Why are you shocked? He wrote the sonata for an American keyboard festival...
Just pisses me off how weak the Australian Musical Culture is.
I say the same thing about American musical culture.
At least you have 4 or 5 renowned orchestras and draw famous performers - New York always has stuff happening does it not.We have SSO with the odd conductor coming down.
It seems to me that the people there are hungrier for this type of culture than the people here. Classical music seems to be dying in Los Angeles. It's just my opinion, though.
So perhaps a positive correllation between diminished classical music culture and augmented... um...