MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 2024

■ In 2024 the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra celebrates music’s ability to tell stories that move and inspire, from evocative soundscapes and epic film scores to the majestic works of the great composers.

The 2024 program features 12 world premieres, 11 by Australian composers, two premieres of international composers, 17 MSO debuts and 14 artists performing exclusively with the MSO in 2024 Program highlights include the Baroque and Beethoven Festivals, Chief Conductor Jaime Martín conducting Elgar’s Cello Concerto and Holst’s The Planets, the spectacular Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Beethoven’s Ninth Lawrence Renes conducts Faure´’s Requiem with Siobhan Stagg, while Principal Conductor in Residence Benjamin Northey conducts Max Richter’s Vivaldi Recomposed and a powerful Holocaust Memorial Concert - Kaddish, presented with the Australian War Memorial.

The MSO will perform a moving tribute concert Hopelessly Devoted in memory of the late Olivia Newton John, and the Australian premiere screening of original film The Lion King with a live score.

The 2024 line-up features the Australian premieres of MSO Commissions from international artists Tan Dun and James MacMillan, and the world pre-

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mieres of new work from Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, 2024 Composer in Residence Katy Abbott and Cybec Young Composer in Residence Naomi Dodd. A new work from Elena Kats-Chernin and William Barton will also have its world premiere.

Making their Australian debuts are American conductor and cellist Jonathon Heyward , striking mezzo-soprano Raehann BryceDavies, charismatic German conductor Anja Bihlmaier, and internationally acclaimed Chinese soprano Hui He.

Across the year, Jaime Martín leads the MSO for three breath-taking galas. The Ryman Healthcare Season Opening Gala Jamie Conducts The Planets, features two of the most emotionally stirring works of all time. Alban Gerhardt brings intense musicality to perform Elgar’s ravishing Cello Concerto, and Gustav Holst’s magnificent The Planets , which famously doesn't include our own planet, acquires a new celestial addition in the world premiere of Earth ; an MSO commission from Yorta Yorta composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon.

The Ryman Healthcare Winter Gala brings together a stellar ensemble of vocal soloists and the extraordinary voices of the MSO Chorus for Carl Orff’s thundering Carmina Burana. The program also features world-renowned yidaki player William Barton per- forming Peter Sculthorpe’s evocative Earth Cry.

Martín leads the MSO through the astonishing range of all nine Beethoven symphonies for the Beethoven Festival, culminating in the Ryman Healthcare Spring Gala Beethoven’s Ninth. This spectacular concert will feature some of Australia’s best opera singers and the MSO Chorus, with a program that also includes the Australian premiere of James MacMillan’s Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned by the MSO in partnership with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Baroque expert and 2024 MSO

Artist in Residence Erin Helyard will direct the Baroque Festival, exploring the concertos of Bach and Vivaldi and the arias of Handel and Vivaldi, featuring superstar soprano Samantha Clarke. The week culminates with one of the most indemand choral conductors of our time, Stephen Layton (UK) making his MSO debut leading a 300th anniversary performance of Bach’s St John Passion.

Continuing his exploration of the complete symphonies of Gustav Mahler and Antonin Dvorák, Martín’s year begins with Mahler’s epic third symphony featuring the Young Voices of Melbourne, the MSO Chorus, and Raehann Bryce-Davis. Hailed by The New York Times as a “striking mezzo-soprano” and by the San Francisco Chronicle for her “elec- trifying sense of fearlessness”, Bryce-Davis is making her Australian debut.

Jaime Conducts Romeo and Juliet will take the orchestra and audiences into the world of love and passion telling the story of Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers through Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture , as well as Martín’s own suite of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. For the first time with the MSO, in the same program, Martín will conduct prodigious violinist Christian Li for Pagnini’s Violin Concerto No.1.

In a unique collaboration, the Australian War Memorial and the MSO mark 80 years since the liberation of the first extermination camps in 1944 with a special performance of mourning and remembrance, Kaddish: A Holocaust Memorial Concert. AWM’s first musical Artist in Residence, Christopher Latham, curates a program that includes Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony, a new work by Elena Kats-Chernin and William Barton, and works by Jewish composers, musicians and artists, led by Benjamin Northey. Northey conducts seminal works from American composers Bernstein and Gershwin, which are brought to life in two programs of American Stories. Australian composer Joe Chindamo’s Ligeia Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra features trombone soloist Jonathon Ramsay.

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■ The Moonee Valley Racing Club has struck gold again with the announcement that they have offered a run in their big event come October 28, for the winner of a big American race.

The New York Racing Association and Moonee Valley have announced the Grade1 USD $ 600,000 Saratoga Derby International, slated for Saturday August 5 at the Saratoga Racecourse , will offer an automatic berth into Ladbrokes Cox Plate, for the winner.

The new lucrative race will provide the winner of the Saratoga Derby , a test over 1900 metres for three-year-olds, a place in this year’s Cox Plate.

Winning connections will also be afforded generous subsidies for transportation and accommodation.

The Saratoga Derby, contested over 1900 metres, is the second leg of an important threerace turf invitational series for three-year-olds on the NYRA circuit, that includes the grade 1 Belmont Derby, and the Grade 3 Jockey Club Derby.

The first leg of the series, the Grade 1 Belmont Derby over 2000 metres, was run on July 8, with the winner invited to run in the Saratoga Derby.

In 2021, well-known young Irish trainer Joseph O’Brien’s colt State of Rest won the Saratoga Derby before winning the Cox Plate defeating Anamoe, who won the Plate last year.