CONCERT PROGRAM
FEBRUARY / MARCH 2020 B E E T H OV E N 9 A N D C I R CA
•
A N A L P I N E SY M P H O N Y
SEASON OPENING GALA •
SCHEHERAZADE
1000 musicians and singers join forces for Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s bi est performance of all time. Sir Andrew Davis CONDUCTOR
24 OCTOBER 2020 Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne
It doesn’t get bi er than this. Tickets and corporate packages at
MSO.COM.AU/MAHLER8
CONTENTS
05 11 12 26 32
THE MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Your MSO Guest musicians BEETHOVEN 9 AND CIRCA: MSO MORNINGS Thursday 20 February / 11am Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall
BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA Friday 21 February / 7.30pm Saturday 22 February / 7.30pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall
AN ALPINE SYMPHONY Thursday 5 March / 7.30pm Saturday 7 March / 2pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall
SCHEHERAZADE Friday 13 March / 7.30pm Saturday 14 March / 7.30pm Monday 16 March / 6.30pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall
In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone. Cover image: Circa Contemporary Circus
mso.com.au
(03) 9929 9600
Your MSO
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is a leading cultural figure in the Australian arts landscape, bringing the best in orchestral music and passionate performance to a diverse audience across Victoria, the nation and around the world. Each year the MSO engages with more than 5 million people through live concerts, TV, radio and online broadcasts, international tours, recordings and education programs. The MSO is a vital presence, both onstage and in the community, in cultivating classical music in Australia. The nation’s first professional orchestra, the MSO has been the sound of the city of Melbourne since 1906.
The MSO regularly attracts great artists from around the globe including Anne-Sophie Mutter, Lang Lang, Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson, while bringing Melbourne’s finest musicians to the world through tours to China, Europe and the United States. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land on which we perform and would like to pay our respects to their Elders and Community both past and present.
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Your MSO
Your MSO
Xian Zhang
Principal Guest Conductor
Benjamin Northey Principal Conductor in Residence
Nicholas Bochner
Cybec Assistant Conductor
Sir Andrew Davis Conductor Laureate
Hiroyuki Iwaki
Conductor Laureate (1974–2006)
FIRST VIOLINS Dale Barltrop Concertmaster
Sophie Rowell
Concertmaster The Ullmer Family Foundation#
Tair Khisambeev
Assistant Concertmaster
Peter Edwards
Assistant Principal
Kirsty Bremner Sarah Curro
Michael Aquilina#
Peter Fellin Deborah Goodall Lorraine Hook Anne-Marie Johnson Barbara Bell in memory of Elsa Bell#
Kirstin Kenny Eleanor Mancini Mark Mogilevski Michelle Ruffolo Kathryn Taylor Michael Aquilina#
SECOND VIOLINS
CELLOS
Matthew Tomkins
David Berlin
Robert Macindoe
Rachael Tobin
Monica Curro
Nicholas Bochner
Principal The Gross Foundation# Associate Principal
Assistant Principal Danny Gorog and Lindy Susskind#
Mary Allison Isin Cakmakcioglu Tiffany Cheng Freya Franzen Cong Gu Andrew Hall Isy Wasserman Philippa West Patrick Wong Roger Young VIOLAS Christopher Moore Principal Di Jameson#
Christopher Cartlidge Associate Principal Michael Aquilina#
Lauren Brigden Katharine Brockman Anthony Chataway
Dr Elizabeth E Lewis AM#
Gabrielle Halloran Maria Solà#
Trevor Jones Anne Neil#
Fiona Sargeant Maria Solà#
Cindy Watkin
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Principal MS Newman Family# Associate Principal Assistant Principal Anonymous#
Miranda Brockman
Geelong Friends of the MSO#
Rohan de Korte
Andrew Dudgeon#
Sarah Morse Maria Solà#
Angela Sargeant Maria Solà#
Michelle Wood
Michael Aquilina#
DOUBLE BASSES Damien Eckersley Benjamin Hanlon Frank Mercurio and Di Jameson#
Suzanne Lee Stephen Newton Sophie Galaise and Clarence Fraser#
Your MSO
FLUTES Prudence Davis
BASSOONS
TROMBONES
Jack Schiller
Richard Shirley
Elise Millman
Mike Szabo
Natasha Thomas
TUBA
Principal Anonymous#
Principal
Wendy Clarke
Associate Principal
Associate Principal
Sarah Beggs
Sophia Yong-Tang#
Dr Martin Tymms and Patricia Nilsson#
PICCOLO
CONTRABASSOON
Andrew Macleod
Principal John McKay and Lois McKay#
OBOES Jeffrey Crellin
Principal
Brock Imison
Principal
ORNS Nicolas Fleury
Principal
Saul Lewis
Thomas Hutchinson Associate Principal
Principal Third The Hon Michael Watt QC and Cecilie Hall#
Ann Blackburn
Abbey Edlin
The Rosemary Norman Foundation#
COR ANGLAIS Michael Pisani
Nereda Hanlon and Michael Hanlon AM#
TRUMPETS
CLARINETS
Owen Morris
Principal
Philip Arkinstall
Associate Principal
Craig Hill BASS CLARINET
Principal Bass Trombone
Timothy Buzbee Principal
TIMPANI** PERCUSSION John Arcaro
Tim and Lyn Edward#
Robert Cossom
Drs Rhyll Wade and Clem Gruen#
HARP Yinuo Mu Principal
Trinette McClimont Rachel Shaw
Principal
David Thomas
Tim and Lyn Edward#
Principal
Shane Hooton
Associate Principal
William Evans Rosie Turner
John and Diana Frew#
Jon Craven Principal
# Position supported by ** Timpani Chair position supported by Lady Potter AC CMRI
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Guest musicians
Guest Musicians BEETHOVEN 9 AND CIRCA | 20 February BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM | 21–22 February First violins Zoe Black Jacqueline Edwards Madeleine Jevons Second violins Aaron Barnden Michael Loftus-Hills Oksana Thompson Violas Ceridwen Davies Isabel Morse Natascha Sprzagala
Cellos Kalina Krusteva-Theaker Eliza Sdraulig Double basses Rohan Dasika Max McBride Emma Sullivan Flutes Paula Rae
Horns William Tanner Trombones Liam O’Malley* Timpani Brent Miller Percussion Timothy Hook
Oboes Emmanuel Cassimatis
AN ALPINE SYMPHONY | 5 & 7 March First violins Zoe Black Madeleine Jevons Nicholas Waters Second violins Michael Loftus-Hills Violas William Clark Ceridwen Davies Isabel Morse Cellos Svetlana Bogosavljevic Anna Pokorny Eliza Sdraulig
Double basses Rohan Dasika Kylie Davies Max McBride Vivian Qu Siyuan Giovanni Vinci Bassoons Colin Forbes-Abrams Horns Peter Luff Roman Ponomariov Trumpets Tristan Rebien
Information correct as of 12 February 2020. 8
* Appears courtesy of West Australian Symphony Orchestra
Trombones Robert Collins Zachary Bond Jessica Buzbee Liam O’Malley* Timpani Brent Miller Percussion Robert Allan Evan Pritchard Harp Melina van Leeuwen Keyboard Leigh Harrold
First violins Zoe Black Madeleine Jevons
Cellos Kalina Krusteva-Theaker Anna Pokorny
Second violins Jacqueline Edwards Michael Loftus-Hills
Double basses Rohan Dasika Max McBride Vivian Qu Siyuan
Violas William Clark Ceridwen Davies Isabel Morse
Timpani Brent Miller
Guest musicians
SCHEHERAZADE | 13–16 March
Percussion Robert Allan Timothy Hook Paul Sablinskis
Horns Peter Luff
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Beethoven 9 and Circa: MSO Mornings
Thursday 20 February | 11am Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Benjamin Northey conductor Circa Contemporary Circus Yaron Lifschitz director Maija Kovağevska soprano Jacqueline Dark mezzo-soprano Paul O’Neill tenor Warwick Fyfe bass MSO Chorus Warren Trevelyan-Jones chorus master BEETHOVEN Symphony No.9
[65']
Running time: approximately 70 minutes with no interval. Timings listed are approximate. Artist biographies and program notes for this performance can be found beginning on page 14. MSO Mornings is proudly supported by Ryman Healthcare. This performance will be filmed and recorded for future broadcast by UNITEL.
Beethoven 9, Circa and Cheetham: Season Opening Gala Friday 21 February | 7.30pm Saturday 22 February | 7.30pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Benjamin Northey conductor Circa Contemporary Circus Yaron Lifschitz director Maija Kovaļevska soprano Jacqueline Dark mezzo-soprano Paul O’Neill tenor Warwick Fyfe bass MSO Chorus Warren Trevelyan-Jones chorus master CHEETHAM* Dutala – Star Filled Sky [18'] WORLD PREMIERE OF AN MSO COMMISSION
— INTERVAL — BEETHOVEN Symphony No.9
[65']
Running time: approximately 2 hours including a 20-minute interval. Timings listed are approximate. Pre-concert, 21 & 22 February at 6.15pm, Hamer Hall. Join Principal Conductor in Residence Benjamin Northey, Composer in Residence Deborah Cheetham AO and Circa Associate Director Todd Kilby for a conversation about the performance. *MSO Composer in Residence These performances will be filmed and recorded for future broadcast by UNITEL.
A MESSAGE FROM HER EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR OF VICTORIA As Patron of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, I am proud of the thoughtful ways in which it delights audiences in Victoria, and beyond. Tonight’s 2020 Season Opening Gala is a great example, presenting the perfect blend of tradition and innovation. The MSO will perform Beethoven’s iconic Symphony No.9, as the world celebrates the 250th anniversary of his birth. For this very special performance, the MSO has collaborated with Circa Contemporary Circus. Under the direction of Circa’s Artistic Director, Yaron Lifschitz, circus artists will present Beethoven’s music in a dramatic new way. Tonight also sees the world premiere of the MSO commission, Dutala – Star-Filled Sky, by esteemed Yorta Yorta composer, soprano and MSO’s 2020 Composer in Residence, Deborah Cheetham AO. Providing an Indigenous response to Beethoven’s Ninth, Cheetham’s work perfectly complements Beethoven’s orchestral classic with a uniquely Australian voice. I hope you enjoy tonight’s performance, and I wish the MSO all the best for another wonderful Season. The Honourable Linda Dessau AC Governor of Victoria
A MESSAGE FROM THE MINISTER FOR CREATIVE INDUSTRIES The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra may be Australia’s oldest and longest running orchestra, but it continues to present work in new and dynamic ways.
BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February
Welcome
The 2020 season reflects this evolution as it kicks off with this gala evening. One of Victoria’s great music talents, Deborah Cheetham AO will premiere Dutala – Star Filled Sky, created in response to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. This new work heralds a program celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday year, which also sees an exciting new collaboration with Circa Contemporary Circus, where Ode to Joy takes a physical form in a performance blending music and movement. It’s a great start to a year of extraordinary music experiences here in the creative state. Martin Foley Minister for Creative Industries
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BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February
Benjamin Northey
Circa Contemporary Circus
Benjamin Northey is Chief Conductor of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor in Residence of the MSO.
Circa Contemporary Circus is one of the world’s leading performance companies. Since 2004, Circa has performed to over a million people in 40 countries and been greeted with standing ovations, rave reviews and sold-out houses across six continents.
conductor
Winner of the 2019 Limelight Magazine Australian Artist of the Year award, Northey appears regularly as guest conductor with all major Australian and New Zealand symphony orchestras, Opera Australia, New Zealand Opera and State Opera South Australia. His international appearances include concerts with London Philharmonic and Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestras, the National Orchestra of Colombia and the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg. Northey is a strong advocate for music by Australian composers. He has a progressive and diverse approach to repertoire having collaborated with a broad range of artists including Pinchas Zukerman, Maxim Vengerov and AnneSofie von Otter, as well as KD Lang, Tim Minchin and James Morrison. His awards include the 2001 Symphony Australia Young Conductor of the Year, the prestigious 2010 Melbourne Prize Outstanding Musician’s Award and multiple awards for his many recordings with ABC Music.
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Circa is at the forefront of the new wave of contemporary Australian circus – pioneering how extreme physicality can create powerful and moving performances. It continues to push the boundaries of the art form, blurring the lines between movement, dance, theatre and circus. Fuelled by the question ‘what is possible in circus?’ Circa is leading the way with a diverse range of thrilling creations that “redraw the limits to which circus can aspire” (The Age). Circa is committed to fostering the next generation of circus artists and runs a training centre from its studio in Brisbane. Circa also runs regular circus programs with communities throughout Queensland and around Australia.
Maija Kovaļevska
Yaron Lifschitz is a graduate of the University of New South Wales, University of Queensland and National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA), where he was the youngest director ever accepted into its graduate director’s course. Since graduating, Yaron has directed over 60 productions including large-scale events, opera, theatre and circus.
Maija Kovaļevska is a Latvian soprano. Born in Riga, she is a graduate of the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music. Since 2003, she has resided in Italy where she studied with Mirella Freni. Most recently, she has sung Mimi (La Bohème) in Sydney, Melbourne and for Semperoper Dresden, Maddalena (Andrea Chénier) and the title role in Tosca for the Sigulda Festival, Verdi’s Requiem in London, Mahler’s Symphony No.4 in Canada and Alice Ford (Falstaff) at Staatsoper Hamburg.
director
His work has won numerous awards including six Helpmann awards and the Australia Council Theatre Award. His productions have been presented at major festivals and venues including Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Barbican, Les Nuits de Fourvière, Chamaleon and all the major Australian festivals. His film work was selected for the Berlin and Melbourne Film Festivals. He was founding Artistic Director of the Australian Museum’s Theatre Unit, Head Tutor in Directing at Australian Theatre for Young People and has been a regular guest tutor at NIDA. He is currently Artistic Director and CEO of Circa, and was Creative Director of Festival 2018: the arts and cultural program of the 21st Commonwealth Games.
soprano
She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Mimi in Franco Zeffirelli’s production of La Bohème and later as Euridice in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice and Micaëla in Carmen. For Vienna State Opera, she has sung Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, later singing Mimi, Micaëla, The Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro, Violetta in La Traviata and Amelia in Simon Boccanegra.
BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February
Yaron Lifschitz
Other appearances include Mimi and Micaëla for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden and Liù in Turandot for La Scala, Milan.
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BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February
Jacqueline Dark
Paul O’Neill
In 2016, Jacqueline Dark starred as The Mother Abbess in the National Tour of The Sound of Music before returning to Opera Australia as Fricka in their revival of Der Ring des Nibelungen. The following year, she sang Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana for State Opera of SA (Best Female Performance – ‘Curtain Call’ Awards) and the title role in Prima Donna for the Adelaide Festival.
Australian tenor Paul O’Neill has forged a compelling international career performing throughout Europe and Australasia. In 2020, he sings Alfredo (La traviata) for Opera Australia, Macduff (Macbeth) for State Opera of South Australia, Turiddu (Cavalleria Rusticana) and Canio (Pagliacci) for West Australian Opera and appears in concert with the Melbourne, Queensland and West Australian symphony orchestras.
mezzo-soprano
Most recently, Jacqui appeared in The Nose for Opera Australia, as Mrs Sedley in Peter Grimes for the Brisbane Festival, in Candide with New Zealand Opera and Herodias in Salome for Opera Australia. 2020 engagements include Santuzza in Perth and Fricka in Brisbane. International appearances have included Giovanna (Rigoletto), Grimgerde (Die Walküre) and Mercedes (Carmen) in Vienna and Herodias (Salome) for Opera Hong Kong. In August 2014, Jacqui received her second consecutive Helpmann Award – for her work as Fricka in Der Ring des Nibelungen.
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tenor
Most recently, he sang Don José in Carmen for West Australian Opera, Rodolfo (La Bohème) and Narraboth (Salome) for Opera Australia, the title role in Faust for Theater Münster, Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) throughout China and Cavaradossi (Tosca) in both Perth and Magdeburg. Other roles include The Duke (Rigoletto) with Opera Holland Park, Opera Australia, West Australian Opera, Staatstheater Karlsruhe and Staatstheater Mainz; Turriddu, Cavaradossi, and Carlo VII (Giovanna d´Arco) for Theater Bielefeld; Jason (Médée) for Theater Bielefeld and Staatstheater Mainz and The Italian Tenor (Der Rosenkavalier) for Berlin Staatsoper.
MSO Chorus
Warwick Fyfe is a Helpmann Awardwinning singer and is considered one of Australia’s finest baritones. Recent appearances include Beckmesser (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), Alberich (Der Ring des Nibelungen), Sancho Panza (Don Quichotte), Amonasro (Aida), Geronio (Il turco in Italia) and Klingsor (Parsifal) for Opera Australia, Alberich (Das Rheingold) for the Japan Philharmonic and Tianjin Symphony Orchestras and Peter (Hansel and Gretel) in Singapore.
For more than 50 years the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus has been the unstinting voice of the Orchestra’s choral repertoire. The MSO Chorus sings with the finest conductors including Sir Andrew Davis, Edward Gardner, Mark Wigglesworth, Bernard Labadie, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Manfred Honeck, and is committed to developing and performing new Australian and international choral repertoire.
bass
2019 appearances included Athanaël (Thaïs) and Amonasro for Finnish National Opera, Barone di Trombonok (Il viaggio a Reims) for Opera Australia and Bartolo (Il barbiere di Siviglia) for Victorian Opera; in 2020, Warwick sings Alberich and Amonasro for Opera Australia, Wotan (Die Walküre) in Singapore, and Pizarro (Fidelio) in Melbourne and Perth.
Commissions include Brett Dean’s Katz und Spatz, Ross Edwards’ Mountain Chant, and Paul Stanhope’s Exile Lamentations. Recordings by the MSO Chorus have received critical acclaim. It has performed across Brazil and at the Cultura Inglese Festival in Sao Paolo, with The Australian Ballet, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, at the AFL Grand Final and at Anzac Day commemorative ceremonies.
BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February
Warwick Fyfe
Warwick was the recipient of a Helpmann Award for his 2013 performance as Alberich in the Melbourne Ring Cycle; he became a Churchill Fellow in 2015.
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BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February 18
Warren Trevelyan-Jones chorus master
Warren Trevelyan-Jones is the Head of Music at St James’, King Street in Sydney and is regarded as one of the leading choral conductors and choir trainers in Australia. Warren has had an extensive singing career as a soloist and ensemble singer in Europe, including nine years in the Choir of Westminster Abbey, and regular work with the Gabrieli Consort, Collegium Vocale (Ghent), the Taverner Consort, The Kings Consort, Dunedin Consort, The Sixteen and the Tallis Scholars. Warren is also Director of the Parsons Affayre, Founder and Co-Director of The Consort of Melbourne and, in 2001 with Dr Michael Noone, founded the Gramophone award-winning group Ensemble Plus Ultra. Warren is also a qualified music therapist.
DEBORAH CHEETHAM AO
(born 1964)
Dutala – Star Filled Sky MSO Chorus Do you sense the creator world?
Biami gabra ngata nhurrag wuta wungi?
Seek the Creator above the starry canopy
Biami yamutj Dutala bukut
Above the stars the creator must dwell
Biami banga dhona Dutala bukut
The composer writes: For a long time, I considered the addition of a subtitle for this work – the spaces between. For this is where Indigenous cultures focus their attention when interpreting the sky. The spaces between the stars. This commission was first described to me as a companion piece for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, for the opening gala of the MSO 2020 season, in the 250th anniversary year of the great composer’s birth! No pressure!! Of course, this stand-alone masterpiece requires no companion, but the framework for Dutala is drawn from the same orchestral and choral forces that changed the way we would think of the Symphonic form forever. There are so many reasons why this work bears such significance. Perhaps the most obvious reason is the addition of language. Schiller’s text (with Beethoven’s additions) rings out with timeless clarity. Give me my language and I will show you my identity.
BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February
Program Notes
You will recognise at least two humble references to Beethoven’s rhythms and orchestral signature but like every composer since 1824 his legacy is intrinsic and it is celebrated here. To quote from the final stanza of Schiller’s text, with an acknowledgement of the Yorta Yorta* language from Dutala: Do you sense the creator world? Seek the Creator above the starry canopy Above the stars must Biami* dwell Deborah Cheetham AO © 2019 This is the world premiere of this work.
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BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
(1770–1827)
Symphony No.9 in D minor, Op.125 Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso Scherzo (Molto vivace – Presto) Adagio molto e cantabile – Andante moderato Presto – Allegro molto assai (Alla marcia) – Presto Circa Contemporary Circus Yaron Lifschitz Artistic Director Shaun Comerford Executive Director Todd Kilby Tour Director Jessica Connell Performer Graig Gadd Performer Gerramy Marsden Performer Alice Muntz Performer Kathryn O’Keeffe Performer Paul O’Keeffe Performer Dylan Rodrigez Performer Lachlan Sukroo Performer Luke Thomas Performer Billie Wilson-Coffey Performer Maija Kovaļevska soprano Jacqueline Dark mezzo-soprano Paul O’Neill tenor Warwick Fyfe bass MSO Chorus
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On 7 May 1824, Beethoven summoned Vienna’s leading musicians in the Kärnthnerthor Theatre to give the premiere of the Ninth Symphony. Profoundly deaf, Beethoven was long past being able to conduct, but stood beside the leaders, indicating the speeds. At the end, he was unaware of the applause, so that the contralto soloist had to turn him around, producing ‘a volcanic explosion of sympathy and admiration that seemed it would never end’. The applause was probably more for the composer than the performance. Two rehearsals were insufficient to prepare the most difficult orchestral piece the musicians had ever encountered. Nevertheless, one reviewer found the opening Allegro ‘bold and defiant, executed with truly athletic energy’. Punctuating its enormous 15-minute design, strategically placed returns of its colossal opening idea underpin the almost fissile energy generated by the sheer mass of scraping, blowing and drumming. Never before had sounds of such sustained violence been imagined, let alone produced by instruments. Wagner later pictured the second movement as a Bacchanalian spree of worldly pleasures. But while its motoric force is compulsive, Beethoven hardly thought of his big scherzo as mindless. Far from it; he keeps its overflowing energy meticulously controlled and channelled, not least when the predominant four-bar triple beat is dramatically jerked into three-bar phrases. Berlioz imagined the slow movement ‘might better be thought as two distinct pieces, the first melody in B flat, fourin-a-bar, followed by an absolutely different one, in triple-time in D’. Yet, in Beethoven’s interweaving of this unlikely pair, Berlioz heard ‘such melancholy tenderness, passionate
Everyone in the first Vienna audience in May 1824 must have known that something extraordinary was about to take place. Certainly, the London press intimated in advance of the British premiere a year later: ‘In the last movement is introduced a song! – Schiller’s famous Ode to Joy – which forms a most extraordinary contrast with the whole, and is calculated to excite surprise, certainly, and perhaps admiration.’ But why did Beethoven take the unprecedented step of fitting out an instrumental symphony with a vocal finale? He had toyed with two distinct plans for a symphony with added chorus. In 1818, he made very preliminary notes for a ‘symphony in ancient modes’ on ancient Greek religious themes, including a choral adagio. But by 1822, he was sketching a ‘German symphony’, with chorus singing Schiller’s To Joy, though to an entirely different tune. To Adolph Bernhard Marx – the early 19th century music historian whose writings helped enshrine Beethoven as ‘supreme master’ and Germany as centre of the ‘cult of music’ – Beethoven’s earlier symphonies had suggested that instrumental music could be even more eloquent than words. Yet finally, Marx believed, Beethoven showed that this was not so: ‘Having devoted his life to instrumental sounds, he once again summons his forces for his boldest, most gigantic effort. But behold! – unreal instrumental voices no longer satisfy him, and he is drawn irresistibly back to the human voice.’ As the orchestra introduces brief flashbacks to each of the first three movements, the cellos and basses attempt an unlikely recitative: ‘but when the string basses painfully attempt their ungainly imitation of human speech;
and when they begin to hum timidly the simple human tune, and hand it over to the rest of the orchestra, we see that, after all, the needs of humanity reach beyond the enchanted world of instruments, so that, in the end, Beethoven only finds satisfaction in the chorus of humanity itself.’ Despairing of instruments’ feeble efforts, the solo baritone announces (the introductory lines are Beethoven’s own, not Schiller’s): O friends! No more these sounds! Instead let us sing out more pleasingly, with joy abundant! Graeme Skinner © 2014 The first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony by the MSO took place on 13 November 1941, under conductor Sir Bernard Heinze. The soloists were Thea Philips, Frances Forbes, William Herbert and Raymond Beatty, with the Melbourne Philharmonic Society Choir. The Orchestra’s most recent performances were in November 2017 with Benjamin Northey; the soloists were Jacqueline Porter, Liane Keegan, Henry Choo, Shane Lowrencev, and the MSO Chorus.
BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February
sadness, and religious meditation’ as to be beyond words to describe.
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BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February 22
Text and Translation Ode An die Freude (To Joy) after Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!
Oh friends, no more these sounds!
Sondern lasst uns angenehmere
Instead let us sing out more
anstimmen, und freudenvollere.
pleasingly, with joy abundant.
Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Oh joy, pure spark of God,
Tochter aus Elysium,
daughter from Elysium,
wir betreten feuertrunken,
with hearts afire, divine one,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
we come to your sanctuary.
Deine Zauber binden wieder
Your heavenly powers reunite
was die Mode streng geteilt:
what custom sternly keeps apart:
alle Menschen werden Brüder
all mankind become brothers
wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
beneath your sheltering wing.
Wem der grosse Wurf gelungen
Whoever has known the blessing
eines Freundes Freund zu sein,
of being friend to a friend,
wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
whoever has won a fine woman,
mische seinen Jubel ein!
whoever, indeed, calls even
Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele
one soul on this earth his own,
sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund!
let their joy be joined with ours.
Und wer’s nie gekonnt, der stehle
But let the one who knows none of this
weinend sich aus diesem Bund!
steal, weeping, from our midst.
Freude trinken alle Wesen
All beings drink in joy
an den Brüsten der Natur,
at Nature’s bosom,
alle Guten, alle Bösen,
the virtuous and the wicked alike
folgen ihrer Rosenspur.
follow her rosy path.
Küsse gab sie uns und Reben,
Kisses she gave to us, and wine,
einen Freund, geprüft im Tod;
and a friend loyal to the death;
Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben,
bliss to the lowest worm she gave,
und der Cherub steht vor Gott.
and the cherub stands before God.
Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen
Joyously, as His dazzling suns
durch des Himmels prächtgen Plan,
traverse the heavens,
laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn,
so, brothers, run your course,
freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen!
exultant, as a hero claims victory.
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Oh joy, pure spark of God,
Tochter aus Elysium,
daughter from Elysium,
wir betreten feuertrunken,
with hearts afire, divine one,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
we come to your sanctuary.
Deine Zauber binden wieder
Your heavenly powers reunite
was die Mode streng geteilt:
what custom sternly keeps apart:
alle Menschen werden Brüder
all mankind become brothers
wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
beneath your sheltering wing.
Seid umschlungen, Millionen,
Be enfolded, all ye millions,
diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!
in this kiss of the whole world!
Brüder, über’m Sternenzelt
Brothers, above the canopy of stars
muss ein lieber Vater wohnen.
must dwell a loving Father.
Ihr stürzt nieder, Millionen?
Do you fall down, ye millions?
Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt?
In awe of your Creator, world?
Such’ ihn über’m Sternenzelt!
Go seek Him beyond the stars!
Über Sternen muss er wohnen.
For there assuredly He dwells.
Freude, schöner Götterfunken…
O joy, pure spark of God, etc
BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February
Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Text by Friedrich von Schiller English translation Anthony Cane © 2000 1. The initial three lines were added by Beethoven in 1823.
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BEETHOVEN 9, CIRCA AND CHEETHAM: SEASON OPENING GALA | 21–22 February 24
MSO Chorus REPETITEUR
ALTO
TENOR
Jacob Abela
Satu Aho Rachel Amos Ruth Anderson Emma Anvari Kate Bramley Jane Brodie Alexandra Chubaty Nicola Eveleigh Lisa Faulks Jill Giese Ros Harbison Juliana Hassett Kristine Hensel Helen Hill Leanne Hyndman Helen MacLean Christina McCowan Rosemary McKelvie Charlotte Midson Stephanie Mitchell Sandy Nagy Catriona Nguyen-Robertson Susie Novella Nicole Paterson Alison Ralph Kate Rice Mair Roberts Maya Tanja Rodingen Kerry Roulston Annie Runnalls Jodi Samartgis
James Allen Adam Birch Kent Borchard Steve Burnett Peter Campbell James Dipnall Simon Gaites Lyndon Horsburgh Wayne Kinrade Jess Maticevski Shumack Michael Mobach Colin Schultz Tim Wright
SOPRANO Julie Arblaster Carolyn Archibald Aviva Barazani Eva Butcher Jessica Chan Aliz Cole Samantha Davies Laura Fahey Rita Fitzgerald Catherine Folley Carolyn Francis Camilla Gorman Aurora Harmathy Penny Huggett Tania Jacobs Gwen Kennelly Anna Kidman Maya Kraj-Krajewski Dorcas Lim Judy Longbottom Tian Nie Caitlin Noble Karin Otto Jodie Paxton Tanja Redl Natalie Reid Janelle Richardson Mhairi Riddet Jo Robin Jillian Samuels Julienne Seal Lydia Sherren Elizabeth Tindall Katy Turbitt Fabienne Vandenburie Julia Wang Sara Zirak
BASS Maurice Amor Richard Bolitho Ted Davies Andrew Ham Andrew Hibbard Stuart Izon Jordan Janssen Robert Latham Gary Levy Douglas McQueen-Thomson Steven Murie Hywel Stoakes Matthew Toulmin Tom Turnbull Maciek Zielinski
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An Alpine Symphony Thursday 5 March | 7.30pm Saturday 7 March | 2pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Alexander Shelley conductor Alexandra Dariescu piano GORDON HAMILTON Far South [18'] WORLD PREMIERE
GRIEG Piano Concerto
[30'] — INTERVAL —
R. STRAUSS An Alpine Symphony [51']
Running time: approximately 2 hours and 10 minutes including a 20-minute interval. Timings listed are approximate. Pre-concert talk: 5 March at 6.15pm & 7 March at 12.45pm, Hamer Hall. Learn more about the performance at a pre-concert presentation with MSO Artistic Planning Coordinator Bridget Davies and composer Gordon Hamilton. Saturday’s performance will be recorded by ABC Classic for broadcast on 22 March.
Alexandra Dariescu
Alexander Shelley first gained widespread attention when he was unanimously awarded first prize at the 2005 Leeds Conductors’ Competition. In 2015 he assumed the roles of Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and Principal Associate Conductor of Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Romanian-born British pianist Alexandra Dariescu dazzles audiences with her effortless musicality and captivating stage presence. Her vision and innovative approach to programming makes her stand out as a creative entrepreneur who likes to think differently.
conductor
He works regularly with the leading orchestras of Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australasia, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Helsinki Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Orchestre Metropolitain Montreal. This season Alexander makes his debut with Toronto Symphony and Colorado Symphony and returns to Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, MDR Sinfonieorchester, and the Sao Paulo, Sydney and New Zealand symphony orchestras. Alexander’s operatic engagements have included The Merry Widow and Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet (Den Kongelige Opera); La Bohème (Opera Lyra), Iolanta (Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen), Così fan Tutte (Opéra National de Montpellier), The Marriage of Figaro (Opera North) and a co-production of Harry Somers’ Louis Riel with NACO and the Canadian Opera Company.
piano
AN ALPINE SYMPHONY | 5–7 March
Alexander Shelley
Highlights of Dariescu’s 2019–2020 season include debuts with Orchestre National de France, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Detroit, Houston, Sydney and Melbourne symphony orchestras as well as Auckland Philharmonia, alongside returns to the BBC Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec and a UK tour with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra. Dariescu also continues a world tour of her multimedia performance for piano solo with dance and digital animation The Nutcracker and I, by Alexandra Dariescu, and performs in duo with Angela Gheorghiu further to the release of their Decca recording Plaisir d’amour in 2019. Alexandra has been mentored by Sir András Schiff and Imogen Cooper. In 2018, Alexandra received the “Officer of the Romanian Crown” from the Royal Family and was selected as a Young European Leader by Friends of Europe.
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AN ALPINE SYMPHONY | 5–7 March
Program Notes GORDON HAMILTON
(born 1982) Far South
I. Aurora Australis II. Seven III. Strips of Sky, Sea and Ice IV. Whalesong V. Infinite Monochrome VI. Reeve Hill Composed 2018–19 near Casey Station, Antarctica and on board the icebreaker Aurora Australis on an Aurora Legacy Fellowship from the Australian Antarctic Division. The composer writes:
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I wrote Far South during and after a trip to Casey Station, Antarctica onboard the icebreaker Aurora Australis – an Australian icon, nearing the end of her service*. The opening movement is an aria set against the backdrop of a recording I made of the ship cutting through sea-ice (standing in the bow while my stinging hands clenched the microphone! I soon learned to gloveup!). A solo instrument sings, hand-inhand with mighty bricks of harmony: a blazing seascape coated in white. The second movement, Seven, is a hymn which strayed into my thoughts one day (there are no nights in December) while sailing past mighty icebergs. Seven verses, each of seven bars in 7/4 time, climax with an ecstatic passage of septuplets. Aleatoric music follows, depicting a hill near Casey Station where the scene can be divided into three colossal horizontal strips of sky, sea and ice. Whalesong is a harmonisation of a finback whale call: the Aurora Australis recovered a hydrophone which had been recording the crooning of sea mammals. Over a year’s worth of sound was logged;
I picked the bit in D-minor†. Infinite Monochrome is a pock-marked canon inspired by – in the words of Voyage Leader James Maloney – “...the vision of a brilliant bright expanse where ice, snow and cloud coalesced, holding the ship suspended in white nothingness.” Every direction is a hiss of white (painful to the naked eye!) and the frozen sea bristles, splintered by town-sized icebergs. In the last movement Reeve Hill, short chorale-like utterances are sown among long thoughtful stillnesses, played over my recording of ice gently melting on Reeve Hill, far-off Adélie penguins and snow petrels nattering to each other. The work is for strings, with any four solo instruments spread though (the pick of which is left to the players or leader). I also invite other instruments to band together – thus the ensemble might stretch from a small string group to a vast cast of sound-makers. For me the choice of a kernel of fiddles was straightforward: a landscape dominated by one hue lends itself to a homogeneous body of sound. Four soloists break up the smoothness with airings of individuality. * In a happy fluke, my dad and I were at hand in 1989 at the launch of the Aurora Australis in Newcastle NSW when I was six years old – we even experienced a dunking! † My thanks to marine mammal acoustician Brian Miller! Gordon Hamilton © 2019 This is the world premiere of this work.
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.16 Allegro molto moderato Adagio – Allegro moderato molto e marcato Alexandra Dariescu piano After hearing a performance of Grieg’s piano concerto, Arnold Schoenberg is supposed to have remarked: ‘That’s the kind of music I’d really like to write.’ It wouldn’t have been the first time that Schoenberg’s facetious humour was apparent, but one can’t help but feel that there was a wistful sincerity buried in the remark. Schoenberg, after all, believed that his experiments, first in atonality and later the twelve-note serial method, were forced upon him by historical destiny rather than being the result of his own wishes. He also remarked that there was ‘still plenty of good music to be written in C major’ and his last word was according to legend, ‘Harmony!’ Grieg’s concerto, while not in C major, is in its close relative A minor, and is certainly full of good music. And it is, with good reason, popular – a fate not enjoyed by Schoenberg’s music. Grieg himself was not so sure, however. He composed the concerto at the age of 25 while on holiday in Denmark with his wife and young child, and he was at that stage relatively inexperienced in orchestral writing. In fact the only orchestral works dating from his early life are an ‘Ouverture’ which has been lost, and a Symphony in C minor which is hardly ever heard. Grieg tinkered endlessly with the orchestration of his concerto between the time of the work’s (triumphant) premiere and his death in 1907. Grieg had studied at the Leipzig Conservatory from the age of 15
with the initial intent of becoming a concert pianist. Dissatisfied with his first teacher, Grieg began lessons with E.F. Wenzel, a friend and supporter of Schumann’s; under his tutelage Grieg began writing piano music for his own performances and wrote passionate articles in defence of Schumann’s music. The influence of Schumann’s Piano Concerto, also in A minor, on Grieg’s work has been remarked on frequently, but apart from their similar threemovement design and opening gesture (in both works a full tutti chord of A minor releases a florid response from the keyboard soloist) the style of each is markedly different. Both composers were, however, primarily lyricists, and Grieg’s concerto is certainly replete with exquisite tunes. Many of these echo some of the shapes of Norwegian folk music with which Grieg had become deeply familiar in 1864 when he had also become active in a society for the support of Scandinavian music. The piano’s opening gesture, for instance, recalls folk music in its use of a ‘gapped’ scale, and the origins of the finale in folk dance are clear.
AN ALPINE SYMPHONY | 5–7 March
EDVARD GRIEG
(1843–1907)
Grieg was unable to attend the premiere of his concerto in Copenhagen in 1869, but it was an outstanding success, no doubt in part because Grieg’s cultivation of folk music struck a chord with the increasingly nationalist Scandinavian audiences. But in large part it was because the concerto was recognised as a youthful masterpiece. No less an artist than Anton Rubinstein, who attended the performance, described it as a ‘work of genius’. A year later Grieg and his wife travelled to Italy where Grieg met Liszt for the second time. Liszt had been encouraging of Grieg’s work some time before; now he allegedly sight-read Grieg’s concerto and said, ‘You have the real stuff in you. And don’t ever let them frighten you!’ 29
AN ALPINE SYMPHONY | 5–7 March
Grieg didn’t let them frighten him, and the Piano Concerto went on to establish his reputation throughout the musical world. Audiences responded, as they still do, to the charm of Grieg’s melodies, the balance of, it must be said, Lisztian virtuosity and Grieg’s own distinctive lyricism, and what Tchaikovsky, who adored the work, described as the work’s ‘fascinating melancholy which seems to reflect in itself all the beauty of Norwegian scenery’. One of Grieg’s greatest admirers described the ‘concentrated greatness and alllovingness of the little great man. Out of the toughest Norwegianness, out of the most narrow localness, he spreads out a welcoming and greedy mind for all the world’s wares.’ This was, of course, the Australian-born pianist/composer Percy Grainger who became one of the Grieg Concerto’s most celebrated exponents and one of the dearest friends of Grieg’s last years. Not only that – Grainger spent time with Grieg working on the concerto before the composer’s death at which time Grieg was making the final adjustments to the orchestration; with such ‘inside knowledge’ Grainger was able to publish his own edition of the work in later years. Sadly, a proposed tour with Grieg conducting and Grainger playing the Concerto never transpired. Gordon Kerry © 2006 The first performance of Grieg’s Piano Concerto by the MSO took place on 14 May 1940 with conductor Antal Dorati and soloist Eunice Gardiner. The Orchestra’s most recent performances were in March 2016 with Benjamin Northey and Daniel de Borah.
RICHARD STRAUSS
(1864–1949)
An Alpine Symphony, Op.64 Night – Sunrise – The ascent 30
Entry into the wood –
Wandering by the side of the brook – At the waterfall – Apparition – On flowering meadows – On the alpine pasture – Through thicket and undergrowth on the wrong path On the glacier – Dangerous moments – On the summit – Vision – Mists rise – The sun gradually becomes obscured – Elegy – Calm before the storm – Thunder and tempest, descent – Sunset – Conclusion – Night Around the time he wrote An Alpine Symphony, Strauss boasted that he could, if necessary, describe a knife and fork in music. Indeed An Alpine Symphony marks the limit in Strauss’ nearly three-decades-long quest to extend music’s capacity for illustration and representation – an effort which began with Don Juan in 1888 and reached a highpoint with Thus Spake Zarathustra’s attempt to express the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Strauss turned to An Alpine Symphony after writing Ariadne auf Naxos. Critics had just remarked on the Mozartean turn in his music, referring to the chamber forces required for Ariadne, when he produced this piece of orchestral gigantism. The orchestra needs 137 players, but what would you expect? Strauss is attempting nothing less than a literal portrait of a mountain. Strauss composed this work at his workroom in Garmisch, where he could look out over the Zugspitze and the
The form of An Alpine Symphony is spectacularly simple. The listener is drawn into the idea of ascending and descending a mountain. The timeframe is a 24-hour period. This format guarantees Strauss certain musical highlights: yet another opportunity to depict an opening sunrise (as impressive in its own way as Zarathustra’s), and a sunset sequence, eminently suited to Strauss in one of his ‘autumnal moods’. Strauss ingeniously avoids the obvious at ‘the summit’, where, after the predictable big statement of one of the earlier themes he shifts focus to a halting oboe. One writer has remarked that it is as if we are suddenly made aware of the impact of the stupendous view on an awestruck human. The predictability of the descent is offset by one of the most graphic storms in musical literature. The work is less a symphony even than the Symfonia domestica (Strauss’ 1904 musical portrait of domestic life, with its 22 continuous sections, some only seconds long). However, the sections can be grouped to suggest a huge Lisztian singlemovement sonata form with delayed recapitulation, like 1896’s Ein Heldenleben. ‘At last I have learnt to orchestrate,’ Strauss said at the General Rehearsal with the Dresden Hofkapelle in October 1915. Some of the more obvious orchestral highlights include the exhilarating depiction of spray at the waterfall. Then there is the strange colouring of the ‘Sun theme’ mixed with organ reeds to depict rising mists (‘perhaps the most brilliantly clever section of the work’, according to Strauss biographer, Norman Del Mar).
The work has often been dismissed as just a piece of ‘orchestriana’. We can imagine it was intended as a virtuoso showpiece for the Dresden Hofkapelle, which had premiered several of Strauss’ prior works. But is it more than a shallow display? Del Mar points to Strauss’ ‘curiously detached attitude to the Nature subject…giving it a dehumanised majestic quality reminiscent, in a unique way, of Bruckner’. The work can also be seen in the context of the mystical importance which mountains held for Germans in the 19th century. The sense of the great mass of the mountain, barely discernible in the gloom, at the very end of the work, certainly has a Brucknerian scale and aspect, and it is probable that Strauss would have understood the remarks of his philosophical model Nietzsche who said:
AN ALPINE SYMPHONY | 5–7 March
Wettersteingebirge. The orchestration was completed in 100 days during the winter of 1914–15, but the work had been long in gestation. As an idea, it had occurred to him as a boy, after he and a party of climbers got lost during a mountain hike and were overtaken by a storm on their return.
“ He who knows how to breathe the air of my writings knows that it is an air of the heights, a robust air…The ice is near, the solitude is terrible – but how peacefully all things lie in the light!…Philosophy as I have hitherto understood and lived it, is a voluntary living in ice and high mountains – a seeking after everything that is strange and questionable in existence, all that has hitherto been excommunicated by morality.” Unlike his philosophical model, Strauss could lapse into banality when he attempted to express Eternal and Absolute Truths. But whether he did so here or not, he never risked another tone poem. After An Alpine Symphony, he turned decisively to the stage, where his skills in musical depiction were a decided asset. Gordon Kalton Williams Symphony Australia © 1998/2006 The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed An Alpine Symphony on 27 November 1957 under conductor Kurt Woess, and most recently in March 2016 with Sir Andrew Davis.
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Scheherazade Friday 13 March | 7.30pm Saturday 14 March | 7.30pm Monday 16 March | 6.30pm Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Miguel Harth-Bedoya conductor Harriet Krijgh cello KODÁLY Dances of Galánta
[15']
LALO Cello Concerto
[24'] — INTERVAL —
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Scheherazade [47']
Running time: approximately two hours including a 20-minute interval. Timings listed are approximate. Pre-concert talk: 13 & 14 March at 6.15pm, Hamer Hall. Learn more about the performance at a pre-concert presentation with composer and ABC Classic producer Andrew Aronowicz. Post-concert conversation: 16 March, following performance, Hamer Hall Stalls Foyer. Join composer and ABC Classic producer Andrew Aronowicz for a conversation about the performance. Friday’s performance will be recorded by ABC Classic for broadcast on 25 March.
Harriet Krijgh
Peruvian conductor Miguel HarthBedoya is a master of colour, drawing idiomatic interpretations from a wide range of repertoire in concerts across the globe. He has amassed considerable experience at the helm of orchestras with 2019–2020 his seventh season as Chief Conductor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and his 20th season as Music Director of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. Previously he has held Music Director positions with the Auckland Philharmonia and Eugene Symphony.
Dutch artist Harriet Krijgh is one of today’s most exciting and promising cellists. Her grace and expressiveness touch audiences as soon as she is on the concert platform. She has performed with orchestras such as the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Vienna Symphony Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra.
conductor
With his experienced toolkit and exceptional charisma, Harth-Bedoya has nurtured a number of close relationships with orchestras worldwide and is a frequent guest of the Helsinki Philharmonic, MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, National Orchestra of Spain, Atlanta Symphony, New Zealand Symphony and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. With a passionate devotion to unearthing new South American repertoire, Miguel Harth-Bedoya is the founder and Artistic Director of Caminos Del Inka, a non-profit organisation dedicated to researching, performing and preserving the rich musical legacy of South America.
SCHEHERAZADE | 13–16 March
Miguel Harth-Bedoya
cello
Highlights of her 2019–2020 season include engagements with the Auckland Philharmonia, National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa and Iceland Symphony Orchestra. With the sisters Baiba and Lauma Skride, she performed Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in Prague and Turku, and will record it with the NDR Radiophilharmonie under Andrew Manze for the Orfeo label. Chosen as “Rising Star” of the European Concert Hall Organisation in 2015–2016, Harriet Krijgh has had an exclusive recording relationship with Deutsche Grammaphon since 2018. Her annual summer festival “Harriet & Friends” was extended by a winter edition in 2018. An enthusiastic chamber musician, she joined the Artemis Quartet in spring 2019. 33
SCHEHERAZADE | 13–16 March
Program Notes ZOLTÁN KODÁLY
(1882–1967)
Dances of Galánta (Galántai táncok) Lento – Andante maestoso – Allegretto moderato – Andante maestoso – Allegro con moto, grazioso – Andante maestoso – Allegro – Poco meno mosso – Allegro vivace – Andante maestoso – Allegro molto vivace Along with his friend Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály collected thousands of folk tunes from throughout Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. These songs influenced both composers’ subsequent works. The Dances of Galánta were written for the 80th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic in 1933. Kodály took as his source a compendium of dances from the early 1800s, ‘gypsy dances from Galánta’, where he grew up. Based on the verbunko style (similar to the csárdás or ‘tavern’ tunes of Hungary and its surrounding regions), these dances have two moods: pensively slow and fiercely fast. Throughout the first ‘dance’ – and indeed the suite – the clarinet receives special attention. Kodály maintains tension by clever use of rubato and rhythmic variation. The ‘gypsy scale’, found in so much of the folk music diligently collected by Kodály, is a prominent melodic feature.
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A solo flute and piccolo accompanied by pizzicato strings introduce the second dance (Allegretto moderato). The third dance (Allegro con moto, grazioso), introduced by the oboe, is eventually overwhelmed by the return of the melancholic first theme, which in turn is interrupted by a fierce syncopated
dance (Allegro) with the whole orchestra in full cry. Two dances quickly follow, with melodies reminiscent of Kodály’s opera Háry János. There are grace-noted bassoons, horns swinging across the bar line and a dotted rhythm returning in the clarinet (Poco meno mosso). This mildly comic excursion sets up a frantic finale, beginning with the muted insistence of the timpani (Allegro vivace). The first brooding melody returns but is thrust aside in the final bars where the dance is at an end: exhilarating, exhausting! Abridged from a note by David Vivian Russell Symphony Australia © 2000 The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed the Dances of Galánta on 10–11 September 1951 under conductor Tibor Paul, and most recently in August 2018 with Benjamin Northey.
ÉDOUARD LALO
(1823–1892)
Cello Concerto in D minor Prelude (Lento – Allegro maestoso) Intermezzo (Andantino con moto – Allegro presto) Introduction (Andante) – Allegro vivace Harriet Krijgh cello Writing in 1903, Claude Debussy looked back on an incident in his youth when, at a performance of music by Lalo, he ‘showed a noisy but forgivable enthusiasm’ and was escorted out of the theatre. Debussy loved to remember the incident, explaining that time had not diminished his admiration for Lalo at all. Sadly, posterity has not been so kind to Lalo, who these days is most often represented on concert programs by his Symphonie espagnole and sometimes the overture to his opera Le Roi d’Ys that tells of the submerged city of Breton legend. During Lalo’s lifetime the opera was his greatest, if belated, success, but he was
lyrical second subject, which is often accompanied by winds in simple hymnlike harmony.
Lalo was descended from a Spanish family that settled in the Netherlands in the 16th century, and was born in Lille. He studied violin and cello, first at the Lille Conservatoire, and then, despite his military father’s strong opposition, in Paris, where he supported himself by teaching and as a freelance player. In the 1850s he was founding member (as violist) of the Armingaud Quartet, which had been formed to popularise the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, then little known in Paris. Not surprisingly, Lalo’s practical knowledge of string instruments makes his concertos for violin (Symphonie espagnole and one other, both for the great virtuoso Sarasate) and cello (composed in 1877 for Adolphe Fischer) idiomatic works of great mastery.
The second movement continues the use of structural contrast, with alternating episodes of traditional lyrical slow-movement and faster, dance-like scherzo material. It is in the lyrical section that the music reaches a majestic climax, but the movement concludes with a diaphanous reprise of the faster music.
Lalo was once accused of trying to write like Wagner (and protested that it was hard enough writing like himself!), but Debussy would probably not have maintained his affection for the music had that been true. In the Cello Concerto, in particular, Lalo explores a kind of Romantic neo-classicism, as did colleagues like César Franck and Camille Saint-Saëns, or even Brahms (whose music Lalo hated). The piece is in three substantial movements. The first begins with a slow-ish introduction with a mildly louring orchestral theme in unison that is illuminated by terse flashes of brass and wind colour. (A feature of Lalo’s orchestration is that it never overwhelms the cello: the soloist speaks against quiet backgrounds, with powerful tutti effects used as punctuation.) The soloist enters soon after, offering ruminative glimpses of the themes to come; the subsequent Allegro pits a strongly profiled first theme against a more
SCHEHERAZADE | 13–16 March
also highly respected for his instrumental music, especially with the premieres of several concertos in the 1870s.
Like the first movement, the finale begins with a ruminative introduction, for solo cello, before a rondo whose main material gives ample opportunity for the soloist to shine. Again, there are powerful full-orchestral effects but these throw the sparsely accompanied cello episodes into high relief. © Gordon Kerry 2016 The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed Lalo’s Cello Concerto on 4 September 1982 with conductor Leif Segerstam and soloist Stephen Finnerty, and most recently on 29 July 1995 with Michael Halász and Helen Byrne.
NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV
(1844–1908)
Scheherazade – Symphonic Suite, Op.35 Largo e maestoso – Lento – Allegro non troppo (The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship) Lento (The Story of the Kalender Prince) Andantino quasi allegretto (The Young Prince and the Young Princess) Allegro molto – Vivo – Allegro non troppo e maestoso – Lento (Festival at Baghdad – The Sea – The Ship Goes to Pieces on a Rock Surmounted by a Bronze Warrior – Conclusion) Rimsky-Korsakov conceived the idea of a symphonic suite based on episodes from Scheherazade in the middle of winter 1887–88, while he and Glazunov
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SCHEHERAZADE | 13–16 March
were engrossed in the completion of Borodin’s unfinished opera Prince Igor. The following summer he completed the suite – ‘a kaleidoscope of fairytale images and designs of Oriental character’. ‘All I had desired,’ he later wrote in My Musical Life, ‘was that the hearer, if he liked my piece as symphonic music, should carry away the impression that it is beyond doubt an Oriental narrative describing a motley succession of fantastic happenings and not merely four pieces played one after the other and composed on the basis of themes common to all the four movements. Why then, if that be so, does my suite bear the name, precisely, of Scheherazade? Because this name and the title The Arabian Nights connote in everybody’s mind the East and fairytale wonders; besides, certain details of the musical exposition hint at the fact that all of these are various tales of some one person (who happens to be Scheherazade) entertaining there with her stern husband.’ Rimsky-Korsakov considered Scheherazade one of those works in which ‘my orchestration had reached a considerable degree of virtuosity and bright sonority without Wagner’s influence, within the limits of the usual make-up of Glinka’s orchestra’. So formidable is his instinct, that with surprisingly modest forces (adding to the traditional orchestra only piccolo, cor anglais, harp and percussion) Rimsky-Korsakov can convince his listeners of the raging of a storm at
sea, the exuberance of a festival, and the exotic colour of the Orient. As if repeating in music Scheherazade’s feat of narrative woven from poetry and folk tales, Rimsky-Korsakov drew on isolated episodes from The Thousand and One Nights for his suite. At first he gave the four movements titles drawn from these narratives. But he soon withdrew the headings, which, he said, were intended to ‘direct but slightly the listener’s fancy on the path which my own imagination had travelled, and to leave more minute and particular conceptions to the will and mood of each’. According to the composer, it is futile to seek in Scheherazade leading motifs that are consistently linked with the same poetic ideas and conceptions. Instead, these apparent leitmotifs were ‘nothing but purely musical material… for symphonic development’. The motifs unify all the movements of the suite, appearing in different musical guises so that the ‘themes correspond each time to different images, actions and pictures’. The ominous octaves representing the stern Sultan in the opening, for example, appear in the tale of the Kalender Prince, although Shahriyar plays no part in that narrative. And the muted fanfare of the second movement returns in the otherwise unconnected depiction of the foundering ship. Rimsky-Korsakov did admit, however, that one of his motifs was quite specific, attached not to any of the stories, but
The Sultan Shahriyar, convinced of the duplicity and infidelity of all women, had vowed to slay each of his wives after the first night. The Sultana Scheherazade, however, saved her life by the expedient of recounting to the Sultan a succession of tales over a period of a thousand and one nights. Overcome by curiosity, the Sultan postponed from day to day the execution of his wife, and ended by renouncing altogether his sanguinary resolution. 36
SCHEHERAZADE | 13–16 March
to the storyteller: ‘The unifying thread consisted of the brief introductions to the first, second and fourth movements and the intermezzo in movement three, written for violin solo and delineating Scheherazade herself as telling her wondrous tales to the stern Sultan.’ It is this idea – an intricately winding violin theme supported only by the harp – which soothes the thunderous opening and embarks upon the first tale: the sea and Sinbad’s ship. For Rimsky-Korsakov, who was synaesthesic, the choice of E major for the billowing cello figures can have been no accident: his ears ‘saw’ it as dark blue. A cajoling melody played by solo bassoon represents a Kalender (or ‘beggar’) Prince in the second movement. The similarity between the two main themes of the third movement (for violin and then flute and clarinet) suggests that the Young Prince and Princess are perfectly matched in temperament and character. An agitated transformation of the Sultan’s theme, in dialogue with Scheherazade’s theme, prefaces the final tale. The fourth movement combines the Festival in Baghdad and the tale of the shipwreck, described by one writer as a ‘confused dream of oriental splendour and terror’. Triangle and tambourines accompany the lively cross-rhythms of the carnival; and the mood builds in intensity before all is swamped by the return of the sea theme from the first movement. But after the fury of the shipwreck, it is Scheherazade who has the last word. Her spinning violin solo emerges in gentle triumph over the Sultan’s bloodthirsty resolution. Yvonne Frindle ©1998/2009 The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade on 30 August 1939 with conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, and most recently in February 2017 with Maxim Vengerov.
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ARTIST CHAIR BENEFACTORS Cybec Assistant Conductor Chair Nicholas Bochner The Cybec Foundation Concertmaster Chair Sophie Rowell The Ullmer Family Foundation 2020 Soloist in Residence Nicola Benedetti CBE is supported by Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO Young Composer in Residence Jordan Moore The Cybec Foundation
PROGRAM BENEFACTORS Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers Program The Cybec Foundation East meets West Supported by the Li Family Trust Meet the Orchestra Made possible by The Ullmer Family Foundation MSO Audience Access Crown Resorts Foundation, Packer Family Foundation MSO Building Capacity Gandel Philanthropy (Director of Philanthropy) Di Jameson (External Relations Manager)
MSO Education Supported by Mrs Margaret Ross AM and Dr Ian Ross MSO International Touring Supported by Harold Mitchell AC, The Ullmer Family Foundation, The Pratt Foundation MSO Regional Touring Creative Victoria, Freemasons Foundation Victoria, Robert Salzer Foundation, Perpetual Foundation – Alan (AGL) Shaw Endowment The Pizzicato Effect (Anonymous), The Marian and E.H. Flack Trust, Scobie and Claire Mackinnon Trust, Supported by the Hume City Council’s Community Grants Program Sidney Myer Free Concerts Supported by the Sidney Myer MSO Trust Fund and the University of Melbourne Musical Acknowledgment of Countries Supported by the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust and the Commonwealth Government through the Australian National Commission for UNESCO
Supporters
Supporters
PLATINUM PATRONS $100,000+ Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO John Gandel AC and Pauline Gandel AC The Gross Foundation Di Jameson David Li AM and Angela Li MS Newman Family Foundation The Pratt Foundation Lady Potter AC CMRI Ullmer Family Foundation Anonymous (1)
VIRTUOSO PATRONS $50,000+ Harold Mitchell AC
IMPRESARIO PATRONS $20,000+ Michael Aquilina Mimie MacLaren John and Lois McKay Maria Solà Anonymous (1)
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Supporters
MAESTRO PATRONS $10,000+ Margaret Billson and the late Ted Billson Mitchell Chipman Tim and Lyn Edward Danny Gorog and Lindy Susskind Robert & Jan Green Hilary Hall, in memory of Wilma Collie Nereda Hanlon and Michael Hanlon AM The Hogan Family Foundation Peter Hunt AM and Tania de Jong AM Suzanne Kirkham David Krasnostein AM and Pat Stragalinos Ian and Jeannie Paterson Elizabeth Proust AO Xijian Ren and Qian Li Glenn Sedgwick Gai and David Taylor Harry and Michelle Wong Anonymous (1)
PRINCIPAL PATRONS $5,000+
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Christine and Mark Armour Barbara Bell, in memory of Elsa Bell Stephen and Caroline Brain Prof Ian Brighthope May and James Chen John and Lyn Coppock The Cuming Bequest Wendy Dimmick Andrew Dudgeon AM Jaan Enden Mr Bill Fleming John and Diana Frew Susan Fry and Don Fry AO Sophie Galaise and Clarence Fraser Geelong Friends of the MSO R Goldberg and Family Leon Goldman Colin Golvan AM QC and Dr Deborah Golvan Jennifer Gorog HMA Foundation Louis Hamon OAM Hans and Petra Henkell Hartmut and Ruth Hofmann Doug Hooley Jenny and Peter Hordern
Dr Alastair Jackson AM Rosemary and James Jacoby Dr Elizabeth A Lewis AM Norman Lewis, in memory of Dr Phyllis Lewis Peter Lovell Mr Douglas and Mrs Rosemary Meagher Marie Morton FRSA Anne Neil Dr Paul Nisselle AM The Rosemary Norman Foundation Ken Ong, in memory of Lin Ong Jim and Fran Pfeiffer Dr Rosemary Ayton and Dr Sam Ricketson Jeffrey Sher QC and Diana Sher OAM Helen Silver AO and Harrison Young Brian Snape AM and the late Diana Snape Tasco Petroleum The Hon. Michael Watt QC and Cecilie Hall Drs Rhyl Wade and Clem Gruen Lyn Williams AM Jason Yeap OAM – Mering Management Corporation Sophia Yong-Tang Anonymous (5)
ASSOCIATE PATRONS $2,500+ Marlyn and Peter Bancroft OAM Dandolo Partners Will and Dorothy Bailey Bequest Anne Bowden Bill Bowness Julia and Jim Breen Patricia Brockman Roger and Coll Buckle Jill and Christopher Buckley Lynne Burgess Oliver Carton Richard and Janet Chauvel Ann Darby, in memory of Leslie J. Darby Natasha Davies, for the Trikojus Education Fund Merrowyn Deacon Sandra Dent Peter and Leila Doyle Lisa Dwyer and Dr Ian Dickson AM Dr Helen M Ferguson Elizabeth Foster
PLAYER PATRONS $1,000+ David and Cindy Abbey Dr Sally Adams Mary Armour Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society Robbie Barker Adrienne Basser Janice Bate and the late Prof Weston Bate Janet H Bell
David Blackwell OAM John and Sally Bourne Michael F Boyt Dr John Brookes Nigel and Sheena Broughton Stuart Brown Suzie Brown OAM and Harvey Brown Shane Buggle Dr Lynda Campbell John Carroll Andrew Crockett AM and Pamela Crockett Panch Das and Laurel Young-Das Mary and Frederick Davidson AM Caroline Davies W and A Deane Rick and Sue Deering John and Anne Duncan Jane Edmanson OAM Doug Evans Grant Fisher and Helen Bird Applebay Pty Ltd David Frenkiel and Esther Frenkiel OAM David Gibbs and Susie O’Neill Janette Gill Mary and Don Glue Greta Goldblatt and the late Merwyn Goldblatt George Golvan QC and Naomi Golvan Dr Marged Goode Prof Denise Grocke AO Jennifer Gross Max Gulbin Dr Sandra Hacker AO and Mr Ian Kennedy AM Jean Hadges Paula Hansky OAM Amir Harel and Dr Judy Carman Tilda and Brian Haughney Geoff Hayes Anna and John Holdsworth Penelope Hughes Geoff and Denise Illing Peter Jaffe and Judy Gold Basil and Rita Jenkins Dorothy Karpin Merv Keehn and Sue Harlow Dr Anne Kennedy
Supporters
Barry Fradkin OAM and Dr Pam Fradkin Alex and Liz Furman Dina and Ron Goldschlager Louise Gourlay OAM Susan and Gary Hearst Margaret Jackson AC Jenkins Family Foundation John Jones Andrew Johnston Irene Kearsey and Michael Ridley The Ilma Kelson Music Foundation Bryan Lawrence John and Margaret Mason H E McKenzie Allan and Evelyn McLaren Patricia Nilsson Bruce Parncutt AO Alan and Dorothy Pattison Sue and Barry Peake Mrs W Peart Christine Peirson and the late Graham Peirson Julie and Ian Reid Ralph and Ruth Renard Peter and Carolyn Rendit S M Richards AM and M R Richards Joan P Robinson and Christopher Robinson Tom and Elizabeth Romanowski Mark and Jan Schapper Dr Norman and Dr Sue Sonenberg Dr Michael Soon Jennifer Steinicke Peter J Stirling Jenny Tatchell Frank Tisher OAM and Dr Miriam Tisher Nic and Ann Willcock Peter and Susan Yates Richard Ye Anonymous (5)
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Supporters 42
Julie and Simon Kessel KCL Law Kerry Landman Diedrie Lazarus Dr Anne Lierse Dr Susan Linton Andrew Lockwood Elizabeth H Loftus Chris and Anna Long June and Simon Lubansky The Hon Ian Macphee AO and Mrs Julie Macphee Eleanor & Phillip Mancini Annette Maluish In memory of Leigh Masel Wayne McDonald and Kay Schroer Lesley McMullin Foundation Ruth Maxwell Don and Anne Meadows new U Mildura Wayne and Penny Morgan Sir Gustav Nossal AC CBE and Lady Nossal Laurence O’Keefe and Christopher James Kerryn Pratchett Peter Priest Treena Quarin Eli Raskin Raspin Family Trust Tony and Elizabeth Rayward Cathy and Peter Rogers Andrew and Judy Rogers Peter Rose and Christopher Menz Marie Rowland Liliane Rusek and Alexander Ushakoff Elisabeth and Doug Scott Martin and Susan Shirley Penny Shore John E Smith Dr Sam Smorgon AO and Mrs Minnie Smorgon Lady Southey AC Starkey Foundation Geoff and Judy Steinicke Dr Peter Strickland Pamela Swansson Stephanie Tanuwidjaja Tara, Tessa, Melinda and Terence Ann and Larry Turner Mary Valentine AO
The Hon. Rosemary Varty Leon and Sandra Velik Sue Walker AM Elaine Walters OAM and Gregory Walters The Rev Noel Whale Edward and Paddy White Marian and Terry Wills Cooke OAM Richard Withers Lorraine Woolley Jeffrey and Shirley Zajac Anonymous (21)
MSO PATRON COMMISSIONS Snare Drum Award test piece 2019 Commissioned by Tim and Lyn Edward
CONDUCTOR’S CIRCLE Current Conductor’s Circle Members Jenny Anderson David Angelovich G C Bawden and L de Kievit Lesley Bawden Joyce Bown Mrs Jenny Brukner and the late Mr John Brukner Ken Bullen Peter A Caldwell Luci and Ron Chambers Beryl Dean Sandra Dent Lyn Edward Alan Egan JP Gunta Eglite Mr Derek Grantham Marguerite Garnon-Williams Drs Clem Gruen and Rhyl Wade Louis Hamon OAM Carol Hay Graham Hogarth Rod Home Tony Howe Laurence O’Keefe and Christopher James Audrey M Jenkins John Jones George and Grace Kass Mrs Sylvia Lavelle Pauline and David Lawton Cameron Mowat
EAST MEETS WEST PROGRAM PARTNERS Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China Li Family Trust Noah Holdings Australia Post WeXchange Hengyi Asian Executive Fitzroys Laurel International Future Kids Executive Wealth Circle Asia Society Chin Communications LRR Family Trust Mr Wanghua Chu and Dr Shirley Chu David and Dominique Yu Lake Cooper Estate
Supporters
David Orr Matthew O’Sullivan Rosia Pasteur Elizabeth Proust AO Penny Rawlins Joan P Robinson Neil Roussac Anne Roussac-Hoyne Suzette Sherazee Michael Ryan and Wendy Mead Anne Kieni-Serpell and Andrew Serpell Jennifer Shepherd Profs. Gabriela and George Stephenson Pamela Swansson Lillian Tarry Dr Cherilyn Tillman Mr and Mrs R P Trebilcock Michael Ullmer AO The Hon. Rosemary Varty Mr Tam Vu Marian and Terry Wills Cooke OAM Mark Young Anonymous (29) The MSO gratefully acknowledges the support of the following Estates: Angela Beagley Neilma Gantner The Hon Dr Alan Goldberg AO QC Gwen Hunt Audrey Jenkins Joan Jones Pauline Marie Johnston C P Kemp Peter Forbes MacLaren Joan Winsome Maslen Lorraine Maxine Meldrum Prof Andrew McCredie Miss Sheila Scotter AM MBE Marion A I H M Spence Molly Stephens Jennifer May Teague Albert Henry Ullin Jean Tweedie Herta and Fred B Vogel Dorothy Wood
HONORARY APPOINTMENTS Life Members Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO John Gandel AC and Pauline Gandel AC Sir Elton John CBE Harold Mitchell AC Lady Potter AC CMRI Mrs Jeanne Pratt AC Artistic Ambassador Tan Dun Artistic Ambassador Geoffrey Rush AC The MSO honours the memory of John Brockman OAM Life Member The Honourable Alan Goldberg AO QC Life Member Roger Riordan AM Life Member Ila Vanrenen Life Member
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Supporters
MSO BOARD Chairman Michael Ullmer AO Deputy Chairman David Li AM Managing Director Sophie Galaise Board Directors Andrew Dudgeon AM Danny Gorog Lorraine Hook Margaret Jackson AC Di Jameson David Krasnostein AM Hyon-Ju Newman Glenn Sedgwick Helen Silver AO Company Secretary Oliver Carton
The MSO relies on your ongoing philanthropic support to sustain our artists, and support access, education, community engagement and more. We invite our suporters to get close to the MSO through a range of special events. The MSO welcomes your support at any level. Donations of $2 and over are tax deductible, and supporters are recognised as follows: $1,000+ (Player) $2,500+ (Associate) $5,000+ (Principal) $10,000+ (Maestro)
$20,000+ (Impresario) $50,000+ (Virtuoso) $100,000+ (Platinum)
The MSO Conductor’s Circle is our bequest program for members who have notified of a planned gift in their Will. Enquiries P (03) 8646 1551 | E philanthropy@mso.com.au 44
CRICOS: 00116K
THE BRAVERY TO BE YOU We teach students to think, feel and create in a way only they can. The Melbourne Conservatorium is the proud Premier Education and Research Partner of the MSO.
finearts-music.unimelb.edu.au
Home of the VCA and Conservatorium
Fine Arts and Music
CALENDAR
OF EVENTS
19–20 March
22 March
22 March
Beethoven and Mendelssohn
Melbourne Ensemble featuring Deborah Cheetham
Ben Folds: The Symphonic Tour
Melbourne Town Hall Costa Hall, Geelong
Plenary, MCEC
Iwaki Auditorium, ABC Southbank Centre
26–27 March
31 March
2 – 4 April
To Bach and Back: Sophie Rowell
Stand Up Symphony
SKYFALL™ in Concert
Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall
Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall
Melbourne Recital Centre Robert Blackwood Hall, Monash University
Tickets at mso.com.au
Thank you to our Partners Principal Partner
Government Partners
Premier Partners
Premier Education and Research Partner
Major Partners
Venue Partner
Program Development Partner
Education Partners
Supporting Partners
Quest Southbank
The CEO Institute
Ernst & Young
Bows for Strings
The Observership Program
Trusts and Foundations
Gall Family Foundation, The Archie & Hilda Graham Foundation, The Gross Foundation, Ern Hartley Foundation, The A.L. Lane Foundation, Scobie & Clare McKinnon Foundation, Sidney Myer MSO Trust Fund, MS Newman Family Foundation, The Thomas O’Toole Foundation, The Ray & Joyce Uebergang Foundation, The Ullmer Family Foundation
Media and Broadcast Partners
BEST SEAT in the house
As Principal Partner of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, we know the importance of delighting an audience. That’s why when you’re in Emirates First, you’ll enjoy the ultimate flying experience with fine dining at any time in your own private suite.
*Emirates First Class Private Suite pictured. For more information visit emirates.com/au, call 1300 303 777, or contact your local travel agent.
