CONSERVATORIUM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
SIBELIUS, PROKOFIEV & WYATT
FRIDAY | 13TH NOVEMBER 2026 | 7:30PM QUEENSLAND CONSERVATORIUM THEATRE
CRICOS: 00233E | TEQSA: PRV12076
Credit: Sam Salvador
AARON WYATT, CONDUCTOR CARINA WEDER, PIANO
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’s concert brings together music, time and place in compelling ways as we celebrate the remarkable breadth of learning, research and creative practice that continues to grow across the Queensland Conservatorium. I am delighted to welcome Melbourne-based violist, composer and conductor, Aaron Wyatt, who throughout his residency in the past week has worked with the Conservatorium students as a conductor, while allowing them to engage directly with him as a composer, culminating in tonight’s performance of Voiceless: Reflections on a Referendum. 2026 has been a year of deepening our awareness of and engagement with First Nations music, knowledge and creative practice at the Queensland Conservatorium. Associate Professor Donna Weston has led the research project Knowling Through Sound: A Framework for Embedding First Nations Ways of Knowling in Performing Arts Curricula. We have been fortunate to work closely with the Conservatorium Library to develop a new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection, including a growing collection of scores, recordings and resources by First Nations composers, with Aaron’s work performed this evening among them. These initiatives sit alongside many others. Professor Naomi Sunderland and Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet are leading the major ARC-funded Remedy Project, which explores music as a primary determent of health in First Nations communities. We are also proud to have celebrated the submission of three First Nations PhD candidates during 2026, and in 2027 we will commence our First Nations Artist-in-Residence program, creating further opportunities for learning, collaboration, and creative exchange. We will continue programming our annual Reconciliation Week concert, focusing on First Nations composers and musicians.
DIRECTOR’S WELCOME (CONT.) Tonight’s program also features pianist Carina Weder, a Bachelor of Music (Honours) student, as soloist in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. Performing a concerto with the support of one’s peers is one of life’s great musical privileges, but such achievements are never realised in isolation. I would like to acknowledge Carina’s teacher, Associate Professor Daniel de Borah, and the wider Conservatorium community, including all the students performing on the stage tonight. This work was premiered in Chicago in 1921, with the composer himself as soloist. Tonight, we hear a fresh interpretation from an emerging artist, performing with the extraordinary students of the Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra. The program concludes with Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2, composed in 190102. This work has often been associated with ideas of national identity and independence, evoking the landscapes and spirit of Finland, while being conceived under the warmth of an Italian sun. Tonight it is performed in the stormy season of Brisbane by young musicians at the beginning of their professional journeys. Music intertwines with place and time in countless ways, finding renewed meaning in every performance for every generation. On Sunday, this program will transform again, as it tours in its entirety to the Brolga Theatre in Maryborough, Queensland, another remarkable opportunity for students and community. Thankyou for joining us this evening. We hope you enjoy tonight’s performance. Professor Vanessa Tomlinson, Director, Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University.
VOICELESS: REFLECTIONS ON A REFERENDUM AARON WYATT Voiceless was written as a personal response to the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum: both the lead up to it and the immediate aftermath. As a result of this, it is vaguely programmatic, with the piece roughly tracking the way in which things progressed (minus the initial optimism) throughout the campaign. The piece ends as it starts, with a return to the status quo, bult on the sounds of the open strings of the violas and cellos. (The chromatic movements here were inspired by the violin part of the Allegretto of Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony.) The bombastic, dissonant second section channels the vitriol of the campaign, mixed with the occasional glimmer of hope. In this section (and the transition into it) the snare drum, often aided by the brass, delivers a militarised version of the opening lyrics to John Farnham’s You’re the Voice, famously used by the often misguided Yes campaign. The third section is the most sparsely orchestrated and is the moment when all hope is lost. Oboe, bassoon, and piccolo weave a plaintive melody above the desolate sounds of the drone of the lower strings. The transition of the next section makes use of a quote from Deborah Cheetham Fraillon’s work Eumeralla, which was performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in Hamer Hall on the night of the vote count. While only a small, rhythmically altered melodic fragment is used, the lyrics of the original translate to “Deliver us (from this ignorance)”. As things come crashing down in the next section, we hear the mocking tones of the brass and the anguish of the winds and strings over the one external reference that I composed myself. It’s a melody from my work The Aboriginal Problem, which reflects on Lang Hancock’s infamous speech on the subject. As the uneasy calm of the opening returns, the melodic fragments in the violins have been replaced by the winds playing an altered, minor version of the line “for we are one and free” from the national anthem, interspersed with the Dies Irae theme in the brass, a requiem for a country unable to properly confront the demons on the past. Aaron Wyatt, 2026.
PROGRAM Aaron Wyatt: Voiceless: Reflections on a Referendum Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No.3 in C major, Op. 26 Carina Weder, piano Interval Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 43
Artists Aaron Wyatt Conductor
Aaron is a violist, violinist, conductor, composer, programmer, and academic. Originally from Perth, he spent many years as a regular casual with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra before moving to Melbourne to take up an assistant lecturer position at Monash. A member of the award winning Decibel New Music ensemble, he also develops their animated graphic notation app for the iPad, the Decibel ScorePlayer. In 2021 he became the first Indigenous Australian to conduct a state symphony orchestra in concert, and has since gone on to have engagements with the Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony Orchestras. He was nominated for a Helpmann Award for his role as musical director of Cat Hope’s opera, Speechless, in the 2019 Perth Festival, and conducted the premieres of Gina Williams’ and Guy Ghouse’s Noongar operas Koolbardi wer Wardong, and Wundig wer Wilura with the West Australian Opera. As a composer, he writes both traditionally notated works, and electroacoustic, graphic notation pieces. An alumnus of the Ngarra-Burria First Peoples Composers program, he has written for Ensemble Offspring, GreyWing Ensemble, Ensemble Dutala, the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, the Monash Art Ensemble, the Monash Academy Orchestra, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, the ANAM Set, and the Melbourne String Ensemble. He was an inaugural participant in the AMEB’s First Nations Composers Program, and was an Artist in Residence with Speak Percussion where he wrote his first long form work, Digital Echoes.
Artists Carina Weder Piano
Carina Weder was born in Brisbane and began her musical training at 3 years old with Mariella Farrugia and Mark Griggiths, later continuing her studies with Oleg Stepanov. Now completing her Bachelor of Music Honours at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, Carina studies under renowned Australian pianist Daniel de Borah and is supported by the Dorothy Ford Memorial Piano Scholarship and the Raoul P Neil and Airdree P Neil Foundation Scholarships. Carina performs widely as both a soloist and collaborator, with appearances in major student showcases, charity events and award finals. Performing alongside her colleagues, she was awarded the Margaret Nickson Prize, Basil Jones Sonata Prize, Hilda Woolmer Prize, and the Accompanists’ Guild of Queensland Piano Accompaniment Prize. This year, she participated in the Musical Chairs festival at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. As a former member of the Queensland Youth Symphony, Carina has also performed internationally as both a violinist and pianist, appearing in prestigious venues such as the Wiener Musikverein, Esplanade Concert Hall, and Laeiszhalle Hamburg
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 conductor Peter Morris is 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 Miles Le Goullon Emily Thompson Safia Hughes Chivers Emily Masciocchi Teresa Kao Claire Yeung Eve Scott Jade Leong Ally Liu Abigail Xu Yuki Ijido Viola Harriet Dykes * Graeme Jennings Brooke Shim Eben Yeh Dylan Weder Edison Richard Yvonne Spina Fan-Rong Kong
Violin II Theodore Aitcheson * Layla Mertz Madison Sim Amalie Grime Amber Wang Alexandra Korschmin Bryn Wiseman Candice Kuo Koume Wong Clara Seo Aurora Lin Cello Wyatt/Prokofiev Liam Gane* Sibelius Laura Boon * Ai Hasegawa Masato Matsumoto Aaron Goldburg Kathryn Phun Leo Franklin Takeshi Holland James Pollard
*Principal
Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra Contrabass Jessica Clarke * Luke Thompson Daniel Wilesmith Alex Liao Flute Wyatt/Prokofiev Amy Tashjian * Sibelius Nathan Smith * Adeline Cassidy Piccolo Laura Skorzewski * Oboe Liam Robinson * Logan Nutley Lucinda Turunen
Bassoon Zane Lai * Georgina Sinclair Contrabassoon Andy Dai * Horn James Rourke * Alysia-Rose Booth Cecilia Casson Ava Gall Timpani Hunter Burgess * Percussion Jack Gilberston * Jack Cupples Christian Lanzafame
Clarinet Gabrielle Thompson * Eliza Wang Bass Clarinet Jack Goves *
*Principal
Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra Trumpet Wyatt Lorenzo McPherson *
Bass Trombone Wyatt Elliott Sternberg *
Prokofiev Leah Jones *
Prokofiev/Sibelius Theo Burnett *
Sibelius Megan Barber * Hetty Lawson Mac Gynthern
Tuba Wyatt Sebastian Young-Florence *
Trombone Wyatt Samuel MacDonald * Anna Mulligan
Sibelius Ryan Collier *
Prokofiev Anna Mulligan * Olive Whalen Sibelius Matthew Redman * Alex McLaughlin
*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, Perfomance & 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
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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Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University 140 Grey Street, South Bank 4101 Concert enquiries: (07) 3735 6241 griffith.edu.au/music griffith.edu.au/queenslandconservatorium queenslandconser vatorium.com.au
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CRICOS: 00233E | TEQSA: PRV12076
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