Brahms Festival MSO 2026 Concert Program by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Brahms Festival

7–21 November 2026 Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne Melbourne Recital Centre

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COVER IMAGE: BRAHMS PORTRAIT COLOURISATION BY JECINCI

Contents Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Acknowledging Country Your MSO

Jaime Martín Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor Denis Kozhukhin piano

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Brahms Festival 1 (Piano Concerto No. 1 and Symphony No. 1) 7 November

Brahms Festival 2 (Piano Concerto No. 2 and Symphony No. 2) 12 November

Brahms Festival 3 (Symphonies No. 3 and No. 4) 14 November

Spring Gala: A German Requiem 19, 21 November

Chamber Music by Brahms 10 November

Supporters MSO Family Our Partners

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MSO 2026 Season

Acknowledging Country

The MSO has developed a musical Acknowledgement of Country with composer James Henry to pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land through the language of orchestral music. James Henry’s position is supported by Cybec Foundation

About Acknowledgement ‘I wrote this piece to reflect the complex journey toward the recognition of Aboriginal people as the traditional custodians of the land. It opens with rhythms inspired by the character of traditional songs found across many parts of Australia. From this texture, a melody emerges, representing the long period during which Aboriginal ownership of land was disregarded. The piece traces both progress and setbacks over time. ‘With the passing of the Victorian Statewide Treaty Bill, there is a renewed sense of optimism among many Aboriginal Victorians. Through Acknowledgement, I seek to convey a feeling of determination and resilience, reflecting the ongoing work to improve the quality of life for Aboriginal people, and to deepen respect for and awareness of our distinct culture, history and enduring connection to Country.’ James Henry 2025–2026 Cybec First Nations Composer in Residence

Brahms Festival

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is Australia’s preeminent orchestra, dedicated to creating meaningful experiences that transcend borders and connect communities. Through the shared language of music, the MSO performs to the highest standard, enriching lives and inspiring audiences across the globe. Woven into the cultural fabric of Victoria for 120 years, the MSO reaches five million people annually through performances and TV, radio and online broadcasts, as well as critically acclaimed recordings on its newly established label. Jaime Martín continues as the MSO Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor in 2026, leading a diverse and richly talented Artistic Family.

with the ABC, the MSO’s performances in the Classic 100 in Concert reach more than a million Australians each year. The first Australian orchestra to perform overseas (1965) and at Carnegie Hall (1970), the MSO has a proud history of international touring that has taken it to China, Indonesia, Singapore, Europe and the UK. Driven by the belief that music is a universal right, the MSO also brings music to all corners of the community, ensuring that everyone can share in the transformative power of music. Whether performing on world stages or in the heart of Victoria, the MSO transforms its mission and vision into reality – enriching lives and creating cultural connections through the unparalleled beauty of music.

The MSO regularly presents exceptional artists from across the globe in mainstage programming and special events, as well as reaching beyond the customary classical audience with contemporary collaborations. And through a partnership

MSO 2026 Season

Your MSO First Violins

Second Violins

Cellos

Natalie Chee Concertmaster Tair Khisambeev

Matthew Tomkins Principal

The Gross Foundation*

David Berlin Principal Rachael Tobin

Peter Edwards

Associate Principal

Assistant Concertmaster Assistant Principal

Sarah Curro

Dr Harry Imber *

Peter Fellin Deborah Goodall Karla Hanna

Dawna Wright and Peter Riedel*

Lorraine Hook

Jolene S Coultas*

Anne-Marie Johnson David Horowicz*

Kirstin Kenny Michelle Ruffolo

Diane and Stephen Fisher *

Anna Skálová Kathryn Taylor

Jos Jonker

Monica Curro

Assistant Principal Dr Mary-Jane Gething AO *

Mary Allison Emily Beauchamp Isin Cakmakçioglu Tiffany Cheng Val Dyke*

Freya Franzen Cong Gu Andrew Hall Robert Macindoe Philippa West Patrick Wong Cecilie Hall*

Roger Young

Shane Buggle and Rosie Callanan*

Violas Christopher Moore Principal Michael Grolid Associate Principal

Lauren Brigden Katharine Brockman Anthony Chataway

Associate Principal

Elina Faskhi

Assistant Principal

Joseph Kelly Rohan de Korte

Annie Neil in memory of Murray A Neil*

Rebecca Proietto

Peter T Kempen AM *

Ariel Volovelsky

Morris and Helen Margolis*

Caleb Wong

Rosemary and the late Douglas Meagher *

Michelle Wood

Andrew and Theresa Dyer *

Double Basses Jonathon Coco Principal Rohan Dasika

Acting Associate Principal

Benjamin Hanlon

Acting Assistant Principal

Aurora Henrich Suzanne Lee Stephen Newton

Peter T Kempen AM *

William Clark

Morris and Helen Margolis*

Aidan Filshie

Suzie and Edgar Myer *

Gabrielle Halloran Patricia Nilsson*

Jenny Khafagi

Margaret Billson and the late Ted Billson*

Fiona Sargeant

For a list of the musicians performing in each concert, please visit mso.com.au/musicians 6

Brahms Festival

Flutes

Horns

Timpani

Prudence Davis Principal

Nicolas Fleury Principal

Matthew Thomas Principal

Jean Hadges*

Margaret Jackson AC *

Wendy Clarke

Lucie Kysatis

Sarah Beggs

Saul Lewis Principal Third

Associate Principal

Piccolo Andrew Macleod Principal

Oboes Johannes Grosso Principal Ann Blackburn Margaret Billson and the late Ted Billson*

Cor Anglais Michael Pisani Principal

Clarinets David Thomas Principal Philip Arkinstall Associate Principal

Bass Clarinet Jonathan Craven Principal

Bassoons

Associate Principal Cecilie Hall and the late Hon. Michael Watt KC *

Abbey Edlin

Hanlon Foundation*

Josiah Kop

Kim and Robert Gearon*

Rachel Shaw

Tim and Lyn Edward*

Robert Cossom

Dr Clem Gruen and Dr Rhyl Wade*

Harp Yinuo Mu Principal

Trumpets Owen Morris Principal Shane Hooton Associate Principal Glenn Sedgwick*

Rosie Turner

MSO Academy

Dr John and Diana Frew *

Trombones José Milton Vieira Principal Richard Shirley

Bass Trombone

Elise Millman

Tuba

Natasha Thomas

Shaun Trubiano Principal John Arcaro

Gary McPherson*

Jack Schiller Principal Dr Harry Imber * Associate Principal

Percussion

Michael Szabo Principal Timothy Buzbee Principal

Jamie Miles viola Georgia White clarinet Hayden Burge bassoon Jacob Fenchel horn MSO Academy is supported by the Robert Salzer Foundation

Patricia Nilsson*

Contrabassoon Brock Imison Principal

* Position supported by † MSO guest musician MSO 2026 Season

PHOTO: KRISTIAN GEHRADTE

Jaime Martín conductor MSO CHIEF CONDUCTOR AND ARTISTIC ADVISOR In addition to his role with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Spanish conductor Jaime Martín is Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He was previously Chief Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland (2019–24), Principal Guest Conductor of the Spanish National Orchestra (2022–24) and Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of Gävle Symphony Orchestra (2013–22). Having spent many years as a highly regarded flautist, working with the most inspiring conductors of our time, Jaime turned to conducting full time in 2013 and soon became sought after at the highest level. He now regularly conducts major orchestras in the UK, Europe, US and Australasia. Recent highlights include an acclaimed BBC Proms appearance with BBC NOW and an 11-day Beethoven Festival with the MSO, conducting all nine symphonies. In 2025 he also led the MSO on a tour of the UK and Europe, the 8

orchestra’s first full international tour since 2019, with performances at the Edinburgh International Festival and BBC Proms. His extensive discography includes recordings with the Gävle Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra de Cadaqués, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as releases on the MSO’s recently launched label: Debussy & Strauss, featuring soprano Siobhan Stagg; Gustav Holst: The Planets with Deborah Cheetham Fraillon’s Earth; and two albums of Dvořák symphonies (Nos. 2, 5, 6 and 8). Jaime Martín is Artistic Advisor and former Artistic Director of the Santander Festival and a Fellow of the Royal College of Music, London, where he was a flute professor.

Brahms Festival

PHOTO: ALEX IORDACHE

Denis Kozhukhin piano Denis Kozhukhin returns to Melbourne, having made his MSO debut in 2024. In the 2026–27 season he also returns to the BBC Scottish, NHK and Indianapolis symphony orchestras, as well as the National Symphony Orchestra (DC), and will tour Asia, including concerts with regular recital partner Janine Jansen. Recent highlights include performances with the Oslo Philharmonic, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Camerata Salzburg, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. He also has given recitals at Carnegie Hall, Bozar Brussels, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, Kölner Philharmonie, Boulez Saal Berlin, Stockholm Konserthus, Philharmonie de Paris and Wigmore Hall, and has begun to appear as a conductor. Denis came to international attention after winning the 2010 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels at the age of 23, and quickly established a reputation as a MSO 2026 Season

pianist of exceptional technique, emotional depth and sophistication. Since then, he has performed with the London and Chicago symphony orchestras, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Staatskapelle Berlin. Also a sought-after recitalist and chamber musician, he regularly appears in prominent music festivals, including the BBC Proms. A Pentatone recording artist, his discography ranges from Haydn to Gershwin, and includes recordings of Mendelssohn Songs without Words and Brahms Ballades and Fantasies. Denis Kozhukhin began studying piano with his mother before attending the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid, where he studied with Dmitri Bashkirov and Claudio Martinez-Mehner. He further honed his skills at the Lake Como Piano Academy, receiving advice from pianists such as Fou Ts’ong, Stanislav Ioudenitch, Peter Frankl, Boris Berman, Charles Rosen, and Andreas Staier, before completing his studies with Kirill Gerstein in Stuttgart. 9

Season 2027 Packages on sale now mso.com.au/2027

Brahms Festival 1 Saturday 7 November at 7:30pm Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Artists Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Jaime Martín conductor Denis Kozhukhin piano

Program Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 [44’] interval

Brahms Symphony No. 1 [45’] 11

Artist biographies can be found on pages 8–9

Pre-concert talk: Learn more about the music with Cybec Young Composer in Residence Andrew Aronowicz at 6:45pm in the Stalls Foyer (Level 2) at Hamer Hall

BRAHMS FESTIVAL 1 | 7 November

CONCERT EVENTS

Running time: 2 hours, including a 20-minute interval. Timings listed are approximate. MSO 2026 Season

PHOTO: BRAHMS-INSTITUT, LÜBECK

About the music Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)

Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15 Maestoso Adagio Rondo (Allegro non troppo) Denis Kozhukhin piano When Brahms’ First Piano Concerto appeared in January 1859, it shocked traditionalists in its scale and ferocity, but also because it blurred the distinction between symphony and concerto, and because of suspicions that it contained a ‘program’ or narrative. The premiere in Hannover was received with polite confusion, one critic finding it ‘dry and difficult to understand’, but the performance in Leipzig a day or two later engendered frank hostility, and it is fair to say that Brahms was still less than confident in handling orchestration. The work had grown out of the Sonata for two pianos that Brahms worked on in the mid-1850s and which Robert and Clara Schumann encouraged him to orchestrate. Not surprisingly, Brahms, still in his early 20s, was influenced by the prevailing currents of Romanticism and his music from this time contains more than its share of Sturm und Drang (storm and stress), which was carried over into the Concerto. Thanks partly to the violinist Joseph Joachim, though, a story grew up that the first movement of the Concerto enacted and registered Brahms’ reaction to Robert

Schumann’s attempt to commit suicide by flinging himself into the Rhine at Düsseldorf. Be that as it may, the concerto has one of the most excoriating openings of any work – by Brahms or anyone else – with its powerful pedal note D that only just supports a massive superstructure of unstable harmony and arresting rhetorical motifs. This provides an introduction of some minutes’ duration – as in Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, there is the danger that listeners will forget they are to hear a piano concerto – before the appearance of the soloist who, as Karl Geiringer has noted, is repeatedly given music ‘only remotely, if at all, connected to the material of the orchestral part’. Geiringer goes on to point out how this may derive from Brahms’ study of Baroque

The orchestral opening of PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1, with its rumbling kettle drums, has been likened to an image of young Brahms hurling a thunderbolt. Thereafter, his writing for piano is robust and athletic. Brahms and Clara Schumann came to depend closely on each other through the crisis of Robert Schumann’s madness and death. Brahms wrote to her: ‘I am painting a lovely portrait of you. It is to be the Adagio.’ Then the piano presents the finale’s vigorous ‘Hungarian’-style theme, which recurs and is transformed throughout, before it leads into a luminous conclusion. 12

Brahms Festival

music, but the effect here is of titanic, and arch-Romantic, struggle between angst and brilliance. The original two-piano sonata followed the first movement with a minor-key scherzo that Brahms omitted from the Concerto, though he did, some years later, use it as the basis for the sombre dance-like second movement of his German Requiem, ‘Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras’ (For all flesh is as grass).

structures of Beethoven’s finale to shape his own. Brahms was wounded by the negative response to the piece, though aware of the role his orchestral inexperience played in its reception. It would be another 15 years before the next try. Gordon Kerry © 2015

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68

The remainder of the Concerto is all new material, and the manuscript of the Adagio originally bore the inscription ‘Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini’ (Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord); as Charles Rosen has noted, ‘the juncture of religion and music’ affects ‘even the piano concertos of Brahms’. The inscription was not included in the published score, but, writing to Clara Schumann about it in 1856, Brahms said, ‘I am also painting a lovely portrait of you; it is to be the adagio.’ This suggests that the ‘blessed person’ is Clara, and the ‘Lord’ is Robert (whom Brahms occasionally referred to jokingly as ‘Mynheer Domine’) and his legacy. This is no less ‘Romantic’ than the opening movement, though of a quite different tenor and mood. The piano, perhaps representing Clara, has a more conventionally prominent role, though the movement is by no means a vehicle for bravura display.

Brahms’ first symphony was a long time coming, largely as a result of his paralysing stage-fright when contemplating genres in which the ‘giants’ – especially Beethoven – had produced their masterpieces. That is not to say that Brahms had not wanted to compose symphonies, and in the early 1850s he was persuaded by Robert and Clara Schumann to turn a D minor sonata for two pianos into such a work. (The results have not survived; the first movement would take shape as his first piano concerto.) It was at this time, though, that he began making sketches for what would, eventually, become the first movement of his Symphony No. 1.

If there is an accidental similarity to Beethoven’s Third Concerto at the outset, there is a more conscious one in the third movement, where Brahms seems to have used the form and proportions, and even, according to Jan Swafford, certain phrase

In 1862, Clara Schumann was surprised to receive a package from Brahms containing ‘the first movement of a symphony’. She wrote to Joseph Joachim that it was ‘rather strong … but full of wonderful beauties’ and noted that ‘the themes are

Un poco sostenuto – Allegro Andante sostenuto Un poco allegretto e grazioso Adagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio

By the time he was 43, Brahms was already famous and his FIRST SYMPHONY was much-awaited. Appropriately, it is monumental in character and proportions, at least in its outer movements. The inner movements (one not quite a slow movement, the other not quite a scherzo) wouldn’t seem out of place in the lighter context of a serenade, especially in the second movement when the concertmaster is given a solo. In the fourth movement, Brahms turns around to face the ‘giant’ (Beethoven) with a magnificent finale that celebrates the symphonic possibilities of the orchestra. MSO 2026 Season

treated with a mastery that is becoming more and more characteristic of him’. Despite the enthusiasm of such colleagues, however, the movement (at this stage it was only the Allegro section) remained an unfinished torso for well over a decade. The Symphony was only completed and first performed in 1876 – the same year as the first production of Wagner’s completed Ring cycle. Its impact was such that conductor Hans von Bülow referred to it as ‘the Tenth’, alluding to Beethoven. It is certainly Beethovenian in scale, and follows the blueprint of such works as Beethoven’s Third, Fifth and Ninth symphonies in tracing an epic journey from a state of turbulent conflict to one of triumphant resolution. Clara Schumann may have found the ideas in the 1862 sketch ‘strong’, but they were immeasurably strengthened when Brahms added the overwhelming slow introduction in which, over the implacable pounding of the timpani, the full orchestra sounds a harmony that threatens to come apart under the force of its internal tension. That tension is not resolved by a contrasting chirpy Allegro: the remainder of the movement continues to depict a compelling, but abstract, drama of musical processes in Brahms’ now fully formed orchestral sound. The Andante shows an equally Brahmsian, if completely different, sound world. After the confused alarms of the previous movement, the rhetoric is much more subdued, and the scoring lighter, allowing for brief, sylvan wind solos and passages of lush string writing. But the retreat from the Romantic Sturm und Drang of the previous movement is by no means complete, and the music is occasionally taken over in an impassioned outburst. The closing section of the movement, though, is quietly gleaming, with a violin solo and the soft wind chords with which Brahms often concludes a piece. Brahms scholar Karl Geiringer writes that the

Allegretto (not a conventional scherzo) ‘seems to smile through its tears’, though it too has moments of frank emotionalism. Conductor Hermann Levi (1839–1900) felt the inner movements were serenade-like, but as such they provide respite between the two, titanic outer movements. Following the Beethovenian model meant that Brahms had to create a finale that balanced if not outweighed the opening movement. His solution was essentially that of Beethoven’s in the finale of the Ninth Symphony – though not, of course, using voices: both begin with seemingly unrelated passages that return to a state of uncertainty and move through various musical fields before discovering the thematic centre of the piece. Brahms begins with a sombre Adagio introduction that, like the first movement’s, features harmony that moves almost painfully from chord to nearby chord. This gives rise to fragmentary, more troubled music, which in turn is interrupted by a long horn melody; this tune had personal significance for Brahms, in that he wrote it out, with some home-made verse, on a card sent to Clara Schumann when they were estranged. It is joined by the trombones (making their first appearance in the work), that suggests a sudden view of a spacious landscape. Only now does Brahms bring in his theme, a piece of pure and simple diatonicism. Brahms, who never suffered fools, would snap at people who noted the similarity of the theme to Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ tune: ‘Any jackass can see that!’ And of course it may be a Beethovenian tune but its scoring, and the development to which it is subjected, are purely and masterfully Brahmsian. Gordon Kerry © 2015

Brahms Festival

Brahms Festival 2 Thursday 12 November at 7:30pm Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Artists Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Jaime Martín conductor Denis Kozhukhin piano

Program Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 [48’] interval

Brahms Symphony No. 2 [46’]

Artist biographies can be found on pages 8–9

Pre-concert talk: Learn more about the music with Cybec Young Composer in Residence Andrew Aronowicz at 6:45pm in the Stalls Foyer (Level 2) at Hamer Hall

BRAHMS FESTIVAL 2 | 12 November

CONCERT EVENTS

Running time: 2 hours and 10 minutes, including a 20-minute interval. Timings listed are approximate. MSO 2026 Season

About the music Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)

Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 83 Allegro non troppo Allegro appassionato Andante Allegretto grazioso – Un poco più presto Denis Kozhukhin piano I beg you to forgive my delay in thanking you for so kindly sending me your concerto. Frankly speaking, at the first reading this work seemed to me a little grey in tone; I have, however, gradually come to understand it. It possesses the pregnant character of a distinguished work of art, in which thought and feeling move in noble harmony. So Liszt wrote to Brahms after hearing, and then studying the score of, the latter’s Second Piano Concerto. The wording suggests he was not entirely convinced – and he certainly never played a note of Brahms’ music in public – but his choice of ‘pregnant’ as a description is interesting, carrying connotations both of something unfinished and of over-abundance. There is, of course, nothing unfinished about this piece, but its magnitude, vast scale, often solid scoring and fearsomely difficult though never bravura piano writing is evidence of great generosity.

In 1881 Brahms had written to his friend and musical confidante Elisabeth von Herzogenberg that he was writing a ‘tiny, tiny piano concerto with a tiny, tiny wisp of a scherzo’. What he produced, however, is one of the most expansive works in the genre; not only are the movements all of considerable weight and duration, there are four of them – the ‘tiny scherzo’ probably based on the one that Brahms had discarded while writing his Violin Concerto. The piece helped forge a relationship with conductor Hans von Bülow, who had defected from the Wagner camp when the latter began an affair with Bülow’s wife, Liszt’s daughter Cosima. Bülow offered to play through the work with his excellently trained orchestra at Meiningen, and soon became one of Brahms’ principal interpreters. Opening a massive work with a solo horn call might have reminded some of Brahms’ listeners of the romantic forest world of Weber’s Oberon or Freischütz. Elaborating that with an improvisatory piano flourish certainly recalls the Beethoven of his Fourth Piano Concerto – very unclassical, but a very dramatic gambit. As the movement gets under way, though, it becomes clear that this is a work of great rigour, and while the piano part is as demanding as they come, it forms part of a symphonic musical argument. Despite its commanding rhetoric, the work never hectors, and the transformation of the opening theme, especially its first, rising three-note motif at the climax of the first movement, is magical, and rather Lisztian.

When Brahms’ PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 appeared in 1881, it was instantly recognised as the most substantial and adventurous work of its kind since Beethoven. Moreover, Brahms – though considered by many to be a traditionalist conservative – decisively broke with convention. Had he wanted merely to emulate Beethoven, his new concerto would have consisted of just the first, third and final movements. But, thinking outside the box, he went on to insert a symphony-like scherzo in second position. ‘Hey presto,’ as one of his smart-aleck friends put it, ‘a symphony, with piano accompaniment!’ 16

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The ‘tiny’ minor-key scherzo demonstrates the mature Brahms’ mastery of metrical displacement, creating the infectious, initial dance rhythm that can be light and careless or, when fully scored as later in the movement, carry hints of passion and tragedy, all of which is offset by the optimistic major-key trio. The endless, beautiful cello solo in the third movement almost makes us forget that we are listening to a piano concerto; the cello gathers a warm orchestral tutti to itself, that dies away with Brahms’ trademark sound of soft, high woodwinds as the piano self-effacingly enters. The tone remains lyrical throughout the movement, even when indulging in almost Tchaikovskian excesses, and the plangent cello returns later in the movement to support gently ornamental piano figures. Brahms’ music frequently transforms thematic material from the outside world. The rhythms of the scherzo and the fourth movement opening are cases in point. The first theme of the finale could almost be a relative of the second movement of Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony but is followed in abrupt succession by Brahms at his most ‘Hungarian’. Brahms first came across such music in Hamburg when he was a teenage tavern pianist, and in teaming up with Hungarian violinists like Eduard Reményi and Joseph Joachim Brahms played ‘ethnic’ music in concerts. This, of course, was never the peasant folk music as collected by Bartók decades later, but a vernacular transformation of the manners of the music of the Roma and Sinti peoples (who Brahms would have

known as ‘gypsies’). Already popular in European café society, these musical manners suffuse Brahms’ work. Fittingly, the Second Concerto received its official premiere in Budapest in 1881, and then enjoyed a triumphant series of performances in German, Swiss and Dutch cities. Brahms was at the height of his success. Gordon Kerry © 2015

Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 Allegro non troppo Adagio non troppo Allegretto grazioso (Quasi andantino) – Presto ma non assai Allegro con spirito Defending Brahms against a common charge, American composer Charles Ives observed that: to think hard and deeply and say what is thought, regardless of consequences, may produce a first impression either of great translucence or of great muddiness, but in the latter there may be hidden possibilities… The mud may be a form of sincerity. In fact, Brahms’ music sounds ‘muddy’ only where we move too far from the original disposition of the orchestra he used. Brahms wrote for a modest band of two of each wind and brass instrument (using the latter sparingly), though with four horns and a matching compliment of strings. He uses forceful orchestral effects to be sure, but if ever proof were needed that Brahms’ orchestration could be of the

Brahms’ First Symphony was dubbed ‘the Tenth’ and his Third ‘Brahms’ Eroica’ – both references to Beethoven. In another reference, his SECOND SYMPHONY came to be known as ‘Brahms’ Pastoral’. This annoyed Brahms, but it was hardly surprising: the Second is the most melodic of his symphonies, and its lyrical and radiant character assured its place as the most popular during his lifetime. But it has a darker side as well, which Brahms half-joked about, saying the music should be printed with a black border. This can be heard, for example, in the way he introduces the sombre sounds of timpani and trombones early in the first movement. MSO 2026 Season

most refined, we need go no further than the Second Symphony. Brahms took a long time to produce his First Symphony, and to have it described as ‘the Tenth’ (as conductor Hans von Bülow called it, alluding to Beethoven) might well have been a recipe for crippling stage fright; nonetheless the Second followed almost immediately. The relationship between the two offered another irresistible comparison with Beethoven, one which the great British writer Donald Tovey and others have seized upon: in the case of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies and Brahms’ First and Second we have pairs of works where the first is a strenuous, dramatic, maybe even tragic, work in the key of C minor whose trajectory traces a metaphorical journey from darkness to light, whereas the second is a contrastingly serene, happy, Apollonian work in a major key with certain elements that we might describe as pastoral. Brahms sneered at such suggestions (which is not to say they have no merit), and it is true that his orchestration in this work relies more than usually heavily on wind solos – particularly the bucolic sounds of oboe and horn, and that in the third movement, in particular, there is that reliance on vernacular music which reminds us of the peasants’ merry-making in Beethoven’s Sixth. But as Brahms well knew, ‘et in Arcadia ego’: he joked to his publisher that this was the saddest piece he had ever written, and it is significant that the symphony begins, and ends, with the sound of trombones, instruments only dragged out of the church by Mozart (in Don Giovanni) and into the concert hall by Beethoven. The scoring at the start is, naturally, ‘dark’ thanks to the trombones, creating a slightly ominous atmosphere that is swept away by the more high-spirited material, with its hint of the famous ‘Brahms lullaby’ stated first by the lower strings. The 18

overall vector of the first movement is upwards to the high wind scoring at its centre, which gives way to some intensely Brahmsian counterpoint, two-againstthree rhythmic figures and veiled warnings from the trombones. The movement ends introspectively, paving the way for one of Brahms’ most beautiful adagios. The lovely, endless opening melody is stated in the low strings and answered by simple falling scale passages from the higher instruments. (Paradoxically, in this movement there are moments that sound like Brahms’ rival Bruckner.) But again, there is no serenity without the possibility of conflict, and the pastoral calm is more than once challenged by emotionally charged outbursts, particularly as the movement reaches its final moments. Here as elsewhere Brahms replaces the traditional scherzo with a lighter dance movement. The Allegretto grazioso consists of three statements of a genial dance with two faster, possibly Slavic or Hungarian-inspired, episodes. The finale returns us to a purely Arcadian world, with the memory of the darker implications that have surfaced earlier, and an electrifying conclusion. It is formally straightforward, notionally a sonata design but with no especially rigorous development. Brahms balances the impulse to Lisztian Romantic rhapsody with a strong sense of formal design. The Second Symphony is conceived on a large scale, within classical norms; but Brahms never allows an idea to stand, or to be simplistically repeated. His technique of developing variation made him an unlikely hero to Schoenberg, and therefore a kind of grandfather to modern music. But Brahms doesn’t just transform his themes: his treatment of forms transforms them. As such it is one solution to the problem of late Romanticism. Gordon Kerry © 2015

Brahms Festival

Brahms Festival 3 Saturday 14 November at 7:30pm Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Artists Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Jaime Martín conductor

Program Brahms Symphony No. 3 [38’] interval

Brahms Symphony No. 4 [40’] 1

Jaime Martín’s biography can be found on page 8

Pre-concert talk: Learn more about the music with Keith Clancy at 6:45pm in the Stalls Foyer (Level 2) at Hamer Hall

BRAHMS FESTIVAL 3 | 14 November

CONCERT EVENTS

Running time: 1 hour and 50 minutes, including a 20-minute interval. Timings listed are approximate. MSO 2026 Season

About the music Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)

Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 Allegro con brio Andante Poco allegretto Allegro Brahms spent the summer of 1883 in the German spa town of Wiesbaden, where he produced his Third Symphony in a mere four months. It is the shortest of Brahms’ symphonies, but for this obsessively selfcritical composer such speed was almost miraculous. Hans Richter, who conducted the first performance in Vienna, was perhaps a little over the top in calling it ‘Brahms’s Eroica’, and yet it is a work that essays many emotional states in a highly dramatic fashion, and leads to a conclusion of great peace. Thirty years earlier, Brahms had contributed to the ‘F–A–E Sonata’, a work jointly composed with Albert Dietrich and Robert Schumann in honour of violinist Joseph Joachim. The letters stand for Joachim’s personal motto ‘frei aber einsam’ (free but lonely) and provide a musical motif that unites the work. Brahms responded that his own motto was ‘frei aber froh’ (free but happy). The musical version of this, F–A–F, dominates the Third Symphony, which was written partly as a ‘proffered hand’ or gesture of

reconciliation by Brahms, who had fallen out with Joachim over the latter’s divorce some years earlier. But the theme which the motto introduces evokes Schumann, someone dear to both men’s hearts. The motto-motif provides the assertive opening gesture, where it is ‘spelled’ F–A flat–F: in F major, the A flat is chromatic, thus providing a dramatic dissonance at the work’s outset. This pattern – the first, third and eighth degrees of the scale – can be found throughout the whole work, as a melodic feature at first then immediately as an accompanying figure in the bass, or seemingly inconsequential detail. But the majorminor tension pervades the work, giving it its moments of ‘heroic’ drama. The work’s dramatic unity is also effected by its overall tonal plan: the outer movements are, naturally, centred on the home key of F major, while the inner movements focus on its polar opposite, C major. This simple architecture is decorated at the more local level by much more surprising key relations. The F major/A flat opening is a case in point: the first subject, or thematic group, is surging music in F major, but the second subject, a serene tune sounded by clarinet and bassoon, is in the distant key of A major. A short development leads to the expected recapitulation of the opening material; more important, though, is

To understand the THIRD SYMPHONY listen carefully to the very beginning and to the end. Brahms opens the symphony with three grand chords, which support a rising three-note motif. He then sends the motif to the bass line and continues to use it as a unifying element throughout. The conclusion of the finale marks a bold departure from convention: his listeners wouldn’t have expected a symphony to end in this quiet, wistful way – the tension of the symphony released through a kind of musical transfiguration rather than grand, cathartic gestures. The Third Symphony received a triumphant premiere on 2 December 1883, with Hans Richter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. Its directness of expression, newfound variety of orchestral colour and wealth of melody ensured its success with audiences, then and now. 20

Brahms Festival

Brahms’ gradual lowering of the temperature to conclude the movement – as he does with all four in this work – softly and calmly. The Andante takes up the pastoral sounds of clarinet and bassoon, alternating wind textures with quiet lower-strings passages at first, and such textures moderate any impassioned outbursts during the course of its sonata-design unfolding. The delicate textures at the end of the movement might support Jan Swafford’s view that Brahms was not unaffected by the recent death of Wagner, ‘his rival, his respected enemy, his shadow’, whose sound-world they resemble. The third movement is effectively a minuet. Its main theme, characterised by gentle dissonance on the downbeats and a wave-like ebb and flow, is sung first by the cellos against a diaphanous string texture and then moves upward through the score to the winds. After a contrasting central section introduced by pulsing chords that alternate with rich string scoring, the opening material is recapitulated but in completely different instrumentation, featuring the horn and other winds. The dramatic focus of the symphony, however, is the finale where, Beethovenstyle, assertive, often terse, rhythmic ideas contend with athletic, long-breathed melodies, notably one that has the classic Brahmsian tension between duplet and triplet motifs. After boisterous heroics that feature a three-beat rhythm derived from

the work’s opening motto, the music reaches a state of repose where, against rippling strings, the winds build in intensity to restate the opening F–A flat–F moment, now purged of any angst. Gordon Kerry © 2014/2015

Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 Allegro non troppo Andante moderato Allegro giocoso Allegro energico e passionato In 1885 Brahms, as was his wont, convened a group of trusted friends to listen to a play-through of the Fourth Symphony, with his friend the composer Ignaz Brüll at the piano. Feedback from knowledgeable people had been invaluable throughout his career, and on this occasion the listeners included conductor Hans Richter and critic Eduard Hanslick. But this time the response was a baffled silence. Even Hanslick, Brahms’ greatest supporter in print, tried to joke that he felt like he had been ‘beaten up by two terribly witty people’ at the end of the first movement. Later, after the work’s polite reception at the first Viennese performance, a less well-disposed wit composed a verse to the theme of the first movement to the effect that Brahms had run out of ideas. The Third Symphony had, of course, enjoyed an unqualified success and it says much for Brahms’ artistic integrity that he was prepared to take a quite different

The FOURTH SYMPHONY has been described as the ‘brainiest’ of the Brahms symphonies. This is a response to the opening movement (‘two terribly witty people’) and to the finale – a monumental movement based on the Baroque technique of a repeating bass, above which Brahms spins an elaborate set of 30 variations. The inner movements bring beauty, serenity and good humour. The glowing Andante begins with a gently moving theme featuring the composer’s favourite instrument, the horn. The playful scherzo – his first – brings extremes: the high-pitched piccolo and the lowest woodwind, the contrabassoon. And listen for the triangle, heard only in the third movement. Brahms himself conducted the premiere of his Fourth Symphony with the tiny Meiningen Orchestra (49 players) on 25 October 1885. MSO 2026 Season

approach in the new work; that the Fourth Symphony was written over not one but two summers suggests that Brahms had to work hard at it. So, what baffled listeners in the first movement? The ‘run out of ideas’ guy was in fact wrong, but nevertheless onto something, in that a large chunk of Brahms’ first theme consists of practically no material: two chains of thirds (and sixths, their inversion) are sounded in a rhythm that consists entirely of a repeated short-long pattern. Eventually a more elaborate motif is sounded, but then immediately repeated in sequence. The thirds provide the basis for a fanfare-like transition into the second theme, and here again Brahms goes against convention with a melody that is not, as expected, ‘lyrical’ but is much more assertive, sounded in the orchestra’s tenor register, and again based on sequences of a repeated rhythmic cell (long, long, short, short, short). Fragmentary patterns of thirds provide the accompaniment. All of which is to say that Brahms was writing in, to the Viennese, a disturbingly abstract and ‘modern’ way. Haydn, of course, and Beethoven – especially in the Fifth Symphony – had worked in just this way, and it is no accident that such rigorous design attracted the approval of Schoenberg in his 1933 lecture, Brahms the Progressive. But it put Brahms out of step with current musical fashion in Vienna. The piece is frequently intensely contrapuntal (and thus requires a ‘classical’ orchestra), reflecting Brahms’ lifelong love of the Baroque, but there are profoundly poetic moments. The recapitulation of the first movement’s main theme should, by convention, be a rhetorically powerful moment of arrival; Brahms instead dwells on a distant but radiant C major chord and then, radically, continues to develop his themes.

The second movement is in what has sometimes been called Brahms’ ‘bardic’ manner. The young Richard Strauss, who regarded the ‘gigantic work’ as ‘new and original in its greatness of conception and invention, its genius in treatment of form’, captured the slow movement’s essence in his image of a ‘funeral procession moving across moonlit heights’. This movement, which relies heavily on mysterious wind scoring and the occasional archaic inflections of the Phrygian mode, could not offer a greater contrast to the scherzo (Allegro giocoso), with what Karl Geiringer calls its ‘sturdy gaiety’. In two, rather than three, beats to a bar, it has a rustic air, but its most curious feature is the way in which Brahms, again creating music out of nothing, offers a series of monolithic chords, octaves apart, that interrupt the rhythmic drive of the movement towards its end. These chords, however, also pave the way for the finale, in which Brahms abandons any vestige of classical precedent, instead using the Baroque form of the passacaglia, in which a repeated harmonic pattern, or ground, serves as a vehicle for variations. Brahms’ ground is a series of rhythmically equal chords (adumbrated at the end of the scherzo) over which he elaborates a movement unlike anything heard in symphonic music before. Vienna’s response in 1886 was tepid, partly as Hans Richter’s rehearsals were inadequate. But by then the work had already enjoyed triumphant success in 14 German and Dutch cities under Hans von Bülow and Brahms himself. Vienna finally embraced it, and the mortally ill Brahms, at the last concert the composer was able attend before his death in 1897. Gordon Kerry © 2015

Brahms Festival

Spring Gala A German Requiem Thursday 19 November at 7:30pm Saturday 21 November at 7:30pm Hamer Hall, Arts Centre Melbourne

Artists Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Jaime Martín conductor Bryn Terfel bass-baritone MSO Chorus

Program G Williams Concert Overture [8’] FOUR SONGS [15’]

Spiritual Deep River * Androzzo If I Can Help Somebody * Copland Old American Songs: At the River Welsh hymn Calon Lân (A Pure Heart)* * arranged by Chris Hazell interval

Brahms A German Requiem [68’]

PHOTO: JOELLE KERCAN / ROLEX

Jaime Martín’s biography can be found on page 8

CONCERT EVENTS Pre-concert talk: Learn more about the music with Keith Clancy at 6:45pm in the Stalls Foyer (Level 2) at Hamer Hall

SPRING GALA: A GERMAN REQUIEM | 19 & 21 November

Alexandra Flood soprano

Running time: 2 hours, including a 20-minute interval. Timings listed are approximate. MSO 2026 Season

PHOTO: LAURIANNE GOULEY

Alexandra Flood soprano Australian soprano Alexandra Flood has been a principal soloist at the Vienna Volksoper since 2022. In August she made her Opera Australia debut singing Valencienne in The Merry Widow; this month she appears as Musetta in the Melbourne season of La bohème and will reprise the role in Sydney in 2027. Last year she made her MSO debut singing Richard Strauss songs. Volksoper highlights have included Pamina (The Magic Flute), Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Frasquita (Carmen), Musetta (La bohème), Clorinda (La Cenerentola) and Princess Fantasia in Le Voyage dans la lune by Offenbach. Born in Victoria, Alexandra studied at the University of Melbourne before completing a master’s degree in Music Theatre at the Munich Hochschule für Musik und Theater. Her European career began at the Salzburg Festival Young Singers Project, where she worked with Franz Welser-Möst and Harry Kupfer, and sang Blonde in The Abduction from the Seraglio and the Milliner in Der Rosenkavalier. 24

She has since appeared at Teatro Real Madrid (Barbarina in The Marriage of Figaro), Malmö Opera (Nannetta in Falstaff), Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz (Marguerite in Hervé’s Petite Faust), Vorarlberger Landestheater and Opera Krokowska (Norina in Don Pasquale), and Dutch National Opera, where she created a role in Moritz Eggert’s Caliban. She covered Pamina at Glyndebourne in 2024 and sang the Female Chorus in The Rape of Lucretia at Paris Opera. In Australia she has sung Jemmy (Guillaume Tell) for Victorian Opera and Elle (La Voix humaine) for Opera Queensland. She has performed in concert with the St Petersburg Philharmonic, Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble (Festival d’Aix-enProvence), and has appeared at the Berlin Philharmonie, Wiener Konzerthaus, KKL Luzern, Teatro La Fenice and Sydney Opera House. Her Australian engagements have also included the Adelaide and Queensland symphony orchestras, and she is Artistic Director of the Queensland Art Song Festival. Brahms Festival

PHOTO: JOHANNES IFKOVITS / ROLEX

Bryn Terfel bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel cbe has forged an extraordinary international career, performing in the world’s most prestigious concert halls and opera houses. After winning the Song Prize at the 1989 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition, he made his professional operatic debut as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte (Welsh National Opera), followed by his European operatic debut as the Speaker in The Magic Flute (Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels) and his American debut in the title role of The Marriage of Figaro (Santa Fe Opera). His repertoire includes the title roles in Don Giovanni, Gianni Schicchi, Aleko and Sweeney Todd, as well as Méphistophélès (Faust), Leporello (Don Giovanni), Jochanaan (Salome), Scarpia (Tosca), Wotan (Wagner’s Ring), Hans Sachs (The Mastersingers), Dulcamara (The Elixir of Love), Tevye (Fiddler on the Roof) and Balstrode (Peter Grimes). He has appeared at major opera houses and festivals worldwide, including Royal Ballet and Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Wiener Staatsoper, Opernhaus Zürich and Verbier Festival. MSO 2026 Season

A highlight of the 2026–27 season is the launch of Oxford International Opera, of which he is Artistic Director, singing Scarpia in a new production of Tosca. He also sings Gianni Schicchi (Royal Ballet and Opera), Dulcamara (Bayerische Staatsoper) and Sweeney Todd (Grange Park Opera). In addition to the MSO, his Australian concert engagements include performances in Sydney and Adelaide. His extensive, award-winning discography includes operas by Mozart, Wagner and Strauss, as well as more than 15 solo albums, most recently releasing Bryn Terfel: Sea Songs. He is a Commander of the Order of the British Empire, received the Queen’s Medal for Music in 2006, and was knighted for services to music in 2017. In 2023 he sang at the Coronation of King Charles III. Other accolades include Austrian Kammersänger, the Shakespeare Prize (Alfred Toepfer Foundation), a European Cultural Award and the Freedom of the City of London, and he was the final recipient of the Medal of Owain Glyndŵr (Machynlleth Festival). 25

MSO Chorus

PHOTO: LAURA MANARITI

Celebrating more than 60 years of creating inspiring musical moments, the MSO Chorus gives voice to the Orchestra’s choral repertoire. The MSO Chorus has performed with the finest conductors including Jaime Martín, Sir Andrew Davis, Edward Gardner, Mark Wigglesworth, Bernard Labadie, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Xian Zhang, Nodoko Okisawa and Simon Halsey. Committed to developing and performing new Australian and international choral repertoire, the MSO Chorus has commissioned works such as

Brett Dean’s Katz und Spatz, Ross Edwards’ Mountain Chant, and Paul Stanhope’s Exile Lamentations, and its recordings have received critical acclaim. The Chorus has performed across Brazil and at the Cultura Inglese Festival in São Paolo, with the Australian Ballet and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, at the AFL Grand Final and at Anzac Day commemorative ceremonies.

Warren Trevelyan-Jones CHORUS DIRECTOR Warren Trevelyan-Jones is regarded as one of the leading choral conductors and choir trainers in Australia. Chorus Director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra since 2017, in 2024 he was also appointed Chorus Master of the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. From 2008 to 2024 he was Head of Music at St James’, King Street in Sydney, and under his leadership, the Choir of St James’ gained an international reputation through its regular choral services, orchestral masses, concert series, recordings, and interstate and international touring, as well as the commissioning of new works. Before relocating to Australia in 2008, he enjoyed an extensive career as a vocal soloist and ensemble singer in Europe, including nine years in the Choir of 26

Westminster Abbey, and regular work with the Gabrieli Consort, Collegium Vocale (Ghent), the King’s Consort, Dunedin Consort, the Sixteen, the Tallis Scholars and the Taverner Choir, Consort and Players. He has appeared on more 60 recordings and numerous TV and radio broadcasts, and in many of the worlds’ leading music festivals and concert halls. Warren is a co-founder of the Consort of Melbourne and, in 2001 with Dr Michael Noone, he founded the Gramophone Award-winning group Ensemble Plus Ultra. He is also an experienced singing teacher and qualified music therapist.

Brahms Festival

PHOTO: LAURA MANARITI

Choristers performing in this concert Sopranos

Julie Arblaster Carolyn Archibald Sheila Baker Tina Battaglia Giselle Baulch Eva Butcher Ariel Chou Aliz Cole Veryan Croggon Michele de Courcy Samantha Davies Laura Fahey Catherine Folley Susan Fone Carolyn Francis Karina Gough Penny Huggett Phoebe Irawan Gwen Kennelly Judy Longbottom Caitlin Noble Katherine O’Shea Karin Otto Elise Parsonage Amanda Powell Tanja Redl Beth Richardson Jo Robin MSO 2026 Season

Jodi Samartgis Fiona Steffensen Tracey Thorpe Elizabeth Tindall Katy Turbitt Ariane Vrisakis Elizabeth Yong

Altos

Ruth Anderson Catherine Bickell Cecilia Bjorkegren Kate Bramley Jane Brodie Alexandra Chubaty Juliarna Clark Andrea CliffordJones Marie Connett Mari Eleanor-Rapp Lisa Faulks Claudia Funder Jill Giese Jillian Graham Debbie Griffiths Ros Harbison Jennifer Henry Kristine Hensel Helen Hill

Helen MacLean Christina McCowan Penelope Monger Natasha Pracejus Alison Ralph Helen Rommelaar Lisa Savige Carol Silberberg Libby Timcke

Tenors

Kent Borchard Steve Burnett Peter Campbell Allan Chiang James Dipnall Lyndon Horsburgh Michael Mobach Marko Monsalud Jean-Francois Ravat Linton Roe Robert Simpson Eric Slotsve Brad Warburton Stewart Webb Stephen Wood Ewan

Basses

Richard Allison Maurice Amor José Miguel Armijo Fidalgo Kevin Barrell Tharanga Basnayake Stephen Bordignon Ross Cullinane Roger Dargaville Ted Davies Peter Deane Simon Evans Elliott Gyger Andrew Ham John Hunt Tim Kopka Gary Levy Tim March Philip McCosker Douglas McQueenThomson Stephen Pyk Josh Teng Matthew Toulmin Raoul Zambelli

About the music Grace Williams (1906–1977)

Concert Overture When Welsh composer Grace Williams was 45 years old she recorded in her diary a ‘day of destruction’. It was 10 May 1951 and she wrote in red ink: ‘Examined all my music manuscripts and destroyed nearly all of which I considered not worth performing.’ Her Concert Overture escaped the bonfire, but it must have come perilously close: she marked the manuscript score ‘not worth performing’ and destroyed the orchestral parts to ensure that fate. There was, however, one performance, given in 1935 by the London Symphony Orchestra for the National Eisteddfod in Caernarvon, where The Musical Times summed it up as ‘a work full of vitality but rather noisy’. Attempts to have the work programmed in the BBC Proms during the 1930s came to nothing, despite the advocacy of her former composition teacher Ralph Vaughan Williams (‘we must get it done somewhere’) and its being highly commended in The Daily Telegraph Composition Competition in 1932–33. (A planned broadcast by the BBC Welsh Orchestra in 1938 was thwarted by Williams herself: concerned about the size and capability of the performing forces, she asked that it be replaced by her earlier Hen Walia overture.) The Concert Overture wouldn’t be heard again until 2023, when the BBC National Orchestra of Wales gave the work its 21st-century premiere in Cardiff, taking it to the Proms the following year.

Music and further training with Egon Wellesz in Vienna, where she had been exposed to the late Austro-German Romantic tradition. By 1932, she was teaching music part time at Camden School for Girls and had embarked on a prolific period of orchestral composition that extended through World War II. Unlike her more frequently performed works, Hen Walia and a Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes, the Concert Overture doesn’t draw on traditional melodies. Although there are fleeting ‘espressivo’ moments for the strings, the overall effect is of an orchestral showpiece, with a spirited ‘Allegro con brio’ temperament and virtuoso writing for the whole ensemble. And yes, from the first fortissimo tutti chord to the last, it’s ‘rather noisy’. Then Williams winks at us, as the first clarinet slides into one last plucked chord from the strings. Yvonne Frindle © 2026

The Concert Overture (1932) is one of Williams’s earliest surviving orchestral works. It was completed after her studies with ‘Uncle Ralph’ at the Royal College of

Brahms Festival

Four Songs Deep River If I Can Help Somebody At the River Calon Lân (A Pure Heart) Bryn Terfel bass-baritone Among classical singers today, few enjoy more diverse appeal than Bryn Terfel. And whether you know his voice from opera, musical theatre, the concert repertoire, or his recordings of popular and traditional songs, his directness of expression and gifts as a musical storyteller stand out. Equally central to Bryn Terfel’s art is his Welsh upbringing. As he likes to say: ‘If you scratch a Welshman, he’ll sing for you.’ Wales might be a small country, but its musical traditions run deep, and musicmaking isn’t confined to professionals: there’s a rich heritage of festivals, music competitions and congregational singing that dates back to the 19th century. Only one of tonight’s songs is Welsh, but all four reflect qualities that are intrinsic to the Welsh musical tradition: hwyl or fervour, and hiraeth, which is the deep longing for home and heritage. The set begins with an African American spiritual from the era of the Underground Railroad. To outsiders, spirituals would be heard as church songs, but for enslaved people escaping into the free states and Canada, they also served as morale boosters and coded navigational aides. In Deep River, for example, the ‘Jordan’ was understood as the Ohio River, which had to be crossed, and as a metaphor for freedom; Canada was ‘that Promised Land’. In 1945, self-taught songwriter Alma Androzzo composed her most famous anthem: If I Can Help Somebody. It soon became a favourite of Dr Martin Luther King Jr, who quoted it in one of his last sermons, speaking of how he wanted to be remembered:

MSO 2026 Season

If I can help somebody as I pass along If I can cheer somebody with a word or song If I can show somebody he is trav’ling wrong Then my living shall not be in vain In Deep River, the Jordan/Ohio was an obstacle to be overcome. Rev. Robert Lowry’s evangelical hymn ‘Shall We Gather at the River’ (1865) offers the river as the destination – paradise – and an expression of hope. In the 1950s, Aaron Copland included At the River in his Old American Songs. The collection, which also included songs such as ‘Simple Gifts’, enjoyed huge success in its initial version for voice and piano, and orchestrations soon followed. Copland’s setting of At the River captures the simple, dignified sound of a country church organ with the warm colours of divided violas and cellos and sustained chords in the brass. With Calon Lân we arrive in Bryn Terfel’s homeland and the most famous of Welshlanguage songs. The words of this hymn were written in 1891 by coal miner and iron worker Daniel James under his bardic name Gwyrosydd and then set to music by John Hughes (1872–1914), a senior manager of the Dyffryn Steel Works. That neither man was a professional songwriter in the modern sense is a reminder that the rich musical tradition of Wales has its roots in amateur music-making. And in our own time, the hymn has become newly famous as a rugby anthem, embraced by thousands of fans. The words, which speak to the value of honesty and goodness above worldly riches in a prayer for a pure heart, are devotional in spirit, but they also express hiraeth and the simple power of song: Night and morning does my longing rise aloft on wings of song… Yvonne Frindle © 2026

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Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)

Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem), Op. 45 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

CHORUS ‘Selig sind die da Leid tragen’ CHORUS ‘Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras’ BARITONE & CHORUS ‘Herr, lehre doch mich’ CHORUS ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen’ SOPRANO & CHORUS ‘Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit’ BARITONE & CHORUS ‘Denn wir haben hier keine bleibende Statt’ CHORUS ‘Selig sind die Toten’

Alexandra Flood soprano Bryn Terfel baritone MSO Chorus A German Requiem, Brahms’ greatest choral work, is also one of his most personal and revealing compositions. First performed officially in Bremen Cathedral on Good Friday 1868, it was immediately well received throughout Germany and even further afield. Brahms had ‘arrived’ as a major composer. From then on he was to consolidate his public esteem, his reputation almost unparalleled among the great composers of the second half of the 19th century. His fame was thus already established before he had written any symphonies (his first came out in 1876), and the reception of A German Requiem reminds us of the importance of oratorio and large-scale choral music in 19th-century music-making. Brahms’ first venture into large choral forms, A German Requiem also shows how thoroughly this largely self-taught composer had steeped himself in the music of the past, emerging as a master of choral idioms. And here, more than anywhere else, he lets us see his metaphysical, even religious outlook.

A ‘German’ Requiem? The title is important: ‘A German Requiem, on words from Holy Scripture.’ This is not a Requiem for a church service; Brahms uses the name ‘Requiem’ only in a very general sense, and to place his alongside MSO 2026 Season

the major Requiem settings of the past. Brahms calls it a ‘German Requiem’ because the words are in German, chosen from Luther’s translation of the Bible, which Brahms knew well.

A Christian Requiem? Brahms had been brought up a Protestant, but lost his faith early, and was not a Christian believer. In spite of this, his spiritual life was guided and formed by Biblical perspectives on life and death; the texts that spoke to him most strongly counsel contemplation, resignation, and patience in the face of death. His thought is mainly pessimistic, but it is a pessimism shot through with gleams of hope – not the Christian hope of redemption and resurrection, but the achievement, through resignation, of eternal bliss. No mention of Christ or his redeeming death is made in the libretto, although Christ’s words are quoted, notably at the beginning, from the Beatitudes (‘blessed are they that mourn’). Brahms’ choice and juxtaposition of texts often weakens their ‘Christian’ meaning. And whereas the Catholic Requiem Mass is concerned at length with what happens after death and the day of judgement, for Brahms the last trumpet (or rather, in German, the last trombone) heralds not judgement, but the general resurrection of the last day, 31

omitting any reference to Christ’s rising from the dead.

A consoling Requiem The note Brahms strikes at the beginning and end of the Requiem dominates the work: ‘Blessed are they that mourn’, and ‘Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord.’ This is as far as Brahms goes towards the Christian message of hope. Elsewhere he is concerned mainly with consoling the living – those who stay behind, facing bereavement and their own inescapable death. There is no entreaty, no prayer for mercy. ‘I will admit’ – Brahms told the organist in the first performance – ‘that I could happily omit the “German” and simply say “Human”.’ Brahms denied that his Requiem applied to any individual; he had the whole of humanity in mind. Nevertheless his own losses shaped the work. In 1856 his friend and mentor Robert Schumann died. The young Brahms had admired him to the point of hero-worship, and after Schumann’s death he had composed the original, later rejected, slow movement of the D minor piano concerto (No. 1, 1856–59). Brahms was still thinking of Schumann when he reworked this music as the dark and implacable march that begins the second movement of the Requiem (‘For all flesh is as grass’). Then in 1865 his beloved mother died. Brahms was deeply upset, but this loss can only have intensified the feeling of a work he had already begun to plan.

Composition in stages The Requiem was completed in the summer of 1866 while Brahms was staying in Switzerland. At this stage, it consisted of six movements only, predominantly dark in colour, and with a single soloist: a baritone. A performance in Vienna in 1867 of the first three movements was a failure – it was under-rehearsed, and the scoring was revealed as unsatisfactory, especially in the third movement. Brahms retouched these problem areas before 32

conducting the Bremen performance the following year. Brahms’ friend Julius Stockhausen, evidently gave an inspired account of the baritone part; choir and orchestra were well prepared, and the result was a triumph. But Brahms seems to have felt that something was still lacking in the overall balance of the work, in spite of the lyrical relief provided by the fourth movement (‘How lovely is thy dwelling-place’) with its affinities to Brahms’ waltzes. He added the soprano solo with chorus – its reference to the mother comforting her child could be heard as a memorial to Brahms’ own mother. In this final form, the work was performed in Leipzig in February 1869.

A Protestant Requiem? Despite lacking any admitted religiosity, Brahms can be described as a Protestant composer. His Protestantism appears both in his choice of Biblical texts and in the musical ancestry of his style. When Brahms wrote choral music to German words, the influence of J.S. Bach was paramount. For Brahms the appearance from 1850 onwards of the annual volumes of the complete edition of Bach’s works was a more important artistic stimulus than any other musical event of his time. Brahms claimed that the four movement cantata he’d written around the ‘All flesh is grass’ movement (the original core of his Requiem) was based on a chorale melody that Bach had used (notably in Cantata 21, and Cantata 27, where it is set to the words ‘Who knows how near my end shall be’). Another influence was the 17th-century German composer Heinrich Schütz, and Brahms may have known Schütz’s serene Funeral Music (Musicalische Exequien), which has some texts in common with his own Requiem.

Romanticism and the musical past Brahms’ deep knowledge of the music of the past gave discipline and form to the Romantic impulses in his musical style, Brahms Festival

and the richness of A German Requiem lies in ardent Romantic feeling being poured into traditional forms. For example, the orchestral opening is based on the form of the Baroque chorale prelude. A partly hidden basis in chorales is one thing that gives the German Requiem its unity. As the first movement continues, in a typically Romantic manner, Brahms contrasts ‘celestial’ a cappella choral music with ‘earthly’ instrumental music. The first words chosen by Brahms (beginning ‘Blessed are they that mourn’) introduce the essential message of the whole work. They are set to music reprised in the Requiem’s final movement, where the new words ‘Blessed are the dead’ reveal that – in Brahms mind – the meaning of the old and new words is linked. Unlike some of Brahms’ unaccompanied motets, his Requiem makes no parade of his contrapuntal learning, and he confines himself throughout to a single choir in four parts only. Generally speaking, when Brahms resorts to fugal writing in this work, it is superbly apt, even at the end of the third movement. This passage has often been criticised for excessive severity, but it contains a powerful piece of musical symbolism: just as the righteous men’s souls are described in the text as being held in the hand of God, so the two separate but concurrent fugues, one in the choir, one in the orchestra, are held together by the mighty sustained D tonic note in the bass of the orchestra.

Orchestral breakthrough with a choral work

Vienna performance played his part so loudly that he swamped everything else. Nevertheless, Brahms’ treatment of the orchestra in this work was a sign of his emerging mastery, and was recognised as such. The overall effect of the orchestration is to paint the sombre tones of Brahms’ conception. Like Cherubini before him and Fauré after, he responds to the service for the dead by using violas and lower strings in many places to the exclusion of the violins, and in the first movement he also banishes the bright tones of clarinets and trumpets. Piccolo and harp are used to lighten and vary the texture in a medium-sized Romantic symphony orchestra. The relation of the vocal soloists to the choir is that of a single voice leading the people, a personal voice to which the choir responds by repeating and underlining its utterances. Brahms was never more personal, more true to his nature than in this ambitious work. For that reason, perhaps, it has remained the litmus test of attitudes to Brahms’ art. The pro-Wagner faction could never accept the creative musical conservatism of A German Requiem, nor, one suspects, its firmly contained emotion with its basis in a longing for religious certainty. For others, and especially those who share some of the troubles of Brahms’ soul, this masterful musical meditation on death, by an ultimately lonely man, can be overwhelmingly moving. Abridged from a note by David Garrett © 2011/2025

At the time he composed the Requiem, Brahms’ only large scale orchestral work was the D minor Piano Concerto, whose scoring had given him great trouble. The orchestration of A German Requiem lacks the subtlety of Brahms’ later symphonic works, and a very few pages even show signs of misjudgement. In particular the double fugue just mentioned can give trouble: an insensitive timpanist in the first MSO 2026 Season

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Chamber Music by Brahms Tuesday 10 November at 7:30pm

Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, Melbourne Recital Centre

Artists Natalie Chee violin Nicolas Fleury horn Denis Kozhukhin piano

Program Fe. Mendelssohn Songs without Words: Selections [15] Brahms 6 Klavierstücke, Op. 118 [22’] Brahms Horn Trio [28’]

PHOTO: NICOLAS HUDAK

Denis Kozhukhin’s biography can be found on page 9

CHAMBER MUSIC BY BRAHMS | 10 November

interval

Running time: 1 hour and 25 minutes, including a 20-minute interval. Timings listed are approximate. MSO 2026 Season

PHOTO: LUCAS ALLEN

Natalie Chee violin MSO CONCERTMASTER

Natalie Chee learned piano then violin as a child and at the age of ten began studying with Alex Todicescu, a professor at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and member of the Sydney String Quartet. As a student, she won numerous competitions and prizes, including the ABC Young Performer of the Year (1992), and she performed as a soloist with all the Australian symphony orchestras. While still in high school, she was accepted into the Soloist Class of Igor Ozim in Bern, Switzerland, receiving her Soloist Diploma with High Distinction. During this time, she was invited to join Camerata Bern, which she also directed. She also co-founded the Tiramisu chamber music ensemble and Mozart Piano Quartet, touring North and South America, Europe and Australia with these groups and making several recordings with prominent Swiss and German labels. Natalie has held the First Concertmaster roles with Camerata Salzburg (appointed

2000), the Stuttgart Radio (SWR) Symphony Orchestra (2009), and the Gürzenich Orchestra (2019). She was named MSO Concertmaster in 2025 and took up the role this year. In addition, she is a regular guest concertmaster and director of orchestras worldwide, including the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Munich State Opera, Hamburg Radio Orchestra, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. Natalie is also a highly regarded chamber musician, appearing in festivals and concerts throughout Australia and Europe. From 2009 to 2025 she was first violin of the Hegel String Quartet in Stuttgart, and their album From Vienna to Hollywood was named by the German Record Critics Award as one of the four best chamber music recordings in 2022.

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PHOTO: LAURA MANARITI

Nicolas Fleury horn Nicolas Fleury began studying natural and French horns at the age of eight. On completing his studies in his native France – at the Nantes Conservatoire and later the Rueil Malmaison Conservatoire – he continued his education at the Royal College of Music under the guidance of Timothy Brown, Timothy Jones and Sue Dent. He graduated in 2009 with distinction and the Tagore Gold Medal. Nico was appointed Principal Horn of the MSO in 2019. Previously he was Principal Horn in the Aurora Orchestra (2010–2019), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (2017–2019) and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (2013–2017). Key performances included Mozart’s horn concertos and Britten’s Serenade for tenor, horn and strings, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, and as a member of the RPO, he also recorded Bernstein’s complete chamber works for brass and wind ensembles. For the MSO, he has appeared as soloist in May Lyon’s double horn concert Opal, and Mozart’s Symphonie concertante (K. 297b) and Horn Concerto in E flat major (K. 417). MSO 2026 Season

He has also appeared as a guest principal horn for orchestras worldwide, including the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Australian Chamber Orchestra, and has performed the most demanding works of the orchestral repertoire alongside conductors such as Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, Lorin Maazel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Bernard Haitink, Andris Nelsons, Valery Gergiev, Neville Marriner and John Eliot Gardiner. As a chamber musician, Nico has performed in international music festivals, including the Highgate Chamber Music Festival (London) and Horten Kammermusikkfest (Norway), and in 2021 he toured Australia with Musica Viva performing the Brahms Horn Trio and music by Mozart with violinist Emily Sun and pianist Amir Farid. He also regularly appears in the MSO Chamber series. Position supported by Margaret Jackson AC 37

About the music Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)

Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words): Andante con moto (E major), Op. 19b No. 1 Venetian Gondola Song. Allegretto tranquillo (F sharp minor), Op. 30 No. 6 Allegro non troppo (C minor), Op. 38 No. 2 Duet. Andante con moto (A flat major), Op. 38 No. 6 Allegro leggiero (F sharp minor), Op. 67 No. 2 ‘There is so much talk about music, and yet so little is said.’ Sobering words for a book like this. Felix Mendelssohn continues: ‘I believe that words are not enough at all, and if I should find they were enough, I would stop making music altogether.’ This often quoted point of view turns up in a letter to the composer’s cousin-in-law, Marc-André Souchay, who’d been trying to invent titles for Mendelssohn’s songs without words (‘Resignation’ for Op. 19b No. 1, for example). Mendelssohn tells him that while some might complain that music is too ambiguous – that ‘what they should be thinking as they hear it is unclear’ – for him it is the reverse, that the thoughts conveyed to him by music are in fact too definite to be put into words: ‘If you ask me what I was thinking when I wrote it, I would say: just the song as it stands.’

singer and accompanist. The genre was invented by Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny – the reversal of a childhood game in which they’d devised lyrics for their instrumental pieces. Robert Schumann, reviewing the second book of songs without words (Op. 30), imagined how such music might be created. Perhaps, he speculated, a text was chosen and then, eliminating the words, inspiration shaped the music; or perhaps they were twilight improvisations at the piano. For at least one of them, the Op. 30 No. 6 ‘Venetian Gondola Song’, the latter was true: this lilting barcarolle was improvised and then written down for the Leipzig pianist and salonnière Henriette Voigt. (It’s also one of the few songs to which Mendelssohn gave pictorial titles.)

It’s no surprise that Souchay wanted to articulate the moods of these instrumental ‘songs’ – they speak powerfully to the imagination. But he soon abandoned the effort, declaring that the ‘Lieder ohne Worte’ might be better labelled ‘Empfindung wofür es keine Worte gibt’ (Feelings for which there are no words). Mendelssohn’s sentiment exactly.

While Mendelssohn’s 50 or so songs without words distil a wide range of moods, the first of the published songs (1832) is a prototype for the genre. Beautifully lyrical and entirely idiomatic for the keyboard, Op. 19b No. 1 (E major, Andante con moto) is as perfect a song as can be achieved without text or voice. The right hand carries a singing melody, the left hand provides the bass line, and both hands contribute broken chords rippling in the middle.

The song without words was a specific type of lyrical piano miniature, an experiment in transferring vocal idioms to the piano, making the instrument both

Op. 38 No. 2 (C minor, Allegro non troppo) similarly fills out the exquisite melody and supporting bass with broken chord patterns shared between the hands, but in

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this piece the accompaniment figures fall off the beat, giving the music a gentle forward motion. Not all songs are for soloists, and Op. 38 No. 6 (A flat major, Andante con moto) is a ‘Duet’, composed for Mendelssohn’s future wife Cécile Jeanrenaud, with the two voices (alternating between the hands and then joining together) representing Cécile and Felix. As Robert Schumann wrote: ‘Here we have lovers… who speak, quietly, intimately and confidently.’ To conclude his selection, Denis Kozhukhin has chosen the agile and quirky Op. 67 No. 2 (F sharp minor, Allegro leggiero). The dominant gesture is a spiky staccato accompanying figure – the piano’s answer to plucked strings. Yvonne Frindle © 2018/2026

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)

6 Klavierstücke (Piano Pieces), Op. 118 Intermezzo in A minor (Allegro non assai, ma molto appassionato) Intermezzo in A major (Andante teneramente) Ballade in G minor (Allegro energico) Intermezzo in F minor (Allegretto un poco agitato) Romanze in F major (Andante – Allegretto grazioso) Intermezzo in E flat minor (Andante, largo e mesto) The Opus 118 collection of Klavierstücke (Piano Pieces) is a late work, composed in 1893, around the time of the composer’s 60th birthday and completed in his summer home at Bad Ischl. This was the period in which Brahms had returned to the piano – his own instrument – and devoted himself to miniature forms: ballades, capriccios, romanzes and intermezzos.

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Together, the solo medium and the smallscale conception allowed an unexpected level of intensity and profound feeling. After receiving the Op. 118 and 119 sets of piano pieces from Brahms, the elderly Clara Schumann wrote in her diary: It really is marvellous how things pour from him; it is wonderful how he combines passion and tenderness in the smallest of spaces. Although these may seem like independent pieces (and on its own the second Intermezzo enjoys the greatest popularity of the six), they were clearly conceived as a set. The key centres move down by steps (A minor/A major, G minor, F minor/F major, E flat minor), and where two pieces share the same tonic note, they form a contrasting pair, with urgent and unsettled music followed by more lyrical music. At the centre of the set – the true ‘interlude’ in this set of intermezzos – is the Ballade (Allegro energico). This introduces an assertive, even heroic character, with the overall vigour of the piece offset by a gentler middle section with an unexpected shift of key from G minor to B major. Although it’s just a few minutes long, it shares the spirit of Chopin’s ballades: assuming a narrative posture without telling any particular story. A feature of the set is the use of three-part or ternary form. The opening ideas return after a contrasting section, but with this difference: the moment of return is used, writes Peter McCallum, ‘to create an expanded and varied final section which amalgamates and transforms the first two’. The fifth piece is a romanze, which, like the ballade, is a genre with literary overtones. The mood is idyllic, and the drone bass of the filigreed central section suggests a pastoral character, both simple and whimsical.

The final piece in Op. 118, and the last of the intermezzos, is one of the longest in the set and the most complex. Like a fantasia or prelude from an earlier century, it has an improvisatory character, with half-voiced musings from right hand and left as if the composer is finding his way into the music. The moment eventually arrives with vigorous chords and octaves, before the piece slips away, bringing the set to an autumnal close. Yvonne Frindle © 2014/2026

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)

Trio in E flat major for piano, violin and horn, Op. 40 Andante Scherzo (Allegro) Adagio mesto Finale (Allegro con brio) This trio is scored for piano, violin and ‘Waldhorn’ – a combination that says much about Brahms himself. He had a soft spot for the horn, which he’d learned as a child, but in 1865, when this trio was composed, the old natural horn – Waldhorn or ‘forest horn’ – was giving way to the modern valved horn, which Brahms disparagingly referred to as ‘the brass viola’. Whether through nostalgia, resistance to change, or simple preference for its sound, when it came time to publish the trio, Brahms specified the older instrument. And in advance of one early performance, he wrote that the horn player would do him ‘a very special favour if he would … practise the Waldhorn for a few weeks to be able to play it on that’.

recently. I’d have scarcely expected it with such deeply felt music, all the more so since previously the public seemed disinclined to give it an attentive hearing.’ The deep feeling that Billroth noticed permeates the first three movements. The expansive Andante has a song-like character, more relaxed than would be typical in a Brahms first movement, and the horn sonority establishes a haunting atmosphere, suggestive of German forest legends. (Brahms told one friend that his opening theme had been inspired by the sight of a sunrise over the Black Forest.) In the playful second movement, the horn exploits its hunting associations, with just a brief moment of quiet nostalgia in the middle. The third movement adopts a slow tempo (Adagio) and a subdued, sorrowful mood (mesto). About five minutes in, the horn introduces a new theme that’s generally regarded as having been based on a folk song that Brahms learned from his mother as a boy: ‘In den Weiden steht ein Haus’ (In the meadow stands a house). The similarity is loose at best, but the feeling of nostalgia – as if evoking a fond childhood memory – is unmistakeable and it’s surely no accident that the trio was composed shortly after the death of the composer’s mother. (The beginning of the folk tune is shared by a Lutheran chorale that Brahms would quote in A German Requiem.) The arrival of the fourth movement brings light and optimism, but also a sense of déjà vu: the opening theme is the ‘folk tune’ from the Adagio, now given a completely new character in this galloping, ‘hunting-horn’ finale. Yvonne Frindle © 2009/2026

Early on, Clara Schumann complained that the public ‘failed to understand this interesting and inspiring work’, but by 1879 the response had changed and Theodor Billroth could write to the composer: ‘Your Horn Trio has had enormous success here 40

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Rebecca Moore Associate Producer, MSO Presents

Jayde Walker Director of Brand & Communications

Monica Curro MSO+ Creative Director

Phil Paschke Senior Manager, Content & Digital

Emma Wigley MSO+ Producer

Samantha Meuleman Digital Content Lead

Sally Hern Head of Digital Experience

Prue Bassett Publicity Manager

Casual Production Staff Anita, Aurora, Campbell, Jenny, Jess, Lauren, Lewis, Liz, Lindsay, Lucca, Manny, Matthew, Matthieu, Millie, Ned, Steven

Beckie Peel Social Media Coordinator

DEVELOPMENT & REACH Suzanne Dembo Chief Operating Officer Lisa Drew Assistant to the COO Caroline Buckley Director of Strategic Priorities Allison Blahna Director of Development Isobel Lake Grants & Reporting Lead

MSO 2026 Season

Dylan Stewart Director of Marketing, Insights & Customer Experience Sarah Rozycki Head of Marketing Laura Mitton Campaign Marketing Manager

Ben Wallace Box Office Manager Nicole Rees CRM & insights Manager Marta Arquero Ticketing & Customer Experience Coordinator Box Office Attendants Angela, Ashley, Bec, Bradd, Christine, Emil, Jessica, Josh, Kara, Kez, Leah, Lucy, Maeve, Sasha, Stephanie FINANCE & PEOPLE AND CULTURE Anita Drake Chief Financial Officer Sonia Yakub Senior Management Accountant (on leave) Laura Estupiñan Accountant Marilen Manalo Assistant Accountant Matthew Bagi Project Officer Holly Wighton People & Culture Lead Jess Kirkman Payroll Officer

Gabrielle Hanley Marketing Coordinator Leah Toyne Marketing Administrator Alison Kearney Loyalty Manager

Thank You to Our Partners Principal Partner

Major Government Partners

Major Partners

Supporting Government Partners

Supporting Partners

Paul Noonan, Keypoint Law

Brahms Festival

Training and Education Partners

Trusts and Foundations

Freemasons Foundation Victoria

The Ledger Charitable Trust

Perpetual Foundation – Alan (AGL) Shaw Endowment

Sidney Myer MSO Trust Fund

Broadcast and Production Partners

Venue Partners

MSO 2026 Season