Compassion featuring Lior
CRICOS: 00233E | TEQSA: PRV12076
Credit: Alice Healy
Works by Westlake, Milliken, Udal and Wu Conducted by Kelly Lovelady
Credit: Photographer’s name Credit: Sam Salvador
Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we work. We pay respect to the Elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
DIRECTOR’S WELCOME PROFESSOR VANESSA TOMLINSON Tonight is a special concert: a celebration of Australian music and the remarkable diversity of compositional voices shaping our cultural landscape. The program brings together works by composers from different generations and backgrounds, each with a unique story to tell. Sam Wu (born 1996), from Melbourne, is a graduate of both Juilliard and Harvard and was recently a featured composer at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. Andrew Udal (born 2003), originally from Bundaberg and a recent graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium, was awarded the Silver Harris Composition Prize in 2025. Dr Cathy Milliken (born 1956), a Brisbane-born composer now based in Berlin, first graduated from Queensland Conservatorium as an oboist in the 1980s before returning to complete a Doctor of Musical Arts in Composition in 2018. Nigel Westlake (born 1958) needs little introduction. He was one of the first Australian composers whose music I performed as a young percussionist in the 1980s, through his percussion quartet Omphalo Centric Lecture. You may know him through his celebrated film score for Babe or through his longstanding collaborations with Lior. Tonight, we are privileged to hear Compassion, written with and for Lior, a work that has become one of the most known and loved Australian works. The entire performance is brought together through the passion and dedication of Perth-born, London-based conductor Kelly Lovelady. Her commitment to championing Australian music throughout the United Kingdom and Europe is extraordinary, and we are deeply grateful for the time she has spent with our students, sharing both her expertise and her enthusiasm for this repertoire. All music was once new music. The future of music is created not only by composers, performers and conductors, but also by audiences willing to listen with curiosity and openness. Thank you for joining us on this journey and for supporting the next chapter of Australian music Professor Vanessa Tomlinson Director, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University
DON’T HARDEN YOUR HEARTS KELLY LOVELADY This week I have the huge honour of conducting what has become one of the great Australian symphonies of our time: Nigel Westlake and Lior’s landmark orchestral collaboration, Compassion. This masterpiece is a magical, mystical meditation on humility, on embracing difference, on the richness of cultural heritage. Setting seven hebrew and arabic texts, it’s music that evokes equal parts vulnerability and strength; through one we find the other. There’s moments of gamelan, samba, incantation, dastgah; there’s desert pilgrimage, “more cowbell”, even a hint of the Bernstein Mass. The allusions are vivid and vast and at the same time, a cogent whole that finds its greatest power in the coming together. One of the many reasons I love this music is the ease with which it opens a conversation: it does what it says on the tin. By putting Compassion on the music stand, the word compassion floods our rehearsal rooms, foyers, concert halls, cities; and bound up with it, implications of tenderness, engagement, changemaking. Beyond its capacity as a rousing, joyous, life-affirming musical adventure, Compassion opens our hearts and minds by virtue of its name alone. And perhaps most importantly: this symphony reminds us that compassion itself is about listening. Listening beyond ourselves, beyond our own comfort; listening as receiving, learning, growth. The programme is complemented by three further works of our Australian composer contemporaries culminating in Cathy Milliken’s Þingvellir from her own symphony, Earth Plays. All three take us to new territories, a bird’s eye view on unfamiliar lands that can only dwarf us in their ancient held wisdom and resonance. I’m often asked which lesson I didn’t learn at music college: humility is it. May this music teach us to better know ourselves by sitting with what we don’t know; to celebrate our appetite for newness, otherness, strangeness; to relish in the unknowing.
PROGRAM Sam Wu: aerial silk roads (Aus. premiere) Andrew Udal : Fragility (World premiere) Cathy Miliken: Earth Plays: I. Þingvellir Interval Nigel Westlake & Lior: Compassion Grant Peace (Sim Shalom) Who is Wise (Eize Hu Chachan) Until you Love Your Brother (La Yu’minu) The Beauty Within (Inna Rifqa) Don’t Harden Your Hearts (Al Takshu L’vavchem) Until the End of Time (Ma Wadani Achadun) Hymn of Compassion (Avinu Malkeinu)
Artists Lior Soloist
Lior burst on to the Australian music scene in 2005 with his debut album – ’Autumn Flow’ which was recorded and released entirely independently and spearheaded by the much-loved opening track ‘This Old Love’. Subsequent singles ‘Daniel’ and the title track both secured high rotation airplay via national broadcaster Triple J, and further cemented the album into the hearts of the Australian public. The album was released at a time when independently funded and released records were still a rarity, Lior being one of only a handful of artists paving the way for a model that is now deemed common place. Lior’s 2008 sophomore album – ‘Corner of an Endless Road’ – followed on where ‘Autumn Flow’ left, debuting at #2 on the Australian Albums chart and topping the Independent charts for several weeks. The album gave a greater indication of Lior’s rich cultural background with a number of tracks featuring Middle Eastern influences. Lior picked up another 2 ARIA nominations including ‘Best Independent Release’. The release was followed by a string of sold-out national tours, including the unique ‘Shadows and Light’ tour – a collaboration with live performance shadow artistry built specifically to Lior’s music. The tour showcased at the Sydney Opera House to wide critical acclaim and followed by a season at The Sydney Theatre Company.
Kelly Lovelady Conductor
Credit: Monkia Mabiki
Artists
Kelly Lovelady is an Australian conductor-curator and cultural activist with a passion for experimental programming, concert dramaturgy and composer advocacy. She is the founding Artistic Director of Ruthless Jabiru: a chamber orchestra of Australasian musicians in the UK forging projects which explore humanitarian and social justice stories through New music. Lovelady has devised, self-produced and conducted massed musical and cross-artform projects for festivals around the world and is in demand in the UK and abroad as a Musical Director and Guest Conductor with a focus on contemporary repertoire and composer collaboration. Recent projects have included Ruthless Jabiru’s Black Ice, advocating for Indigenous land management in the wake of Australia’s Black Summer; and The Holy Presence of, a site-specific bass orchestra performance beneath the River Thames centring the plight of the UK’s first climate refugees. Lovelady served as returning Musical Director for Gothic Opera’s 2024 Der Vampyr revival, conducting her own chamber reimagination to widespread critical acclaim; and in October 2026, makes her Victorian debut as Musical Director for BK Opera’s Tristan und Isolde. Over the past 15 years, Ruthless Jabiru has mobilised contemporary music, immersive theatre concepts and extramusical framing to explore ideas around asylum policy, ethical sponsorship in the cultural sector, honour crime, historic nuclear testing at Maralinga, and an homage to poet-activist Oodgeroo Noonuccal. The orchestra’s debut album Girl, a composer portrait of Soosan Lolavar, was released in 2024 on Nonclassical.
Sam Wu Composer
Credit: Niles Singer
Composer
Sam Wu's music "abounds in delicate colours, wisps of sound and sylvan textures" (Gramophone). Many of his works center around extra-musical themes: architecture and urban planning, climate science, and the search for exoplanets that harbor life. Invited to residencies at Zion National Park, MacDowell, and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, winner of an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award and the New York Youth Symphony's First Music Commission, Sam Wu also received Harvard's Robert Levin Prize and Juilliard's Palmer Dixon Prize. Sam’s collaborations span five continents: the orchestras of Philadelphia, Minnesota, Columbus, Spokane, Melbourne, Tasmania, and Shanghai, Carnegie Hall, New York City Ballet, Sydney International Piano Competition, National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing, the Lontano, Parker, Argus, ETHEL, and icarus Quartets, conductors Osmo Vänskä, Marin Alsop, Cristian Macelaru, and Miguel Harth-Bedoya, and sheng virtuoso Wu Wei. From Melbourne, Australia, Sam holds degrees from Harvard, Juilliard, and Rice. His mentors include Tan Dun, Gabriela Lena Frank, Scott Yoo, and Anthony Brandt.
Andrew Udal Composer
Andrew Udal is a South African born Australian composer who has written works for numerous ensembles both large and small. Graduating for the Queensland Conservatism Griffith University (QCGU) with a degree in music composition, Andrew has written scores for multiple films including From the Depths created by David Quarell (2019), Academy Nominated short film An Ostrich told me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It (2022),Behind the Ostrich’ (2023) and Hydrant and Hound (2024) all under the same director Lachlan Pendragon. He has also written concert works for ensembles such as the Queensland Youth Symphony, Queensland Youth Orchestra 2, Queensland Junior String Ensemble 1, QCGU Symphony Orchestra, Bundaberg Sinfonietta and many more.
Credit: Bundaberg Examiner
Composer
Cathy Milliken Composer
Credit: Uwe Walter
Composer
Cathy Milliken is an international award-winning performer and composer known for her evocative instrumental and vocal works. She moves between manifold musical worlds, taking great joy in facilitating creativity and participation. The diversity and relevance of her output has won her international recognition as a leading composer, creative director, educational consultant and performer. Born in Brisbane and based in Berlin, Milliken completed a degree in Australia majoring in performance (piano and oboe) and continued her studies in Europe under Heinz Holliger and Maurice Bourgue. A founding member of Ensemble Modern, she worked extensively with artists such as György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Fred Frith, and Frank Zappa. Milliken has composed for concert, opera, radio and film. Commissioners include Southbank Centre London, Donaueschinger Musiktage, Staatsoper Berlin, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, South West German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker and Musica Viva of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Commissioning Ensembles include Ensemble Modern, LUX:NM, Ensemble Offspring, Zaafraan Ensemble, Remix Ensemble, London Sinfonietta and the AskoISchönberg Ensemble. International participatory compositions include Umculo Festival (South Africa), Future Labo (Japan) and Munich Biennale for Music and Theatre. A versatile performer and member of Ensemble Extrakte Berlin, Milliken is known for her sonic improvisations using oboe and voice. Recipient of several awards, including the Prix Italia and the APRA AMCOS/AMC Art Music Award, Milliken was also Associate Composer of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra from 2018-20.
Composer Nigel Westlake Composer
Nigel Westlake is widely regarded as one of Australia's greatest composers. The respect he garners is for his broad spectrum of work, encompassing concertos, symphonies, film scores and more. His versatility as a composer and orchestrator has seen him create works ranging from solo repertoire to chamber ensembles and symphony orchestras. CONDUCTING While Nigel has had many years’ experience conducting ensembles for his film sound-tracks, more recently he has embraced conducting performances and recording his own concert works with all the major Australian orchestras such as Compassion, Babe- Live in Concert ( his soundtrack to the hit movie), Misa Solis (requiem for his son, Eli) and more. He recently made his European conducting debut with the RTE Symphony (Dublin) and in 2016 made his US conducting debut at the Lincoln Centre with the New York Philharmonic.
Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra The Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra consists of approximately 90 of the most talented young instrumentalists in Queensland. The orchestra, from its home at the Griffith University South Bank campus, performs an annual series of orchestral concerts, large choral works, and operatic and musical theatre productions, in addition to a range of creative collaborations both on site as well as in the wider community. Students in the Queensland Conservatorium orchestral program have the unique opportunity to perform under the baton of a variety of conductors, instilling a flexibility required in the profession. Resident conductors Johannes Fritzsch, Peter Luff and Peter Morris are joined each year by distinguished guest conductors from around the world, providing students with the rich depth of experience they will find when entering the profession. Notable guest conductors have included Sir Neville Marriner, Peter Sculthorpe, Jessica Cottis, Nicholas Braithwaite, Richard Mills, Natalia Raspopova, Larry Rachleff and Elim Chan, to name a few.
Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Lily Song * Violin I Emily Thompson Theodore Aitcheson Claire Yeung Layla Mertz Ally Liu Emily Masciocchi Madison Sim Sophie Shih Bryn Wiseman
Viola Harriet Dykes * Lucia Hwang Brooke Shim Jasmine Smith Eben Yeh Liam Holbrook Graeme Jennings Yvonne Spina
Violin II Miles Le Goullon * Edison Richard Safia Hughes Chivers Eve Scott Teresa Kao Abigail Xu Amalie Grime Koume Wong Alexandra Korschmin Candice Kuo Clara Seo Aurora Lin Cello Laura Boon * Masato Matsumoto Aaron Goldburg Alivia Kenwrick Jasmine Feltham Leo Franklin Keeley Ninnes Takeshi Holland Mimmi Reisinger James Pollard
*Principal
Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra Contrabass Emma Meixner * Jessica Clarke Deakin Darby Hilary Davis Oliver Murphy Luke Thompson Daniel Wilesmith
Flute Amy Tashjian * Sho Yamada
Clarinet Gabrielle Thompson * Jack Goves
English Horn Logan Nutley *
Bass Clarinet Jethro Caitens * French Horn Wu, Udal Craig King * Alysia-rose Booth Hannah Waterfall Zachary Hayes Milliken, Westlake/Attar Thomas Ferreira-Montague * James Rourke Hannah Waterfall Ava Gall
Piccolo Adeline Cassidy * Oboe Liam Robinson *
Bassoon Ethan Henke * Val Yip Contrabassoon Zane Lai * Trumpet Mitchell Stewart * Matthew Brown Lorenzo Mcpherson
*Principal
Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra Trombone Wu, Udal Dana Day * Olive Whalen Milliken, Westlake/Attar Matthew Redman * Alexander Mclaughlin Bass Trombone Theodore Burnett * Harp Udal Ariel Chang * Westlake/Attar Myiesha Maisuria *
Tuba Drew Ferguson * Timpani Selina Tingyue Zheng * Percussion Sana Rane * Thomas Quelhurst Holly Tate Jack Gilbertson Hunter Burgess Piano Phuong Do *
*Principal
Conservatorium Staff Director Conservatorium Manager Professor Vanessa Tomlinson Stuart Jones Deputy Director (Learning and Teaching) Associate Professor Donna Weston Deputy Director (Research) Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet Deputy Director, Programming & Partnerships Professor Peter Morris Head of Strings Associate Professor Michelle Walsh Head of Woodwinds Associate Professor Tim Munro Head of Brass Dr. Ben Marks Head of Percussion Dr. Rebecca Lloyd-Jones Head of Keyboard Associate Professor Daniel de Borah
Front of House Operations Manager Michael Hibbard Executive Officer (Engagement) Dr Natalie Lewandowski-Cox Program Coordinator (Ensembles) & Orchestra Manager Daniel Fossi Operations Administrator Timothy Tate Operations AdministratorTimetabling Joshua White Joshua Jo Technical Officers Keith Clark, Ben Gibson Amy Hauser, Len McPherson Venue Officers Brendan Cardiff, Chloe Forbes Administration Officer Liz Tyson-Doneley
Credit: Photographer’s name
Special thanks Special thanks to Queensland Conservatorium supporters and donors. Philanthropy plays a vital role at Queensland Conservatorium. Only through your support can our students experience valuable learning opportunities through productions such as this one. To invest in the future of music and performance in Queensland, contact us on +61 (0)7 5552 7218 or email giving@griffith.edu.au Queensland Conservatorium thanks our generous donors and supporters. We would like to acknowledge our instrument bank donors supporting the students in tonight’s performance.
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CRICOS: 00233E | TEQSA: PRV12076
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