Randy Newman kicks off his two-week tour of Australia tomorrow night in a performance with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane, followed by two nights with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and two more at the iconic Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony. In the 1970s, Newman's "edgy, narrative-rich songs were part of an explosion of youthful talent bursting from the US west coast," says The Australian. "So much music from the era has been forgotten but Newman is still going strong ... He's long been acknowledged as a master songwriter: critics applaud the musical depth, edge and literary quality of his lyrics."
Randy Newman kicks off his two-week tour of Australia Friday night in a one-night-only performance with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra at the QPAC Concert Hall in Brisbane. The show is part of this month's Queensland Music Festival and is the first stop on his five-concert Australian tour of performances backed by a full orchestra. Next up are two nights at the State Theatre in Melbourne with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, followed by two nights at the iconic Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony. For additional show details, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
The Sydney Morning Herald and Brisbane Times spoke with Queensland Music Festival Artistic Director Deborah Conway about the event's eclectic lineup and Randy Newman's inclusion in it. "He is one of the great contributors to the American songbook of the 20th Century and favourably compares to Cole Porter and Gershwin," Conway tells the papers. "He's fabulous, witty and heartfelt."
In advance of the tour, Newman was recently featured in The Australian. "In the early 1970s young people lived or died by their record collections," writes the paper's Rosalie Higson. "If you wanted to be a serious contender in the contemporary music stakes you would have had a couple of LPs from a bespectacled young Californian singer-songwriter stacked alongside your Stones, Beatles and Dylan."
Higson refers, of course, to Newman.
"12 Songs and Sail Away introduced the public to Randy Newman, whose edgy, narrative-rich songs were part of an explosion of youthful talent bursting from the US west coast," she explains. "So much music from the era has been forgotten but Newman is still going strong ... He's long been acknowledged as a master songwriter: critics applaud the musical depth, edge and literary quality of his lyrics."
Read the complete article at theaustralian.com.au.
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Newman spoke with the 702 Mornings show on ABC Sydney about the two facets of his career in film and songwriting—"from Toy Story to warm but sharp reflections on human frailty," as ABC puts it—and how the two differ. You can listen to the segment at abc.net.au.
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To pick up a copy of Newman's latest album, Songbook Vol. 2, released on Nonesuch in May, head to the Nonesuch Store, where orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s of the album at checkout.
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