Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen at the Sydney Festival
Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen kick off 2015 in grand style with the international premiere of the new Australian play by Kate Mulvany, Masquerade.
Masquerade previewed tonight to a packed audience in the Drama Theatre at the Sydney Opera House and opens on Friday 9 January for a two week season at the Sydney Festival. The original music for the show has been written by Mikelangelo and Pip Branson, who you may know better as Rufino the Catalan Casanova from the Black Sea Gentlemen. Accompanied by the rest of the Gentlemen, Muldavio, Guido and Little Ivan, the group will be performing the score live on stage, as well as acting in the play and wearing some pretty splendid costumes - including a gold suit for Mikelangelo!
As one of the headline shows at this year's Sydney Festival, Masquerade is a lavish main stage production with a beautiful set, multi-layered projections and a brilliant cast of actors. The show will also tour to Adelaide in May and to Melbourne later in 2015. Writer Kate Mulvany has long been a fan of Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen and wrote the play with our music and sound in mind, so it's a wonderful collaboration to be a part of. The Sydney Morning Herald recently published this fabulous article about the genesis of the show, this with give you an inkling to the magic that awaits.
You can catch Mikelangelo in his sparkly new threads doing a guest spot on Channel Seven's Sunrise singing a song from Masquerade this Friday 9th January at 8am.
New Black Sea Gentlemen Album
Next week, Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen will spend 3 days laying down tracks for their new album at Turning Studios in Sydney with the producers of The Great Gatsby soundtrack. The album is scheduled to be released in the latter part of 2015 and is set to be another magnum opus. It's been almost 5 years since the last Black Sea Gentlemen album, Dead Men Tell a Thousand Tales, and anticipation is riding high. We shall keep you in touch with developments...
The Balkan Elvis Returns
The Balkan Elvis is back with his irrepressible take on rock'n'roll from behind the Iron Curtain. Melbourne will see not just one, but two free concerts - at Piers Festival in Port Melbourne on Sunday 25 January and at the Fairfield Amphitheatre for the Fairfield Summer Concert Series on Sunday 8 February. Anyone who saw the Balkan Elvis in action the Collingwood Town Hall last year for Leaps and Bounds festival will know that this hi-octane show is not to be missed.
