Piano at 10 - John Martin (piano)
One of the most engaging pianists currently performing in Australia. John will present a programme featuring 'light' classical and Australian compositions - a fitting tribute to Bundanoon's sesquicentenary.
Programme
F.Schubert—Impromptu in Ab, Op. 90 #4
F.Chopin—Impromptu No. 1 Op. 29
F.Chopin—Fantaisie-Impromptu Op. 66
F.Liszt----Liebestraum No. 3
F.Mendelssohn—Rondo Capriccioso Op. 14
E.Grieg—Wedding Day at Troldhaugen
A.Carr-Boyd—Grass Tree Hill
A Carr-Boyd---Prelude
J.Martin---Thorn of the Rose
J. Martin—Hippopotomarch
S.Joplin—Elite Syncopations
B.Mayerl—Bats in the Belfry
Biography
John Martin’s work is very familiar to concert goers and listeners to Australia’s classical radio networks. He has been featured three times on ABC Classic FM’s Drive Time segment “On the Verandah”, and is very frequently broadcast by the network. In addition to his many other recordings, his 2013 release on the Wirripang label “The Ring of New Bells”—a collection of Miriam Hyde’s piano works—was given extensive airplay. He is a former recipient of grants for overseas study from the Australia Council Music Board and Opera Foundation, and studied in England with pianists Clifford Benson and Paul Hamburger.
The first half of 2012 saw John touring Australia and New Zealand for the second time in “Dickens’ Women” with popular British actress Miriam Margolyes, both tours presented by Andrew McKinnon Productions, after which he performed in a series of recitals as half of the Jacono-Martin Duo with violinist Victoria Jacono-Gilmovich, along with other concert and show engagements.
Miriam Margolyes and John have recently completed a 3rd Australian tour (February to May 2015) for Andrew McKinnon, this time in a show devised for them by director Peter Adams entitled “The Importance of Being Miriam!” This covered many major venues around Australia such as Melbourne Playhouse, Adelaide’s Dunstan Playhouse, Perth’s Heath Ledger Theatre, and the Sydney Opera House, comprising 50 acclaimed performances. A DVD of this show is shortly to be released on ABC Classics.
John has been M.D. for Australia’s Got Talent winner Mark Vincent, and for many years has also been M.D. for The Australian Tenors,( including six performances in 2015), courtesy of Australian Global Entertainments, and “Remembering the Carpenters” with Lisa Budin.
In parallel with show work of this type he maintains a very busy concert schedule, and is frequently to be seen and heard partnering many of Australia’s best known Classical singers and instrumentalists. Peter Cousens (most recently August 2015 for a show in Toowoomba), David Hobson, Marina Prior, Stuart Maunder, Greta Bradman, Yvonne Kenny, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, gypsy-jazz violinist Ian Cooper , Dominica Matthews, and Glenn Winslade are just some of the many fine performers with whom John has worked in recent times, across various genres. In 2013 he performed Schubert’s “Schwanengesang” for Art Song NSW with rising star tenor Robert MacFarlane, and in 2014 performed several concerts with celebrated flautist Jane Rutter, with whom he will again be collaborating in 2016.
Solo performance has always played a significant part in John’s concert career, and he can present on short notice a programme that ranges from popular classics by the great masters to ragtime and music of the jazz era. In December 2015 he will be doing such a programme for “Piano At 10” in the Memorial Hall, Bundanoon, N.S.W.
Cabaret work is a regular entry in John’s performance diary, and he has worked with Simon Ward, Katie McKee and Stuart Maunder in several seasons of Opera Bite’s “Noel, Cole and Gertie”, and with Simon in “Simon Says” and many other performances . He and actress Amanda Muggleton premiered their new show “The Men That Got Away (Thank God!)”in 2014, after which they joined violinist Victoria Jacono-Gilmovich in a live ABC Classic FM performance of Hans Christian-Anderson’s tale “Wild Swans”, with music by Elena Kats-Chernin. They reprised this in two performances in the Utzon Room of Sydney Opera House in July 2015. On December 6th, 2015, they join forces again in 3 performances of “Hansel and Gretel”, again in the Utzon Room. Also in 2015 John joined rising star Melody Beck in a performance of her award-winning show “Unseen—The Voice of Hollywood (The Marni Nixon Story)” in the Noosa Festival, a show they first did together for the 2014 Ballarat Cabaret Festival.
2015 has also seen John join renowned cellist Susan Blake—a regular collaborator—in several recitals of classical repertoire, covering works by Borodin, Bach and Schumann. They have been engaged for a series of recitals in 2016.
John has been a frequent adjudicator for music competitions, and his guidance and mentoring abilities mean that he is also kept very busy working with aspiring young performers.
In addition to his work as a performer, John is now gaining a reputation as a fine composer with over two dozen works published thus far, and on October 4th, 2014 he presented an hour of his own works (published by Wirripang Publications) as part of “Sounding Australia”, a composers’ festival put on by Music Teachers’ Association N.S.W. In July 2015 he was invited to the Australian Institute of Music, Melbourne, where he recorded a CD of his own piano and vocal compositions to be released on Wirripang. It will be titled “Some Like it Cool”.