllables and convey a momentary perception or elicit a sudden awareness, usually of a natural phenomenon. In its English form, the number of syllables is flexible.
For Nine Breaths, Williams has written nine haiku and a piece of music to accompany or evoke each poem. The first eight compositions occupy one CD and the ninth occupies the whole of a second CD. There are programmatic elements in some of the pieces and what sound like sampled elements.
The poem Loss is as follows:
in the throng
familiar perfume
— loss, found
In the composition for Loss, we hear ethereal synthesised music accompanying a voice reciting an excerpt from the poem Tatiana’s Letter from Alexander Pushkin’s Eugen Onegin. The emotionally charged reading is said to be by A Tarasova and it’s presumably taken from Russian actress Alla Tarasova’s 78 rpm recording of 1917.
Tremble in Worship goes:
upraised palms
tremble in worship
— spring shower
In the composition for Tremble in Worship, there are periodic, booming beats as if from a drum and each of these beats triggers a burst of harmonics that then slowly and quietly decay. In Buddhist thought, such repetitive beats are a call to mindfulness. There is a rustling sound quietly in the background, possibly suggesting gentle rain or someone moving about or the whisper of air.
In Courting Dust, rapid, rhythmic, piano-like tinkling sounds cascade hypnotically and suggest a cloud of dust motes in a shaft of sunlight. Each note of the piano sound varies slightly, suggesting a human rather than an electro-mechanical performer, and in the background, the synthesised sound of a choir enriches the sonic weave:
sunlight
courting dust
— weightless pirouettes
The composition Horizon, at over an hour in length, is a finely nuanced orchestration of sound:
eyes closed
reframe
the horizon
The idea of such a short poem eliciting an extended piece of music seems ironic, but the listener enters a relaxed state, and their attention might alternate between the theme of the haiku, their breathing and the music’s delightful intricacies.
Sean Williams’s Nine Breaths creates a highly original and engaging correspondence between music and text. Each poem and its accompanying composition can induce not only heightened aural awareness, musical pleasure and a meditative or imaginative state but also serious philosophical thought. It’s an exquisite addition to the genre of ambient music.
Chris Reid
Sean Williams, Nine Breaths (Project Records, 2026), is available on CD or as a download.
More info: theadelaidean.com
Graduate Singers. St Peter’s Cathedral. 12 Dec 2025
The Graduate Singers (or the ‘Grads) are an impressive outfit. They sing beautifully, they tackle diverse repertoire, they have a large and loyal following (understandably), and they are dramatic in their delivery.
Tonight’s concert, their final one for the year, is being held in St Peter’s Cathedral on a balmy summer’s evening to a near capacity audience. The program includes classics from both the sacred and secular repertoire, and … community carol singing, which for many was a highlight of the event.
The Grads number fifty-five at full strength and tonight’s concert features forty-four of them, not including Karl Geiger – their Director of Music and tonight’s conductor. St Peter’s presents challenges for such a large choir: it’s not easy to fit them in (along with any instrumentalists), and the acoustic of the cathedral punishes less than precise singing.
Geiger’s selection of songs was clever. Collectively they told the story of Christmas from religious and worldly perspectives, and they laid bare the evolution of spiritual thinking to something less mysterious, more relaxed and grounded in humanism. A greater contrast there could not be in starting the concert with Once in Royal David’s City as a community carol, following it with Hassler’s 1591 setting of The Word Became Flesh and ending the program with Joseph Twist’s joyous tongue-firmly-in-cheek Australian carol Christmas in the Sun! At appropriate times the audience sat in hushed reverential silence, and at others they were whistling and laughing. The concert had everything.
Geiger has obvious command of the choir, with clear and purposeful gesturing that evokes appropriate emotional responses from the choristers as well as instructions for tempi, dynamics and timing. And Geiger is mischievous! He toys with the audience as he encourages them to sing even louder the next time to raise the vaulted roof of the cathedral. It was almost pantomimical and one could imagine exchanges along the lines of “I bet you can sing louder!”, “Oh no we can’t”, “Oh yes you can!”. It was a joy.
Cleverly, Geiger has the choir surround the entire audience on four sides at the beginning. The process, and the occasion feels solemn as well as theatrical. David Heah on organ is impressive, with carefully controlled dynamics, and he works well with the five instrumentalists, which include trumpet, trombone, cello, horn and tuba (which is especially well played).
As previously mentioned, the acoustic of a cathedral space is challenging, and vocal articulation is vital if a large choir is to be clearly heard (and understood). The Grads are particularly effective in delivering clear diction with songs that are pacier, and when they are unaccompanied and vibrato is minimised. There are some issues with clarity at the beginnings of phrases in My Lord Has Come, but Silent Night is near perfect and the audience clearly enjoy John Rutter’s novel arrangements of the music.
Mistletoebird is a highlight of the concert, and it’s a joy that the composer Rachel Bruerville is in the room to receive deserved applause from the large appreciative audience. Their rendition of The Magi’s Dream was dramatic and solid evidence of the Grads ability to convincingly tell a story through song.
The absolute highlight of the evening is a spirited performance of The Twelve Days of Christmas which included excellent and controlled dynamics, and a humorous burst of speed towards its conclusion. As an aside, there is a quirky article in the December 2025 edition of the Interlude.HK classical music newsletter entitled “A Fun Cost Analysis on 12 Days of Christmas” in which the authors estimate the cost of giving all those gifts! If you’re doing the full measure, which would be 12 partridges, 22 turtle doves, 30 French hens, etc., for a total of 364 presents, you’re at over $1.5 million for 12 days of fun. $1,535,405.64, to be exact. It’s expensive to be whimsical!
But there’s nothing whimsical about a Grads concert, and Songs of Joy is a vocal celebration of joy, a celebration of the human voice, and an affirmation of all that is virtuous with humanity.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 Dec
Where: St Peter’s Cathedral
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The Adelaide Town Hall. 28 Nov 2025
This is the final concert in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s flagship Symphony Series, and it was both a resounding crowd pleaser and a musical triumph. It has everything you could want for; uplifting and rousing melodies contrasted with elegiac and tender moments, stylish interpretations of old favourites by an extraordinary internationally famed soloist, thoughtful authority and readings from a world-class conductor who radiates charm and musicality, and of course outstanding performances from all sections of our very own well-regarded symphony orchestra, which is surely at the top of its game!
The program is entitled Seasons, which gives one pause to expect the program will include works such as Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, but that isn’t the case. Dylan Henderson’s comprehensive notes in the printed program make some effort to elucidate the reason behind the naming of the concert, but ASO management might have named it in a way that acknowledges that all the music, uncommonly, is written by English composers: Summer by Frank Bridge (1879-1941), Cello Concerto in E Minor, Op.85, by Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) – both performed before the interval – and Symphony No.1 in B-flat Minor by Sir William Walton (1902-1983). All three compositions had their premières between 1914 and 1939.
By the interval, the audience is buzzing. The first half of the program starts with a lush reading of Bridge’s tone poem Summer. It deserves to be played in concert halls more often that it is, and it caresses the listener into a mood of relaxed concentration. Conductor Mark Wigglesworth carefully balances the musical forces of the orchestra to allow the woodwinds to be heard clearly above the strings, and the result evokes the feeling of lazing in the English countryside.
This peace and contemplation is shattered by what follows.
Renowned German cellist Daniel Müller-Schott gives a blistering performance of the Elgar cello concerto. An icon in the repertoire, this concerto can be played far too sweetly, but Müller-Schott channels Jacqueline du Pré and makes his 1727 “Ex Shapiro” Matteo Goffrioller cello almost growl at times, especially in the concerto’s dramatic grand opening. He is intriguing to watch. With his cello perched quite high, he can almost look across at his left hand as his fingers play out their intricate dance across the fingerboard. Indeed, his fingers almost tell the story of the music as they lay bare the piece’s emotions. His bow and finger work in the faster sections of the second movement are astonishing, and members of the orchestra’s cello section give him appreciative nods and knowing smiles. During the hauntingly beautiful third movement, Müller-Schott has his eyes closed for much of the time and one senses a strong rapport and deep trust between him and Wigglesworth (who watches Müller-Schott intently and instinctively responds to his tempo and passion with great empathy). In the finale, Müller-Schott’s pure enjoyment is on display as he exchanges glances and smiles with the orchestra’s Associate Principal Cello Sharon Grigoryan and Concertmaster Kate Suthers (violin). The concerto ends almost as it begins, with drama and strong growls evoked from the cello, and before the final note can fade away the audience erupts into feverish applause. Müller-Schott then proceeds to give a Bach encore and makes it sound as if it had only just been written! The audience response is again emphatic – they have just witnessed a dramatically classy interpretation of an old favourite, and they loved it.
After the interval, Symphony No.1 by Walton is played. Like the earlier piece by Bridge, it too is infrequently heard, which is a great shame. It has intensity, drama, poignancy, pathos, melodic lyricism, and majesty – everything the more often performed European composers have to offer. (It might be said that tonight’s entire program throws a very appealing, and revealing, spotlight onto English music, and it comes up trumps. At the interval, one audience member said to me that at the start they weren’t sure how they were going to feel once the concert was over, but it was proving to be a welcome and much appreciated revelation.) The symphony’s first movement is intense. It starts with an ominous timpani roll and the horns announce a motif that recurs throughout the work. Wigglesworth is at his most animated as the piece becomes more and more passionate before relaxing into a second subject to close. The second movement gives no pause for rest: like Müller-Schott in the opening bars of the Elgar concerto, the ASO’s cellos and double basses are animated and the picture of studied concentration as they grapple the almost stinging and scowling score. Wigglesworth watches intently and rides the waves of bristling excitement with them. The third movement gives us respite: it is elegiac and tender, and exquisitely lyrical. Joshua Oates’ work on oboe and Mark Gaydon on bassoon is beautiful and almost causes you to stop breathing for a while. The fourth and final movement has filmic qualities. Again, the horns and woodwinds capture our attention early and the movement builds to an almost orgiastic close. Wigglesworth clearly finds the rampant humanity in the piece and smiles at his troops throughout.
Strangely, but understandably, the audience’s applause at the end seemed initially a little reserved. Perhaps the Walton was not something they were familiar with, but the applause is sustained and generous, and elevates a substantial notch when Wigglesworth hands over the gorgeous bouquet of flowers (sponsored by Tynte Flowers) he had been presented with to the ASO’s principal trumpet David Khafagi who is genuinely shocked to receive them but holds them high (along with his trumpet and with a beaming smile) as he accepts the accolades and enthusiastic applause. It’s as if he has just been crowned the heavy weight champion of the world! Khafagi is jubilant, but his performance of the tender “last post” solo in the slow coda of the finale was indeed affecting. The flowers are well deserved!
The ASO is just brilliant under Mark Wigglesworth, and tonight’s program was an eye opener in many ways. We can all look forward to the 2026 program with great anticipation. Tickets are now selling!
Kym Clayton
When: 28 Nov
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Musica Viva. The Adelaide Town Hall. 12 Nov 2025
Polish pianist Piotr Anderszewski is currently touring Australia for Musica Viva, and his one-and-only concert in the Adelaide Town Hall was a provocative reminder about how important it is to experience art music ‘live’, rather than choosing recordings too often.
Why provocative? Because his interpretations are sometimes so different to what one is accustomed on ‘definitive’ recordings that his playing rouses one to listen closely as if hearing the music for the first time, and reminds us that performing music is a very personal and human activity.
Anderszewski is recognised as being a superlative interpreter of the music of Brahms, and the first half of his program is entirely Brahms - a selection of short pieces all around 5 minutes duration each from Seven Fantasies, Op. 116, Three Intermezzi, Op. 117, Six Pieces for Piano, Op. 118, and Four Pieces for Piano, Op. 119.
Anderszewski appears reserved and fully focussed as he purposefully and deliberately strides to the piano, adjusts his chair, gently places his hands on the keyboard and gently coaxes the Intermezzo No. 1, Op. 119 from the mighty concert Steinway. But he is not eliciting something that is pre-set and rigidly unchanging, such as what we might hear again and again on a recording. His performance is unique to the very moment and is dependent on his emotional base at the time. For the next 50 minutes or so we hear the music of Brahms as perhaps Brahms himself might have heard it in his own mind as he first composed it. We hear a performance in which the quietest notes seem quite alone, the fortés have unnerving clarity and authority, passage work has gossamer-like delicacy, unusual harmonies sound ‘in place’, emotion is ‘worn on the sleeve’ without becoming mawkish, and brooding sadness becomes a thing of beauty.
Anderszewski plays all twelve Brahms pieces with only the briefest pause between each one. There is no room for audience applause. The pieces are carefully sequenced together as if they belong together as a single composition, and they almost do, for that is the response Anderszewski evokes from the listener.
The second half of the program features two Bach Preludes & Fugues (E major BWV 878, and G-sharp minor BWV 887) from The Well Tempered Clavier, Book II, and Beethoven’s penultimate Piano Sonata No 31 in A-flat, Op. 110. If Anderszewski was ever idiosyncratic in his interpretations with anything on his program, it was certainly with these.
There is an enormous collection of recordings available of the Bach Preludes and Fugues, and it is easy to adopt a favourite and compare a live performance to that. By doing so, it is probable that Anderszewski’s interpretations might ‘jar’ a little in that he capitalises on the modern piano’s ability to give lush, romantic and sonorous characteristics to something that might otherwise be more accustomed to a more detached sound that amplifies the counterpoint. But, Anderszewski’s interpretation was fresh and exciting, and as one member of the audience remarked withing my hearing “It’s as if I’d never heard it before, and I must now listen to it again when I get home.”
In the mighty Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 31, Anderszewski employed a surprising amount rubato and was almost talking to himself as he played, something akin to the style of the legendary Glenn Gould. Beethoven’s last two piano sonatas stand in distinction to what came before – they almost presage jazz – and Anderszewski demonstrated this at the keyboard. It felt as if he was extemporising at times, and the result was electric.
The next time I hear Anderszewski in concert it won’t be soon enough.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 Nov
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed