Art and Abart

St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney In 1865 the architect William Wardell was commissioned to  design a new cathedral in Sydney. He was aske...

Lucas Debargue plays I started listening to the wonderful 24 year old self taught French pianist Luca Debargue online and was unable to ...

The early morning sun and my coffee machine put on a rainbow display this morning. If I were superstitious I might think the gods were sendi...

On the way to the museum, we came across a multifaceted mirror that was just about as much fun as the museum itself.

Harpsichord waiting for Egarr to appear Baroque music. Somehow the name sounds so staid, as if the music might be constrained by tight c...

After a major Wagner drought, all the antipodean Wagner riches came at once this year.  The wonderful NZSO Wagner Gala conducted by Pietar...

I was in Wellington only five days but hearing Christine Goerke and Simon O'Neill sing up a storm at the Wagner Gala was worth the trip...

Where the hobbits live? Perhaps it is no surprise that New Zealand became the home of the hobbits. The countryside is stunning but even ...

Christine Goerke (Brunhilde) and Simon O'Neill (Siegfried) sang their hearts out at the Wagner Gala in Wellington on Friday. They were b...

Wellington houses cascade down the hills like blocks dropped from a child's box. They gleam white in the sun, peeping between the power...

The Wellington Botanic Gardens climb up a gorge between two hills leading from  the city. The land was probably too inaccessible to be buil...

A random paper blowing down the street turned out to be the NZ Evening Post from 1977.

I watched the severe weather warnings from Wellington NZ with some trepidation earlier this week as I was due to fly across the Tasman on W...

Isabella Brown plays Double Bass The Pearl Beach Progress Association is quite a phenomenon. I don't know the average age of the me...

The Australian Arts Minister George Brandis has taken $104m of the funding previously distributed by the arms-length Australia Council and m...

Three canvases painted bright red with 'artists professional underground paint' are sitting out in the sun drying. Our autumn has ...

Matai  Walnut My father loved wood and eventually became a wood turner. At the bottom of each piece he wrote the species of wood he ...

A wave from tier 3. We have got so used to loud and virtuosic piano high-jinks that when a concert is quiet and meditative, it takes ti...

Ceramic artists in Australia and across the world have donated pieces for the Nepal relief effort. Many of the pieces by the more well known...

Woolly layers Thank heavens for wool. The first snows have fallen on the ranges to the south of Sydney and we can feel it in the air, ev...