As Perth Festival winds down the rest of the arts community winds up! It’s a busy month, starting with the Fremantle Chamber Orchestra on March 4/5 featuring violinist Rudolf Koelman teaming up with FCO soloists for concertos by Vivaldi, Bach and Elgar’s Serenade for Strings.

On March 10/11 the WA Symphony Orchestra performs Tchaikovsky with Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov plus the very exciting world premiere of Lachlan Skipworth’s Spiritus. On the 16/17/18 Yu-Chien Tseng features as violin soloist with the orchestra in Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy and Daniel Cohen will conduct Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. WASO finishes the month on March 31st with classically trained singer Kate Miller-Heidke who will traverse the worlds of contemporary pop, folk and opera with her original songs.

After outstanding performances for West Australian Opera in The Marriage of Figaro and The Riders soprano Emma Pearson will be in recital on March 12th as part of the Swan Songs series. I could listen to Pearson’s satin soprano all night, definitely my current favourite singer!  Her program includes songs from Strauss and Mahler and a beautiful set of songs shot through with all kinds of dance rhythms.

The Perth Symphony Orchestra are having An Irish Night on March 15th at the Fremantle Town Hall, celebrating Irish history and its journey to Australian shores.

The show schedule for the WA Academy of Performing Arts has been released and March is packed full of gigs including Mad About Coward on March 21st featuring International director and Noel Coward tragic Stuart Maunder and accompanist (and Associate Dean of Music) Stewart Smith promising an elegant, moving and very funny exploration of all things Coward.

On March 23rd Geoffrey Lancaster directs WAAPA classical and acting students in Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know, an evening of musical melodrama featuring music written as accompaniment for the spoken word. There are also excellent two WAAPA percussion gigs on the 23rd and 25th.

The Giovanni Consort will present Baroque vocal music from South America – often overlooked with our Euro-centric approach to western music history – in a concert on March 26th.

On the 28th WA Opera will launch their first house season with Tosca sung by Teddy Tahu Rhodes (Scarpia), Antoinette O’Halloran (Tosca), Paul O’Neil (Cavaradossi) and Wade Kernot (Cesare Angelotti). WA Opera presented Tosca just six years ago but this production is from New Zealand with Stuart Maunder directing. Hopefully it is worth revisiting!