Experience an ode to Barbra Streisand in Sydney, where music, storytelling, and performance converge to honour a cultural icon.
The soft glow of Riverside Live at PHIVE spills across the newly paved square in Parramatta, a quiet hum of anticipation threading through the air. It is evening, but the city has yet to surrender its pulse; taxis drift past in a slow parade of amber headlights, and the reflective surfaces of office towers catch the last embers of sunset. Inside, the theatre is an intimate island of warmth, plush seats facing a stage that seems to promise more than performance – it promises homage. Tonight is not merely a concert; it is an ode to Barbra Streisand.
From the moment Brittanie Shipway steps into the light, the audience is drawn into a world both familiar and newly intimate. Her voice, accompanied by three other vocalists and a live four-piece band, navigates the textures of Streisand’s legacy: the humour, the poignancy, the daring vulnerability of a performer who has, for decades, shaped the cultural soundscape. In this space, each note lands like a brushstroke, painting not just the songs, but the spirit of the woman who inspired them.
The Theatre as Stage and Story
There is a rare alchemy in watching a performance in a venue such as Riverside Live. It is not grandiose; its design does not aim to overshadow the performers. Instead, it frames them, echoing the intimacy of a jazz club while retaining the dignity of a classic theatre. Patrons settle into the curved rows, the air tinged with the faint scent of coffee from the adjoining café, the low murmur of conversation punctuating the moments before the lights dim.
Here, the ode to Barbra Streisand becomes a dialogue between the past and the present. The walls seem to hum with memory, carrying echoes of countless performances that have, in their own ways, defined Sydney’s artistic calendar. The music does not merely fill the space; it reverberates against it, resonating with the city’s own narrative of reinvention and cultural ambition.
A Portrait in Music: The Essence of an Ode to Barbra Streisand
To pay tribute to Barbra Streisand is to acknowledge a paradox: her public persona is colossal, yet the emotional intimacy of her work is delicate, almost fragile. Shipway captures this duality effortlessly. Watching her, one notices how she inhabits the songs without ever mimicking their origin. In “People,” the familiar phrasing is present, yet it feels like a conversation spoken just for this room, this moment. Each flourish, each pause, is both homage and interpretation.
The other vocalists – Laura Murphy, Stellar Perry, and Tana Laga’aia – contribute layers of texture, weaving harmonies that both honor and expand upon Streisand’s canon. Their voices intersect like brushstrokes in a painting: bold, tentative, gleaming. In this carefully orchestrated ensemble, the music feels less like recreation and more like a living tribute, a breathing testament to a life spent in song.
The City’s Pulse in Performance
Outside, Parramatta is moving into night. The square’s fountains catch reflections of theatre lights, water flickering like a restless audience of its own. The contrast between the serene river and the energy within the theatre mirrors the duality of the performance itself: grandeur tempered with intimacy, spectacle counterbalanced by nuance.
Walking through the lobby during intermission, one notices the small details: programs printed on textured paper, staff offering directions with gentle attentiveness, the murmur of anticipation as the audience discusses favorite moments. It is an ecosystem of shared appreciation, a communal acknowledgement that music – especially music that honors a figure as monumental as Barbra Streisand – is at its most potent when it invites reflection as much as applause.
Legacy and Resonance
An ode to Barbra Streisand in this setting becomes a meditation on influence. Streisand’s impact is not limited to her music or her films; it exists in the spaces she transformed, in the conversations she provoked, in the courage she offered to generations of performers. As the final notes of the evening fade, the theatre remains enveloped in the echo of her presence, the audience holding a collective breath before releasing it in appreciation.
In those moments, the performance transcends the stage. The city feels quieter, somehow, as if it too has absorbed a measure of the show’s magic. And as one steps out into the cool night air, the reflective surfaces of Parramatta Square carry hints of the performance: the curve of a melody, the timbre of a voice, the gentle insistence of artistry lived fully.
Reflections in the Night
The ode to Barbra Streisand leaves traces beyond memory. It is in the slight hush of the departing crowd, in the conversations that linger on melodies and laughter, in the way a city street can suddenly feel like it has been touched by something larger than itself. Music, when rendered with reverence and skill, becomes a form of cartography, mapping emotional terrain that is both individual and collective. Tonight, in this theatre on the Parramatta riverbank, Barbra Streisand’s journey is charted not only through song but through the spaces and atmospheres she continues to inspire.
And as the lights of Riverside Live dim behind you, the city’s skyline reflected in the river, there is a quiet satisfaction in having witnessed more than performance – a living ode, a gentle celebration of artistry, resilience, and the enduring power of song.