2008

Live music review - Jonathan Lemalu and Malcolm Martineau

Operatic bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu and classical pianist Malcolm Martineau make a truly engaging double act. To say Martineau 'accompanies' Lemalu would be doing the piano player a disservice. In this performance the two musicians worked together so superbly that it would be hard to say one took precedence over the other. Martineau’s intuitive playing seemed to enhance and inspire every note offered by Lemalu.

A New Zealand-born Samoan, Lemalu is a rising star in the operatic firmament. His powerful and captivating voice is warm with rich texture and a gentle timbre. Still only in his early 30s, Lemalu can only go on to greater performances as he matures.

Acclaimed pianist Malcolm Martineau is renowned with audiences and critics alike for his performances with leading artists around the world. His precision and virtuosity are highlighted by his theatricality and obvious love of each piece he plays. At times his fingers hover above the keyboard in anticipation of the next note, just waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting key.

This concert was the concluding recital of last week’s Adelaide Conference of Accompanists and Associate Artists and was an Australian exclusive, much to the delight of the appreciative Elder Hall audience. The diverse program included many well-known art songs and arias from the 19th and 20th centuries. The concert opened with Schubert, moved on to Brahms and then dallied for a while with Duparc.

After the interval, Poulenc’s delightful tales of French village life amused the audience and allowed Lemalu to show his playful side. Richard Rodney Bennett’s nursery rhymes were an unexpected inclusion and just perfect for a sunny Sunday afternoon. A quick tour through Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Verdi completed a wonderful recital. Elder Hall, June 1.

Article by Diana Carroll, Published in 'The Independent Weekly', 2nd June 2008.
Read this review at http://adelaide.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/entertainment/live-music-review-jonathan-lemalu-and-malcolm-martineau/781211.aspx

2007

Jonathan Lemalu doesn't eat wheat and never touches alcohol, but the Kiwi opera star is enjoying success while finding time for married life.

IT'S MIDNIGHT in Munich and Kiwi opera singer Jonathan Lemalu is understandably weary.

The bass baritone has just flown to Germany from London for performances in The Marriage of Figaro and it's clear that the whirl of travelling and performing that is now his daily life is draining. He and his voice are in high demand, but he doesn't want to moan about the downside to his international success, and he is friendly and professional despite the late hour of this phone interview.

"I've just done seven concerts in nine days. All the flights, the airports and apartments where you can't find the phone when people ring are part of the job really. If I didn't love it, I wouldn't do it.

"You've just got to suck it up and get on with it. I guess it's something that you kind of always strive for so you have to put your fatigue aside and know there is a lot of expectation on you and you need to get out there and perform, literally. That's part of the job and that's one of the stresses that comes with it."

In the first five years of his flourishing career, Lemalu, 31, has sung alongside Placido Domingo, performed for the Queen, and signed a three-year record deal with EMI Classics.

A review in London's Sunday Times raves about his talent: "Here is an enormous voice of cavernous resonance and silken tone in the control of an artist equipped with all the right musical instincts and intelligence". And the schedule on his website is thick with bookings at concert halls all over Europe.

Lemalu says it has been a baptism of fire jumping into the business at such a high level.

One of the biggest things he has had to learn is how to look after himself physically so he can perform musically.

Eating the right food at the right time and getting enough rest is a juggling act when you're regularly travelling and performing late at night. He doesn't eat wheat or dairy products, never touches alcohol, and has his main meal at lunch time on the day of a performance. He refuels on fruit during the interval.

"I don't put my instrument away in a case and put it under the bed, I am my instrument," he says. He talks about "the voice" as if it is quite separate to himself: "It's a big voice, it's got a very big range."

HOME for the New Zealand- born Samoan is now an apartment in central London that he shares with his wife, Croatian mezzo-soprano singer Sandra Martinovic.

The couple, who married in Dubrovnik, Croatia, last year, have performed together twice in recent months, in Belgium in March and last week in London as part of a trio. Lemalu's voice brightens noticeably when he talks about her.

"We're hoping to have a lot of concerts together, we had a very successful night for the London debut of our trio. And we had some great feedback and hopefully that will be a springboard for some work for us together. We have our own respective careers, but it's actually just really cool to take advantage of the business and find work together so that we can be together."

His relationship is obviously important to him and he struggles with the large amount of time he spends away from his wife. He talks about the pleasure of going home, closing the door on the world and "just being normal".

"You learn how to make the most of any time together, we go out, we spend every moment that we're together, together and make sure that we're the priority and other things come secondary."

Unfortunately Martinovic is not able to come with Lemalu to New Zealand because of work commitments in London. "We know that we've got to find compromises in our work in order to travel together and be together and we're more than happy to do that to find happiness away from the stage," he says.

He's excited about coming home to tour with Malcolm Martineau, a pianist he says is a "complete superstar in the classical world".

"To be able to come back with him in New Zealand is a real treat for me and a real treat for New Zealand as well. He's been a huge inspiration and influence in my career."

Lemalu, who studied law and music at Otago University in his hometown Dunedin, says law instilled in him a strong work ethic that has helped his music career.
"The law didn't come easily to me. It was a really hard degree and I had to work really hard, it taught me to stay focused."

It also contributed to the analytical approach he takes to his roles. He researches the background and history of the operas and says this allows him to let go and perform instinctively on stage.

"I guess it's the confidence to know that when you are multi- tasking running around on stage climbing a tree and singing very difficult things, hanging off something I tend to carry sopranos around a lot, actually I need to get some health insurance for that . . . You always have to have a spontaneity in live performance so maybe the ability to think on your feet really helps. I've been in a lot of situations where things don't go according to rehearsal plan and you improvise."

He likes acting as well as singing a role. "It's such a freedom when you become someone else because you lose inhibitions, because you're not actually yourself.

"You can do a lot of things that you'd probably get arrested for in real life, knowing that it's a fantasy and the things you say and do are part of a character."

It's nice to hear that despite his success Lemalu is still a lad from Dunedin who loves his proud mum. At the end of the interview he asks when the story will be published so she can clip it for a scrapbook about her talented son. "She always gets angry at me when I don't tell her."

* Jonathan Lemalu with pianist Malcolm Martineau, Wellington Town Hall, Sunday, Hawke's Bay Opera House, Hastings, Wednesday. By Kelly Andrew, May 2007

Chamber Music New Zealand 2007 Season Announced

Jonathan Lemalu to tour with CMNZ in 2007

New Zealand audiences are in for a real treat in May 2007 when Dunedin-born bass baritone Jonathan Lemalu tours New Zealand in a five centre tour co-presented by Chamber Music New Zealand and The NBR NZ Opera. Booked years ahead for the most prestigious European and American concert halls, and with a three year recording contract with EMI Classics, Jonathan’s talent is drawing him onto the world stage.

"Jonathan Lemalu’s voice is glorious, his stage presence warm and masterly." - The Observer (UK).

Jonathan will be touring with pianist Malcolm Martineau, and will perform a selection of lieder (classical songs from the 18th and 19th centuries, sung in German) and operatic arias. Euan Murdoch, CMNZ's Chief Executive, is delighted to have Jonathan as one of CMNZ's three international artists touring in 2007.

"It's a measure of New Zealand's artistic maturity that we can proudly claim a 'local lad made good' to be one of our 'big name' international stars." says Euan.

CMNZ's annual Celebrity Season brings the world's finest chamber music performers to ten centres around the country. From standard chamber music repertoire to music that encompasses the globe, the 2007 line-up promises diversity and dynamism.

'We are delighted to announce our new world music series Encompass. New Zealand audiences are hungry for new musical experiences and as CMNZ is synonymous with quality we are very pleased to present Music Ensemble Korea, Buskaid form South Africa and New Zealand's own Tuhonohono in Auckland and Wellington', says Euan.

Kick-starting the Celebrity Season are the Australian String Quartet. Formed in 2000 and known until recently as the Tankstream Quartet, the group are renowned for their distinctive musical approach, which has garnered them success in international competitions and a growing prominence on the concert stage. Of local note is the group's Kiwi cellist, Hamiltonian Rachel Johnston. This will be their first visit to New Zealand

Spring 2007 is heralded by The Kungsbacka Trio from Sweden. Since winning first prize in the 3rd Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition in 1999, the Kungsbacka Trio have appeared at major festivals and venues throughout Europe and further afield. In 2003, they took part in the ECHO ‘Rising Stars’ scheme which enabled them to make their debut in prestigious venues throughout Europe. Invited to become BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists in 2000, the Trio have broadcast extensively, including concerts live from Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall, City of London, Cheltenham and Edinburgh International Festivals. Their name comes from the Swedish town in which the trio gave their first performance, where they have established an annual festival, now in its sixth year.

The Brentano String Quartet from the USA make their New Zealand début in November with concerts in Auckland and Wellington. The quartet are named after Antonie Brentano, whom many scholars believe to have been Beethoven’s mysterious ‘Immortal Beloved’, to whom he wrote his famous confession of love. They have been quartet-in-residence at Princeton University and also at London’s Wigmore Hall. The Brentano String Quartet have appeared at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Library of Congress, Lincoln Center, and in major cities around the world.

In addition to welcoming several high calibre international and Australasian artists to the 2007 season, CMNZ is proud to tour New Zealand's finest chamber musicians.

The New Zealand String Quartet are deeply committed to NZ music and have premiered more than 20 works by New Zealand composers. For their 2007 tour they will be joined onstage by Portugal's Pedro Carneiro on the marimba. Pedro enjoys a busy career as a performer, composer and teacher, and is one of the very few percussion players to have made an international career as a soloist.

Fellow champions of NZ music, the New Zealand Trio, combine the old and the new in programmes which include recently commissioned works by New Zealand composers James Gardner and John Psathas. They will also perform Beethoven’s witty and humorous variations on Ich bin der Schneider Kakadu, and works by Mendelssohn and Brahms.

Wilma Smith, NZSO Concertmaster Emeritus and founding member of the NZSQ, will be joined by Australian colleagues and friends for an evening of piano quartets on an eight centre tour in October. Munro/Smith/Berlin & Dean will perform programmes which contrast darkness and light form the passionate warmth of Brahms and Schumann to the distinctive sounds of foremost 20th century composer, Aaron Copland

In May, NZ's most well loved pianist Michael Houstoun will give six recitals nationwide, performing the last three of Beethoven's mighty piano sonatas. In June, Michael will team-up with soprano singer Patricia Wright for an evening of lieder in Hamilton.

Julia McCarthy and John Chen are well on their way to being well-known names on the musical scene in New Zealand and overseas. These long-time friends and musical associates will perform two concerts, in Invercargill and Hamilton, in late September. Julia is currently studying for a Masters degree in Violin Performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, with the renowned teacher David Takeno. Meanwhile John is currently studying piano in Los Angeles at the Colburn School of Performing Arts with John Perry, an internationally recognised piano teacher who presents master classes throughout the world.

CMNZ presents local and international chamber music ensembles throughout New Zealand. The organisation is divided into three strands: the Celebrity Season, which showcases premiere international artists; the Associate Societies programme, which focuses on New Zealand performers; and the New Zealand Community Trust Chamber Music Contest, which fosters the musical stars of the future.

"In this age of iPods, downloads and CD's, it is more vital than ever that all New Zealanders, young and mature, help to keep alive that art and joy of chamber music, performed in concert, all over New Zealand. I am certain the line up for 2007 will not disappoint" says Euan.

For more information and to arrange an interview please contact Media Coordinator Angela Meyer ph 021 405 619 www.chambermusic.co.nz

'Love Blows As The Wind Blows' CD Number 1 On the New Zealand Concert FM Classical Charts

Read more at Radio New Zealand's website.

October 2005

One of our hottest baritones proves his affinity with the art song on a spellbinding new CD

A few phrases into his new CD, Jonathan Lemalu will have you completely in his spell.

"Who is Sylvia? What is she?" are the opening lines of the Shakepeare lyric, as set by Roger Quilter, and you will find yourself transfixed by the New Zealand baritone and his pianist Malcolm Martineau.

Lemalu has a robust sympathy for the much-aligned British art song and Love Blows As the Winter Blows is a full-length follow-up to the tantalising tastes of Ireland, Finzi and Head he offered on his 2002 debut album.

The baritone is in fine voice, sturdy when it's time to rollick in Ireland's When Lights Go Rolling Round the Sky, although the agility of Finzi's It Was a Lover and His Lass seems hard-won.

In song after song, it is the symbiotic relationship between the artists that shines through. In Britten's A Song of Enchantment, Lemalu does so much with ther merest whisper of a breath and Martineau's piano seems to sigh in his wake.

Lemalu knows the value of restraint and, through this, he makes the bleak poetisism of Samuel Baber's Dover Beach doubly heartrending, in perfect accord with the Belcea Quartet behind him.

The Belcea musicians are also on George Butterworth's cycle, Love Blows as The Wind Blows, the pastoral melancholy of which is not helped by a extrordinary recording botch at around 1'25" in its second song.

Lemalu is a man of many emotions, and humour is certainly one of them. Richard Rodney Bennett's Songs Before Sleep written expressly for the baritone, are knowing, nudging lullabies. The Mouse and the Bumblebee scurries away investigating bagpiping cats and gives a new twist to the concept of mixed marriage. As I walked by myself is an artless ballad in search of a Broadway show. Lemalu triumphs in both.

These are most attractive works. Why are all six songs not included on the recording?

William Bolcom's caberet songs have always been popular Lemalu encores and Black Man is a miracle of streetwise sophistication.

Perhaps some may find George, the tale of a Puccini-singing drag queen killed by rough trade, a little questionable -certainly I did- but the contemplative spirituality of Waitin is more than adequate appeasement. - William Dart, The New Zealand Herald.

'Love Blows As The Wind Blows' CD (EMI Classics)

Love Blows as the Wind Blows features works by composers from both sides of the Atlantic, Samuel Barber, George Butterworth, Benjamin Britten, Gerald Finzi, Roger Quilter, John Ireland, William Bolcom and Richard Rodney Bennett. Partnering Jonathan Lemalu's "powerful, generous and warm timbred" bass-baritone are pianist Malcolm Martineau and Belcea Quartet.

Read more on EMI's website.

June 2005

This well-chosen recital offers samples: here is the singer as comedian, here he is on his dignity; in this you hear the lower range of his voice, in that the upper; here he intimately divulges, there he declaims with dramatic force. The whole provides opportunities for all of that, each item capping the last with a new revelation – the most powerful of all left to the end. - John Steane, The Gramophone.

This impressive young Samoan/New Zealand bass-baritone has already sung on stage five of the roles sampled here, including Papageno at Glyndebourne, which registers as the most thoroughly though out....he proves an appreciable and immediate musician, with a strong ability to communicate, and his Italian is clean and expressive....he has the potential to be an outstanding artist. - BBC Music Magazine.

24 April 2005

A New Zealander of Samoan origin, 28 year-old bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu makes his solo debut with his homeland’s symphony orchestra under the reliable James Judd in a safe selection of mainstream arias. His light comic touch is evident in such Mozart choices as Leporello’s ‘catalogue’ aria from Don Giovanni and ‘Non piu andrai’ from Figaro. But he can also muster more heft as Tchaikovsky's Prince Gremin and Wagner’s Flying Dutchman. Fast establishing himself on the British opera stage, Lemalu has a strong, romantic voice and engaging presence which shines through. - The Observer

23 April 2005

The 28-year-old New Zealand-born bass-baritone, Jonathan Lemalu has always been blessed with a knock-out presence, but has sometimes struggled to conjure up vocal colour. This CD remedies that, with works from Rossini and Mozart, and Mephistopheles’s aria in praise of virginity from Gounod’s Faust, to which Lemalu gives exactly the right edge. (4*) - Ivan Hewett, The Times.

22 April 2005

Jonathan Lemalu’s EMI disc of opera arias performed with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, very polished under James Judd. The Flying Dutchman chunk shows this charismatic young bass-baritone trying on new repertoire for size while knowing it doesn’t yet fit. Much more to come, plainly , from this fine artist. - The Times.

“Jonathan Lemalu’s voice is glorious, his stage presence warm and masterly” — The Observer
"A major new singing talent destined for greatness." — Gramophone

This album is the New Zealand-born bass-baritone Jonathan Lemalu’s debut for the main EMI label. Jonathan first recorded for EMI Classics in 2001, on the Debut label, to great critical success. The disc won the prestigious Gramophone award for Best Debut Recording at the 2002 awards. Since then, Jonathan Lemalu has been signed exclusively to the main EMI Classics label and is now releasing his first major EMI recording, of a selection of popular opera arias.

The recording for this album took place in Wellington accompanied by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, under NZSO Music Director James Judd, the orchestra’s director since 1999. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra has a long and highly successful recording history and in fact, they made their first recording for EMI New Zealand back in 1959. Forty-five years later they were back in the studio for EMI Classics for this new recording with Jonathan Lemalu.

The arias on this disc are taken from the some of the most famous bass and baritone roles in the operatic repertoire. Popular arias from Mozart’s The Magic Flute and The Barber of Seville by Rossini, highlight Jonathan’s gift for comedy and characterization. Lemalu also sings arias from weightier roles, from Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman and Verdi’s Falstaff. The diversity of this programme shows how versatile an artist Lemalu is and he proves himself to be as powerful and captivating an actor as he is a singer.

In October 2004, Jonathan Lemalu returned to his hometown Dunedin to perform in concert with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra as part of the Otago Festival of the Arts. The concert repertoire included all the tracks from this new album. A successful concert, it was filmed by Television New Zealand on the night and will now be broadcast on April 30th on TV One.

Jonathan’s career on the international stage is also flourishing and this year, as well as performing in Munich and at Covent Garden in London, at the end of March he will make his debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera. He will be performing the role of Masetto in a new production of Mozart’s popular Don Giovanni running through to mid-April.

Later this year in August, Jonathan joins the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra on their landmark international tour as they take the stage at London’s Royal Albert Hall in the world- famous BBC Proms.

With OPERA ARIAS and his 2005 performance schedule, Jonathan Lemalu is fast establishing a major international stage and recording career that will soon see him become one of New Zealand’s most celebrated and recognised international stars.

This is the largest tour outside New Zealand that the NZSO has ever undertaken, the first ever appearance by a New Zealand orchestra at the prestigious BBC Proms and will feature two of New Zealand’s most prominent music ambassadors, Dame Kiri te Kanawa and Jonathan Lemalu.

“This is very exciting, something that has been in the planning for two and a half years,” said NZSO Chief Executive, Peter Walls today, “It is happening at the right time – the orchestra is in superb form and that has been recognized internationally in the extraordinary reviews that we have been receiving for our CD recordings.”

Following the orchestra’s arrival on 13 August, they will perform in Snape Maltings as part of the Snape Proms on 16 August before presenting a concert, two days later, at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the largest and most famous orchestral festival in the world, the BBC Proms. The following day the orchestra will fly to Amsterdam and perform at the Concertgebouw before finally, travelling to Aichi, Japan on 22 August. [Full programme and itinerary details attached]

The concert programme for all four concerts represents the diverse repertoire that the orchestra regularly performs around New Zealand. This will include songs from Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Sibelius’ fantastic Second Symphony to some of the best examples of New Zealand music including Lilburn’s Third Symphony and Gareth Farr’s Naga Baba.

The funding for this tour has been made possible by partnerships between corporate sponsors, private benefactors and the new Cultural Diplomacy International Programme of the Ministry of Culture and Heritage/ Te Manatu Taonga., specifically set up among various government agencies with an interest in promoting New Zealand abroad.

The two major corporate partners are The Guinness Peat Group – who are long-standing principal sponsors of the NZSO and the country’s flag-carrying airline – Air New Zealand.

The orchestra last toured to Europe for the 1992 World Expo at Seville and in more recent years has travelled to Australia and Japan as part of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Festival and the International Performing Arts Festival in Osaka in 2003. Read NZSO's Chief Executive, Peter Walls speech. (pdf, 101Kb)

October 02 2004

October 2004

October 02 2004

October 2004