Standing room only at the fourth “Tall Poppies Talk” Salon with musician Stan Dodds 

“ I think some young singers want to do too much too soon and it’s fatal. Some of the young people I don’t think realise just how tough it is.”
(Joan Sutherland, 1926 -2010)

A short note to introduce the latest Tall Poppies, The Podcast, which features the exceptional jazz musician, Shannon Barnett.
“New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz and the way that that happened was that it really was a melting pot of different cultures…

As it is the European summer, I’ve had time to visit my archives to select a few interviews with renowned Australians I have had the honour of interviewing over the last decades. In the next few weeks, I will be publishing 10-minute excerpts from a few of these interviews.

A few days ago we hosted another “Tall Poppies Talk” Australian Salon in Berlin. This time the focus was on the work of the Newcastle (NSW) born dancer, choreographer and educator Rhys Martin.

It has been a busy few weeks for the Tall Poppies project.
The first “Tall Poppies Talk,” Australian Salon took place recently in Berlin, where around 40 people attended the event.

“That was a phone call that changed my life completely,” said singer, Siobhan Stagg, recollecting the day the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra called to ask her to perform “Brahms’s Requiem”.

While Europe has been sweltering through this extraordinarily hot summer, I have been busy meeting more exceptional Australians, who will be joining me on the podcast very soon.

Next up on Tall Poppies we will meet the Brisbane-born musician Cathy Milliken.

A graduate of Sydney University, Rhys initially studied literature and fine arts. He began his career in the theatre with Sydney’s pioneering underground company, “One Extra Dance.