A study in China used fMRI technology to test this hypothesis on 18 male participants.

The Australian soprano and early music specialist will be teaching at the first Perth Choral Institute Summer School.

Voices shine in the concert hall, despite a programme meant for the forest.

Permission to Speak aims to explore parent-child relationships through sound, action and percussive cutlery.

The music of the Medieval and early Renaissance is a startlingly unfamiliar language for modern ears with its strange clashes and cadences. Thanks to the tireless work of scholars, specialist performers and boutique labels, nowadays we can immerse ourselves in order to become sufficiently ‘fluent’, yet one can only wonder at what emotional responses this music must have triggered in the average 14th-century listener. Next to the big names of the Burgundian School, Arnold and Hugo de Lantins were second league but their works pop up in various codices alongside Dufay and Binchois. Little is known about Arnold but even less about Hugo – we’re not even sure they were brothers – but they were both clerics in the diocese of Liège. The first evidence of their work appeared in Northern Italy. This recital by Le Miroir De Musique, a superb ensemble of four singers and six instrumentalists, offers a lovely programme of secular chansons and rondeaux interspersed with instrumental arrangements.  The vocalists here strike an ideal balance of disciplined purity with an unforced, open vocal delivery. Clara Coutouly is especially enchanting in her solo turns Hélas amour, que ce qu’endure and Puis que je voy, belle, que ne m’aimes;…

Listening to Alonso Lobo’s music it is easy to understand why the great Victoria considered him an equal. Having trained under Francisco Guerrero at the cathedral of Seville, Lobo was appointed as his teacher’s assistant in 1591, but was two years later appointed to the prestigious post of maestro de capilla at Toledo cathedral. There he remained for a successful decade before returning to Seville in 1604 where he worked until his death in 1617. This impressive programme begins with Guerrero’s Easter motet, Maria Magdalena et Altera Maria followed by Lobo’s own Missa Maria Magdalene. Lobo’s homage to his master is also sumptuously cast in six parts and is full of wonderfully awe-inspiring moments, such as the Et Incarnatus and the Osanna in Excelsis. Such was Lobo’s fame his music was often copied, finding its way to other countries and even to the New World. This is particularly fortunate in the case of his Lamentations. Two sets were written, but only one is performable, and that in a manuscript from 1772. Written to be performed in a darkened church during Holy Week, each lamentation begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, which is set with flowing melismas, creating a mood…

Now he is thought of as an old Dutch master, but Louis Andriessen a former apostle of Marxist modernism would doubtless shy away from such titles.

Lior, Elena Kats-Chernin and The Idea of North have collaborated on a CD for hospitalised kids and their families.

Excellence. If you want to hear some, listen to the first track of Gondwana Chorale’s debut album Soar. The opener, Dan Walker’s Concierto del Sur, offers us a breath of life as this exquisitely produced recording brings together more than 50 of the brightest young singers in modern Australia. The dynamic texture of Orlovich’s Butterflies Dance continues the journey of divine music and sound, while another highlight is Abbott’s Fool – a percussive and masterfully articulated song from Words of Wisdom, a collection of works drawing on newspaper quotes. Also of note is the strength in upper voices found in Lament to Saint Cecilia by Stanhope. Gondwana’s voices are worthy of a five-star review. But something about this album doesn’t sit right. The bold cover photography shows our blue sky and red land; inside, notes boast “new Australian works that capture the mystery and grandeur of our land” sung by children of dairy farmers and flying doctors. The inclusion here of sacred works from Guerrero, Monteverdi and Rachmaninov does not represent contemporary Australia, nor does it push to establish a national sound from a young generation of singers. And with their talent, they have the power to unite people in…

Jeremy Dibble, indefatigable scholar of all things English, Romantic and musical, has exhumed a sizeable body of madrigals written in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Some of the composer’s names will be familiar: Elgar, Stanford and Parry. Some choristers will be familiar with Stainer, whose oratorio, The Crucifixion makes an annual appearance on Good Friday at St. Paul’s, Melbourne. The names of Leslie, Goodhart and Pearsall will more often than not draw a blank. Pearsall is best known for his arrangement of In Dulci Jubilo in Willcocks’ Carols for Choirs 1. Encouraged by societies who ran competitions with generous prizes, these composers and many others turned their hand to the form of the madrigal, attempting on the one hand to evoke something “antique” and on the other to push the form’s harmonic and textural envelope in new directions. Victorian prudery is evident in the lack of any salacious Elizabethan texts. Hard by a Crystal Fountain and Come Again, Sweet Love are definitely out. Stanford and Pearsall, each in their own way, are the best of this bunch. Stanford unashamedly displays his ‘modernist’ credentials in daring but deftly handled harmonies in God and the Universe and On Time. Pearsall in ‘antiquarian’ mode…

A composer of Catholic liturgical music in a Lutheran society, Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745) was fighting an uphill battle for popularity even during his own lifetime. After his death, his music all but disappeared from the repertoire, and still remains firmly on the fringes of concert programming. One ensemble, however, is doing more than any to change this. For over 20 years, Czech conductor Václav Luks and his superb Collegium 1704 choir and orchestra have been turning out eloquent recordings that celebrate the  intricate counterpoint and bold harmonic gestures of the composer JS Bach so admired. Their latest is particularly interesting: a world premiere recording of the Missa Divi Zaveri, a major 1729 work thus far silenced by the poor condition (including lost parts) of its surviving manuscript. Now Luks himself has produced a complete edition, and the results are thrilling. The Mass features the largest forces Zelenka ever composed for, including four trumpets, timpani, doubled flutes and oboes as well as strings, chorus and SATB soloists. The result is truly festal in scale, possibly an informal audition for the job of kapellmeister at Dresden that would eventually go to Hasse.  With no Credo, the centre of musical gravity shifts…

Julie Kerr has founded Music Love, an online platform to showcase women across all branches of the Australian music industry.