Limelight (magazine)

Last updated

Limelight
Limelight logo.png
EditorJo Litson
Digital EditorJason Blake
Editor-at-LargeClive Paget
Former editorsClive Paget, Francis Merson, Katarina Kroslakova
Staff writersMaddy Briggs
CategoriesMusic, arts, culture
Frequency11 issues per year
FormatPrint, Digital
Circulation 9,138 (2012) [1]
PublisherLimelight Arts Media Pty Ltd
First issueJanuary 1976
CompanyLimelight Arts Media Pty Ltd
CountryAustralia
Based in Sydney
LanguageEnglish
Website https://limelight-arts.com.au
ISSN 1448-2800

Limelight is an Australian digital and print magazine focusing on music, arts and culture. It is based in Sydney, New South Wales. Originally published in 1976 by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), as ABC Radio 24 Hours, or simply 24 Hours, since March 2018 it has been published independently by Limelight Arts Media, owned by music lovers Robert Veel and Bruce Watson.

Contents

Limelight publishes its print magazine 11 times per year and circulates a weekly digital music and performing arts newsletter to more than 30,000 subscribers. The Limelight website publishes reviews of orchestral music, chamber music, opera, theatre, dance and film, performing arts news, artist profiles and in-depth features. It is read by more than 1.25 million visitors to its website each year. Limelight's 'eventful' listing service and weekly newsletter keeps readers up to date on performances around Australia.[ citation needed ]

History

Founded in January 1976, the magazine was originally published under the name ABC Radio 24 Hours, or simply 24 Hours, and relaunched as Limelight in June 2003. [2] [3] [4]

Ownership

The magazine was originally a subsidiary of the ABC's classical music radio station, ABC Classic FM, and existed primarily to provide program details for the station's listeners. The title 24 Hours came to the inaugural Director of ABC FM, Christopher Symons, "literally in the middle of the night. It also occurred to me... that if we got the magazine and its title established, it would be difficult for management to cut the station back to 18 hours a day". [5]

From 2006 to January 2014 it was published by Haymarket Media Group [6] under licence from the ABC. From February 2014 ownership was transferred from ABC to Arts Illuminated Pty Ltd. [4]

From 2016 to 2018, Limelight was owned by Arts Initiative Australia, an organisation founded by Andrew Batt-Rawden, Natalie Zwar, Andrew Luboski, Toby Chadd, and Claire Stokes. In March 2018 Limelight was purchased by Limelight Arts Media Pty Ltd. In 2018 Cara Anderson was appointed CEO. [4]

Content change and relaunch

In January 2012, the magazine ceased listing detailed ABC Classic FM radio programs for the forthcoming month. This reflected a decision by ABC management to end forward programming, to allow greater flexibility. Under editor Francis Merson, Limelight was awarded the Relaunch of the Year prize at the 2012 Publishers Australia Excellence Awards. This was in recognition of the magazine's successful relaunch in June 2012, with a new design and greater editorial focus on contemporary music and reviews. Francis Merson also earned runner-up in Editor of the Year category. [7]

Description and management

The magazine publishes articles which include reviews, news, interviews, and artist profiles, as well as event and listening guides, focusing on music and the performing arts. These are published both on its website and in 11 print magazines each year. It still includes highlights from ABC Classic, as the radio station is now called. [4]

As of March 2022 Jo Litson is editor and Cara Anderson is CEO. [4]

Limelight Awards

Between 2007 and 2012, Limelight held the Limelight Awards – the only classical music awards in Australia where the public were invited to vote and help recognise well-loved musicians. [8]

From 2015 or earlier Limelight honoured the "Artists of the Year" in various categories. From 2018 onwards they were divided into "People's Choice" and "Critics' Choice", with one Australian and one international winner in each. [9]

Limelight also names "Recordings of the Year" in several categories and with an overall winner. In 2021 the categories were Orchestral, Chamber, Instrumental, Vocal and Opera Recording of the Year. [10]

Editors

Notable issues

Acoustics survey

The September 2011 issue of Limelight featured an in-depth survey of musicians to reveal the best (and worst) concert hall acoustics in Australia's 20 major concert halls, for orchestral, chamber and vocal music. [15] The survey, which gathered opinions from 200 performers, critics and audience members, ranked the Perth Concert Hall as the best overall venue and the Melbourne Recital Centre as the top venue for chamber music. The Sydney Opera House's Joan Sutherland Theatre (previously known as the Opera Theatre) was found to have the worst acoustics. [16]

Australian orchestra ranking

Featured in the April 2013 issue of Limelight, a panel of 15 expert critics and professional musicians from around the country were blind-tested to determine Australia's top symphony orchestra. [17] Whenever possible, repertoire was matched to ensure comparable adjudication and a fair result. In the test, each of the 15 judges was sent recordings of each orchestra on separate CDs labelled simply A to F. Ranking the orchestras from 1 to 6, the expert panel voted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in the three top spots. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was ranked in fourth place. [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elena Kats-Chernin</span> Australian composer and pianist (born 1957)

Elena Davidovna Kats-Chernin is a Soviet-born Australian composer and pianist, best known for her ballet Wild Swans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georges Lentz</span> Luxembourg-Australian composer

Georges Lentz is a contemporary composer and sound artist born in Luxembourg in 1965 and that country's internationally best known composer. Since 1990, he has been living in Sydney, Australia. Despite his relatively small output and his reclusiveness, he is also considered one of Australia's leading composers. His music is inspired by the starry night sky in the Australian Outback and by Aboriginal art.

The Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) is an Australian orchestra focused on chamber music based in Sydney.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adelaide Symphony Orchestra</span> South Australian orchestra based in Adelaide

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (ASO) is a South Australian orchestra based in Adelaide, established in 1936. The orchestra's primary performance venue is the Adelaide Town Hall, but the ASO also performs in other venues. It provides the orchestral support for all productions of the State Opera of South Australia and all Adelaide performances of the Australian Ballet. It also features regularly at the Adelaide Festival, and has performed at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, WOMAdelaide and several other festivals in Adelaide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ABC Classic</span> Australian classical music radio station

ABC Classic, formerly ABC-FM, and then ABC Classic FM, is an Australian classical music radio station available in Australia and internationally. Its website features classical music news, features and listening guides. It is operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simone Young</span> Australian conductor

Simone Margaret Young AM is an Australian conductor and academic teacher. She is currently chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Gill (conductor)</span> Australian conductor (1941–2018)

Richard James Gill was an Australian conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic works. He was known as a music educator and for his advocacy for music education of children.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piers Lane</span> Australian pianist (born 1958)

Piers Lane is an Australian classical pianist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Finsterer</span> Australian composer and academic

Mary Finsterer is an Australian composer and academic.

(Andrew) Alexander Briger AO is an Australian classical conductor. He is the nephew of the conductor Sir Charles Mackerras, and both are descended from the composer Isaac Nathan.

The ABC Young Performers Awards is a classical music competition for young people that ran annually from 1944 to 2015, and again from 2017. It is generally considered the most prestigious Australian classical music competition not restricted to a single instrument.

The Limelight Awards were an annual celebration of the performances, recordings and music personalities in Australian classical music. Sponsored by the monthly classical arts magazine Limelight, they were the only publicly voted awards of their kind in Australia. In 2012 the awards attracted more than 4,500 votes.

Catherine Hewgill is an Australian cellist. Since 1990 she has been the principal cellist of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. As a chamber musician she was a founding member of the Novalis Quartet and has recorded with The Australian Trio for ABC Classics.

The Australian World Orchestra (AWO) is a symphony orchestra based in Australia.

Lyle Chan is an Australian composer, known for his unique approach of writing cumulative works with only one work per genre. His AIDS Memoir Quartet chronicles his years as an HIV/AIDS activist at the height of the epidemic in Australia. John Cage was a major influence on his work, and he is regarded as an authority on the musician.

Gordon Kerry is an Australian composer, music administrator, music writer and music critic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuart Greenbaum</span> Musical artist

Stuart Greenbaum is an Australian composer and Professor of music composition at the University of Melbourne. He served as Head of Composition from 2007 to 2023 at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brenda Gifford</span> Australian composer and musician

Brenda Gifford is a Yuin classical composer, saxophonist and pianist. She was a member of the Australian rock band Mixed Relations and is an archivist in the Indigenous Collection Branch of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guy Noble</span> Australian conductor, composer, broadcaster

Guy Noble is an Australian musical composer, conductor, pianist and broadcaster.

Alexander Donald Kenneth Voltz is an Australian composer. He is also known for his political stance as a monarchist.

References

  1. ↑ ABC Circulation Results December 2012 Archived 10 November 2013 at the Wayback Machine AdNews
  2. ↑ "In Brief". About the ABC. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 4 April 2003. Archived from the original on 24 January 2005. PDF
  3. ↑ "Celebrating 100 Years of Radio". Celebrating 100 years of radio. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 29 January 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "About Us". Limelight. 12 October 2021. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
  5. ↑ Christopher Symons, "From 24 hours to 24 Hours", 24 Hours magazine, January 1996, p. 23
  6. ↑ Anni Heino (4 December 2013). "Limelight magazine faces closure". Resonate Magazine. Retrieved 31 October 2015.
  7. ↑ "Relaunch of the year". ABC Commercial . Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 3 August 2014.
  8. ↑ "Limelight Awards". Haymarket. Archived from the original on 2 May 2013. Retrieved 12 April 2013.
  9. ↑ "Limelight Artists of the Year". Limelight. Retrieved 9 October 2023.
  10. ↑ "Announcing the 2021 Limelight Recording of the Year". Limelight. Retrieved 9 October 2023.
  11. ↑ "Opera beauty - if only she sounded as good as she looks". The Sydney Morning Herald. 12 August 2011. p. 3.
  12. ↑ "Is Sydney a Wowser City? Some Certainly Think So, and are Waging a Guerrilla Revolution on the Streets". Broadsheet. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  13. ↑ "Sterling trumps magazine publishers awards - Print21". www.print21.com.au. Retrieved 25 October 2022.
  14. ↑ "Jo Litson". Limelight. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
  15. ↑ September 2011 issue
  16. ↑ Olding, Rachel (12 August 2011). "Opera beauty – if only she sounded as good as she looks". The Sydney Morning Herald .
  17. ↑ Pagest, Clive (19 March 2013). "Who is Australia's best orchestra?". Limelight. Archived from the original on 1 February 2022. Retrieved 1 February 2022.
  18. ↑ "Australian orchestra ranking". What Hi-Fi?.[ dead link ]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.