All his life Leonard Bernstein had a love affair with New York and in his many music theatre works he painted the most vivid picture of life in the ‘City That Never Sleeps’. This performance embraces Bernstein’s New York, offering a rare insight into the composer’s mind with Bernstein devotee Bramwell Tovey at the helm and on the keys. PROGRAM Music from Wonderful Town, On the Town, Candide, Peter Pan, Fancy Free and West Side Story
MSO: Chinese New Year Concert
Visionary composer and conductor Tan Dun returns to Melbourne to celebrate the Year of the Pig in a thrilling and personal program. His Double Bass Concerto is inspired by the Chinese novel Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong and reflects Tan Dun’s fascination with the sounds and customs of the ancient cultures along the Silk Road. Joining the maestro and the MSO is Hanggai, a troupe of traditional-meets-rock musicians from the steppes of Inner Mongolia via Beijing. Combining traditional instruments with a hearty serving of rock bravado, their performance with the MSO is unlike anything else you have seen all year.
MSO: Perséphone & The Rite of Spring
The MSO reveals the power of spring with Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps and Perséphone: one wild, rebellious and revolutionary, the other a lyrical, little-known masterpiece. In his final year at the helm, parting Chief Conductor Sir Andrew Davis conducts this extraordinary Stravinsky double bill, in which Perséphone is performed for the first time in Australia since more than 50 years. Tenor Paul Groves, as Priest Eumophalus, is accompanied on stage by another 180 voices: the MSO Choir, the Australian Girls Choir and the National Boys Choir. The mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean is a convincing narrator.
MSO: Beethoven 9, Circa and Cheetham
The epic struggle for peace and ultimate triumphant bliss of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is physically embodied by ten world-class circus artists from Circa, Australia’s premier contemporary circus, in the Season Opening Gala of Melbourne Sypmphony Orchestra. This revolutionary world-first staging of Beethoven 9 is performed alongside a world premiere by revered Australian composer Deborah Cheetham. Her work “Dutalla, star filled sky” has been created in response to Beethoven’s Ninth.
MSO: Kate Mille-Heidke and the MSO
A recording of a very special one-night-only event, Australian theatre and music sensation Kate Miller-Heidke joins the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, performing songs from her award-winning opera The Rabbits and popular hits featured on her new album ‘The Best of Kate Miller-Heidke: Act One’. Kate Miller-Heidke is a classically trained singer who traverses the worlds of contemporary pop, folk and opera. This is her first collaboration with the MSO. When the singer-songwriter combines her own material with a symphonic sound, you’re in for a special thrill! Featuring extraordinary visuals by Australian artist and film maker Amy Gebhardt, guitar accompaniment by Keir Nuttall and conducted by MSO’s Associate Conductor Benjamin Northey.
MSO: Hector Berlioz ” L’Enfance du Christ”
The 150th anniversary of Hector Berlioz’s death in 1869 will be commemorated in 2019. An ancient story with a modern parallel, Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ tells the story of the Holy Family fleeing their homeland and relying on the kindness of strangers as they journey across the desert to safety. Tender, intimate and intensely evocative, this oratorio is a stark musical contrast to the wild pagan dervishes, choruses of the damned and huge orchestral forces more commonly associated with Hector Berlioz. In almost cinematic style, Berlioz paints the human elements of the story in a series of visual tableaux: an uneasy night in Rome, the world-weariness of Herod, the blind fanaticism of the soothsayers, the joys and griefs of Jesus’ parents, the shepherds’ kindness and the bustling welcome of the Ishmaelite household. Prepare to be moved to tears, Berlioz would be proud! Why it’s a must-see: “This piece is very unusual for Berlioz as most of it is quite intimate. This work has wonderful writing for the chorus, it’s very varied and the narrator (sung by Andrew Staples) is so colourful. The final chorus is to die for!” (Sir Andrew Davis).
MSO: Eumeralla – A War Requiem for Peace
Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace brings into focus a period of Australia’s history that is yet to be fully understood. Written and composed by acclaimed Yorta Yorta soprano and composer Deborah Cheetham, this requiem for peace will be sung entirely in the ancient dialects of the Gunditjmara people. Benjamin Northey is “superbly conducting” the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, receiving “well-deserved and spontaneous standing ovations” (Limelight Magazine). Above all, this performance is a sign of willingness to continue on the path of reconciliation, in which Eumeralla represents a significant step.
MSO: Handel/Davis: Messiah
This performance by the MSO stands apart – firstly, as Sir Andrew Davis’ farewell performance after six years as Chief Conduct, and secondly, as the Australian premiere of Davis’ own orchestration of Handel’s classic which has been nominated at the 2018 Grammy Awards. The all-Australian cast of soloists including soprano Shiobhan Stagg – “sparkling all night“ – (Herald Sun) and tenor Topi Lehtipuu sing excellently, the well-prepared MSO choir performs masterfully.
MSO: Sir Andrew Davis conducts 20th-Century Classics
Conducted by Sir Andrew Davis with Australia’s violin master Richard Tognetti, this concert features Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending which was placed No. 1 in the ABC’s Swoon Classic 100 countdown in 2015. The work itself remains a glorious evocation of English pastoral life — the solo violin being the evocation of George Meredith’s soaring verse. Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes convey all the scrunchy saltiness of the coast of his beloved East Anglia. The program also includes the Partita for Violin and Orchestra by Witold Lutoslawski, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s vibrant Symphonic Dances.
MSO: Russian Night with Maxim Vengerov
The world-renowned violinist Maxim Vengerov joins the MSO to perform the fiendishly difficult Violin Concerto by Tchaikovsky. Full of soaring melodies, melancholy and virtuosity, this work has rightfully claimed its place amongst the great violin concertos of all time. Scheherazade tells the story of a slave girl having to amuse the gruesome sultan by telling him a new story every night. Several of these come together in Rimsky-Korsakov’s colourful oriental fantasy; a highlight in the Russian orchestral repertoire and the ideal work for an ensemble of virtuosos like the MSO. Allow the MSO to transport you into the world of a thousand-and-one nights.