Hollywood Songbook

Book online and join us for the Season

★★★★★

A CLASS ACT FROM START TO FINISH

— THE AGE

Signum Saxophone Quartet and renegade opera star Ali McGregor bring you the Hollywood Songbook. Hear music for stage and screen by Kurt Weill, Leonard Berstein, Cole Porter and Sergei Prokofiev as we travel from Berlin to Hollywood, via a shadowy nightclub, a Shakespearean tragedy, and a Broadway musical. Our destination? Somewhere over the rainbow.

Tickets available from $65, further discounts for Under 40s, Students and Concession.

2025 Concert Season

After their sensational debut tour Signum Saxophone Quartet are back, joined this time by Ali McGregor, renegade opera star and cabaret queen. Together they journey from Berlin to Hollywood with music for stage and screen by Kurt Weill, Leonard Bernstein, Cole Porter, Sergei Prokofiev and more.

The 1930s was a turbulent time on both sides of the Atlantic. History books tell one version of the story, but do the artists, composers, writers and performers have anything to add? They sure do.

As Musica Viva Australia reflects on 80 years of bringing musicians across the world to share their stories, we embark on a journey from moody monochrome to vibrant technicolour, and from introspective darkness to blazing hope. Along the way we meet wayfarers from Vienna, Kyiv and even Siberia, all bringing a rich cultural heritage, and all seeking their place in a fractured world.

"Stirring blend of sass, strut, and swagger"

— Limelight

"A hearty dose of knock-out glamour from the starry magnitude of McGregor’s voice"

— The Beat Magazine

"May these stories of exiles seeking fulfilment in a new homeland continue resonating in our own generation"

— The Age

What audiences are saying about Hollywood Songbook.

Listen to the music before you witness Hollywood Songbook live.

ALI MCGREGOR voice

SIGNUM SAXOPHONE QUARTET
BLAŽ KEMPERLE soprano saxophone
JACOPO TADDEI alto saxophone
ALAN LUŽAR tenor saxophone
DAVID BRAND baritone saxophone

TRENT SUIDGEEST lighting designer
JIM ATKINS sound engineer
MADDISON HARRISON-WILLIAMS Ian Potter Foundation Mentee

SCHULHOFF Selections from Five Pieces for String Quartet
TRADITIONAL ‘I’m a Poor Wayfaring Stranger’
WEILL ‘One Life to Live’ from Lady in the Dark
WEILL ‘I’m a Stranger Here Myself’ from One Touch of Venus
PROKOFIEV Selections from Romeo and Juliet
BERNSTEIN Three Dance Episodes from On the Town
BERLIN ‘Let’s Face the Music, and Dance’ from Follow the Fleet
EISLER Selections from The Hollywood Songbook
COPLAND Selections from Rodeo
PORTER ‘So in Love’ from Kiss Me, Kate
ARLEN ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ from The Wizard of Oz