2MBS Fine Music Sydney’s presenter Bob Gilchrist
Bob Gilchrist talks Santiago de Compostela and all things music and travel
First Class Magazine’s Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan sits down with 2MBS Fine Music Sydney’s Bob Gilchrist to talk all things music and travel.
Some people travel. Others arrive. Bob Gilchrist moves through the world like a maestro stepping onto the conductor’s podium, his itineraries mapped not in melodies, his destinations tuned to the frequency of history, elegance, and the unmistakable sound of a champagne cork surrendering to gravity.
Bob is not a man for sightseeing. He does not simply visit Vienna; he hears it, the echoes of Mozart and Beethoven still rustling in the gold-leafed rafters of the Musikverein. He does not just walk the streets of Santiago de Compostela; he watches incense whirl through cathedral air thick with absolution, a holy spectacle that has been perfuming pilgrims since the Middle Ages. He does not just drink wine in the Barossa; he communes with it, a conversation of Shiraz and time, of oak and patience.
A presenter at 2MBS Fine Music FM, Bob brings his love of classical and jazz traditions into every journey, from grand opera houses to candlelit recital halls, from historic concert stages to back-alley jazz clubs with scuffed floors and stories to tell. Here, then, is his guide to the world’s most musical destinations.
Vienna: The Air is Heavy with Music and Schnapps
To do Vienna properly, you begin in the Musikverein, home to the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert, a ritual Bob watches religiously each year.
And in Vienna, there is only one place to stay: The Park Hyatt, a former 19th-century bank transformed into a cathedral of luxury, its rooms spacious enough for waltzing, its bar a sanctuary where the night unwinds in neat, golden measures.
Afternoons belong to Café Frauenhuber, the city’s oldest coffeehouse, where Mozart and Beethoven once performed. The Sachertorte here is decadent, the coffee strong enough to restore lost empires, and the peach schnapps, a necessary punctuation to any fine Viennese evening, potent enough to realign the planets.
Singapore: A City That Refuses to Sit Still
Some places whisper of the past. Singapore screams towards the future. It is a city perpetually under construction, forever in flux, where even the skyline seems to change its mind overnight.
Bob’s choice? The Orchard Hotel. A five-star colossus, perched on the city’s most famous boulevard, its suites boasting panoramic views of a metropolis that never ceases to impress itself.
The Marina Bay Gardens are a botanical dream, where nature has been bent into something both surreal and sublime. The hawker stalls, meanwhile, are temples of a different sort, offering up steaming roti canai and teh tarik, dishes that bring Bob back to his time in Penang, their flavours laced with nostalgia and cardamom.
There is shopping, of course, but for Bob, Singapore’s true luxury is its ability to astonish, to evolve, to always have another hidden card up its immaculately tailored sleeve.
The Barossa Valley: A Cathedral of Wine
The Barossa is a wine regions where Shiraz is not just a drink, but a philosophy.
Bob’s pilgrimage here always includes Langmeil Winery, where the vines have been watching over the landscape since the 1840s, their roots tangled in history. He stays at The Crafers Hotel, home to the largest wine cellar in Australia with7,000 bottles strong, a library where every book is best paired with something slow-roasted.
The evenings here stretch long and warm, a lesson in the slow and sacred ritual of drinking properly. Time itself seems to pause between sips, waiting to be acknowledged.
Muscat: A City of Gold and Light
Muscat is a city that radiates wealth in soft-focus hues of gold and ivory.
Bob’s choice of stay? Al Bustan Palace, an oasis so impossibly extravagant it should exist only in myth. The mornings begin with honeyed dates and thick, cardamom-scented coffee, the afternoons drift beneath mountains that have stood for centuries without a moment of doubt, and the evenings are orchestrated in laughter, music, and the kind of effortless elegance that cannot be manufactured.
Santiago de Compostela: The Sacred and the Spectacular
Bob did not walk the Camino de Santiago, but he did stand in the cathedral, watching as the Botafumeiro, a 60kg silver incense burner, swung through the air, dispensing forgiveness and frankincense in equal measure.
To be in Santiago is to feel like an imposter in a centuries-old ritual, to witness pilgrims who have walked for weeks, sometimes months, for this very moment. Bob, ever the observer, ever the lover of history without the blisters, watches from the pews, absorbing the weight of it all.
And yet, it is not all solemnity. There is wine. There are restaurants so grand they seem untouched by time. There is paella, which Bob wisely considers a safe bet, and Albariño, crisp and cool as the Atlantic breeze.
Sydney: The City of Champagne and Sound
Bob is blessed to live in Sydney, where the Opera House stands like a sculpture of frozen sails, and the City Recital Hall brings the world’s greatest musicians to its stage.
Pre-performance rituals are important. For Bob, it is champagne at the Opera Bar, where the bubbles rise against a backdrop of harbour lights and anticipation.
There are also hidden gems, places where the acoustics hum with perfection such as St. James Church in the city and St Pauls Church in Burwood, a sanctuary for the kind of music that is best experienced with your eyes closed and your heart wide open.
A Final Note
For Bob, music and travel are the same song, played in different keys, shaped by different landscapes, recorded in the grand concert halls and quiet cafés of the world.
If he could have dinner with three musical legends, he would choose:
Farinelli, the great castrato, in Bologna, over plates of pasta and endless bottles of Pignoletto.
Paul McCartney, in Berkshire, at The Fat Duck, where the courses arrive like magic tricks.
Paganini, in Nice, at Flaveur, where they could discuss the curse and the brilliance of violin perfection.
And one souvenir that Bob cherishes is a simple DVD of Le Nozze di Figaro.
Because every city has a music of its own. You just have to be quiet enough to hear it.
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