In the cover story, Drawn to Theatre, I interview artist Nicholas Harding, who has just published a stunning new book called From the Wings, featuring hundreds of drawings and watercolours of actors in the rehearsal room. Harding began his regular visits to Sydney Theatre Company rehearsals thanks to his friendship with Hugo Weaving. We discover how and why this happened, and the extraordinarily beneficial results for the actors as well as the artist.

James Hazel, a composer, sound-artist and researcher, who recently completed a Master of Music (Composition) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, asks why we are so silent on questions of class in classical music in his feature The Big C Word. Australia considers itself a classless society where everyone has a “fair go”. So why is it so hard for people from the working-class to find their way into classical music and the high arts?

Wesley Enoch will shortly announce the program for his fifth and final Sydney Festival. In her profile Wesley Enoch: Cultural Accelerator, Elissa Blake talks to him about what kind of event we can expect to see in January 2021, the challenges of running a festival during COVID, and his future plans once the festival is over. She also interviews Indigenous arts leaders and actors about Enoch’s ferocious commitment to raising the profile and respect of Indigenous culture, and his inspiring role as an advocate and mentor.

Finally in our fourth major feature, Diving into Elgar’s Seascape, UK writer Michael Quinn explains why Elgar’s Sea Pictures has long been something of a Cinderella figure in the composer’s output, composed as it was between two defining masterpieces – the Enigma Variations and The Dream of Gerontius. The 1965 recording by Dame Janet Baker has become the touchstone by which others are judged. Now come two new recordings by mezzo-sopranos Kathryn Rudge and Elīna Garanča. Quinn talks to them both about their different readings of Elgar’s beautiful song cycle.

The November issue also includes an interview with Tim Minchin about his new album Apart Together, Vincent Plush on Richard Mills’ opera The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, a column by Genevieve Lacey about her passionate love of the recorder, Guy Noble’s monthly Soapbox, as well as the buzz on live performance around the country, arts news and reviews, and the latest broadcast guides.