Master Series

Wednesday 12 February 2014

Friday 14 February 2014

Saturday 15 February 2014

ABSOLUTELYBEETHOVEN

2014

* Selected performances. ^Booking fees of $7.50 – $8.95 may apply. #Additional fees may apply.

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february — march

ELEKTRAROBERTSON CONDUCTS AN OPERA IN THE CONCERT HALL

R STRAUSS Elektra

David Robertson conductorChristine Goerke soprano (Elektra)Lisa Gasteen soprano (Klytemnestra)Cheryl Barker soprano (Chrysothemis)Peter Coleman-Wright baritone (Orestes)Kim Begley tenor (Aegisthus)Sydney Philharmonia ChoirsSydney Dance CompanyStephanie Lake choreographer

Special EventPremier Partner Credit Suisse

Sat 22 Feb 8pmMondays @ 7

Mon 24 Feb 7pm

Pre-concert talk by David Larkin

CLASSICAL

JOHN WILLIAMS MUSIC FROM THE MOVIES

David Robertson presents a concert of highlights from the great John Williams fi lm scores. From Superman and E.T. to Schindler’s List and Star Wars – movie sounds in the concert hall in the hands of a great communicator.

Meet the Music

Thu 27 Feb 6.30pmKaleidoscope

Fri 28 Feb 8pmSat 1 Mar 8pm

Pre-concert talk at 7.15pm (5.45pm Thursday)

SSO PRESENTS

rePLAY SYMPHONY OF HEROES

Get set for a gaming paradise on screen and stage! Including Portal, Journey, The Legend of Zelda, The Elder Scrolls, Halo and Final Fantasy. Played out with the dramatic, powerful and live surround sound of your Sydney Symphony Orchestra on stage at the Sydney Opera House.

Fri 7 Mar 8pmSat 8 Mar 2pm

ALEXANDER GAVRYLYUK IN RECITAL

SCHUMANN Kinderszenen MOZART Piano Sonata in C, K330LISZT Lacrymosa from Mozart’s RequiemLISZT Tarantella from Venezia e Napoli, S162PROKOFIEV Sonata No.6 (War Sonata 1)

International Pianists in RecitalPresented by Theme & Variations

Mon 10 Mar 7pmCity Recital Hall Angel Place

Pre-concert talk by Stephanie McCallum

FOR COMPLETE DETAILS OF THE 2014 SEASON VISIT

SYDNEYSYMPHONY.COMNO FEES WHEN YOU BOOK CLASSICAL CONCERTS ONLINE WITH THE SSO

CALL 8215 4600^ MON-FRI 9AM-5PM

DK Playbill Opera Domain.indd 1 23/01/14 10:35 AM

WELCOME

From the Managing Director

This week marks an exciting new chapter in your orchestra’s history, as we welcome David Robertson to Sydney for his first concerts as our chief conductor and artistic director and embark on the first subscription concerts of the 2014 season. And it’s with pride and anticipation that I welcome you to tonight’s performance.

Tonight’s program shows the orchestra in all its strength. It also reveals the imagination and musical insight of David Robertson as a concert programmer, combining repertoire favourites with new and less familiar music in brilliantly curated musical experiences.

Over the next few weeks we’ll also witness the sheer range of his taste and interests, performing, in consecutive weeks, Strauss’s deeply intense Elektra and an exhilarating program of film music by John Williams. Such diversity is a signal that under David Robertson’s leadership we intend to reach out to all music lovers with great music from all genres, and to invite them to connect with what we hope will truly be their orchestra.

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra has grown in both international reputation and stature over the past five years under the leadership of Vladimir Ashkenazy, with plaudits from around the world. Under David Robertson we take the next steps in our pursuit of excellence and acclaim at home and abroad. I hope you will enjoy this season of concerts and the exciting future of your orchestra, and I look forward to seeing you at many more performances through the year.

Rory Jeffes Managing Director Sydney Symphony Orchestra

Saturday night’s performance will be broadcast live across Australia by ABC Classic FM.

Pre-concert talk by David Robertson at 7.15pm in the Northern Foyer.

Estimated durations: 23 minutes, 23 minutes, 20-minute interval, 37 minutes The concert will conclude at approximately 10.05pm.

ABSOLUTELY BEETHOVENDavid Robertson conductor Australian String Quartet

IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882–1971) Symphony in Three MovementsI q = 160 II Andante – Interlude (L’istesso tempo) –  III Con moto

JOHN ADAMS (born 1947) Absolute Jest, for string quartet and orchestraaustralian premiere

ASQ: Kristian Winter and Ioana Tache (violins), Stephen King (viola), Sharon Draper (cello)

INTERVAL

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Symphony No.7 in A, Op.92Poco sostenuto – VivaceAllegrettoPrestoAllegro con brio

2014 concert season

MASTER SERIESWEDNESDAY 12 FEBRUARY, 8PM

FRIDAY 14 FEBRUARY, 8PM

SATURDAY 15 FEBRUARY, 8PM

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE CONCERT HALL

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INTRODUCTION

Absolutely Beethoven: The Robertson Era Begins

This week we welcome David Robertson in his first concerts as chief conductor and artistic director, and he’s chosen a signature program for the occasion. It reveals the delight he takes in shaping stimulating experiences for audiences –  bringing together music that will nourish, delight and surprise. So organic are the connections and musical links in tonight’s program that it deserves a beautifully drawn mind map rather than a written introduction.

At its centre is Absolute Jest by John Adams, with the Australian String Quartet in the solo spotlight. Adams himself tells the story of how he found a catalyst in Stravinsky (Pulcinella with its borrowing from music of the past and its featured use of a string quintet), and then took musical inspiration from the scherzo movements of Beethoven’s string quartets. The result exudes an almost Classical energy and wit, but is Adams through and through; a respectful tribute to a master but as good-humoured and entertaining as the title suggests.

Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements embraces the same contrasts, with his mid-century neoclassical style married to a fierce energy you might recognise from The Rite of Spring. It’s not an orthodox symphony, but it has something in common with the Beethoven symphony in the second half. In both the Stravinsky and Beethoven’s Seventh the stimulating force is rhythm, sometimes hypnotic, sometimes wild (Beethoven says we should think of Bacchus). But in both pieces that force has been harnessed by Classical structures and gestures (Apollo, to complete the image).

This is a high-energy program – a truly exhilarating beginning to a new era. But it also acts as a reminder that every creator works in the shadow of those who came before and that orchestral music is a living, growing art form.

Turn to page 27 to read Bravo! – musician profiles, articles and news from the orchestra. There are nine issues through the year, also available at sydneysymphony.com/bravo

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ABOUT THE MUSIC

Igor Stravinsky Symphony in Three MovementsI q = 160 II Andante – Interlude (L’istesso tempo) –  III Con moto

Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements begins with a muscular flourish and clangourous chords before segueing into an intense secondary section where sharp bursts on winds and piano appear, syncopated, over an ominous ostinato in lower strings. It’s emotive, certainly recalls the eruptive force of The Rite of Spring of 30 years earlier, and seems to belie the poise and measure we might expect from a ‘neoclassical’ work. But neoclassical is just a label, isn’t it?

Stravinsky’s life seems to divide into neat chunks – Russia, Paris (or at least western Europe), the USA – which roughly match with discrete musical styles: the folkloric works that are still his most popular; the neoclassical works beginning in Switzerland and Paris and ending in the USA; and the final serial phase. The Symphony in Three Movements was his first new work to be performed after naturalisation as a US citizen in December 1945. It was premiered by the New York Philharmonic under his direction on 24 January 1946. Stravinsky was by now living in Hollywood, essentially a western company town (product: movies), a far cry from the stimulus of Paris or the formative influences of St Petersburg.

Stravinsky initially arrived at a classically economical pared-down style because of wartime necessity; he was directed towards the music of the past by the impresario Diaghilev who, in asking him to rearrange some music by Pergolesi, was trying to entice him back to the Ballets Russes after the war. But Stravinsky seems to have been prepared to wear a badge of neoclassicism. The late 1930s and 40s saw his most didactic exposition of its principles in his ghostwritten autobiography Chroniques de ma vie and in his Norton Lectures at Harvard University. He had articulated Classical principles of restraint, clarity and formal balance in reaction to the grotesque inflated expressiveness of late Romanticism, and the gargantuan-ness that affected even his own Rite of Spring, with its orchestra of over a hundred players. But had he ever really surrendered strength and acuity? This is the man who used dumbbells in piano practice.

The Symphony in Three Movements maintains a neoclasssical attitude to music of the past: the first movement is said to follow the shape of a Beethoven first movement, and the scampering woodwind duetting in the second movement suggests 19th-century opera. The title cutely acknowledges deviation from the usual four movements of a Classical symphony. (Stravinsky’s assistant Robert Craft once pointed out that Stravinsky’s ‘classicism’ is

KeynotesSTRAVINSKYBorn near St Petersburg, 1882 Died New York, 1971

One of the 20th century’s greatest and most influential composers, Igor Stravinsky was born in Russia, later adopting French and then American nationality. His style is similarly multi-faceted, from the exotic colours of The Firebird – his first big hit – to the transparency of his later neoclassical style. Prokofiev once described Stravinsky’s neoclassical music as ‘Bach with pockmarks’, perhaps referring to his practice of spicing otherwise conventional melodies and harmonies with unexpected notes.

SYMPHONY IN THREE MOVEMENTS

Is this really a symphony? If you didn’t know the title you might think you were listening to concertante music: a piano concerto at times, a harp concerto at others. Eric Walter White, in his register of Stravinsky’s music, suggests that it might even be better to recognise it as a concerto rather than a symphony. Heard in that light, it’s easier to understand why it’s ‘built up by the balance of contrasts’ rather than pursuing the kind of ‘argument’ required of symphonic form.

Recognised as a symphony, it follows the pattern of a baroque opera sinfonia: three movements (not four) in a fast – slow – fast pattern. At first Stravinsky claimed it was abstract music with no narrative or program; later he admitted to the influence of images from wartime documentaries, such as goose-stepping German soldiers in the third movement.

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rhomboids and trapezoids compared to Mozart’s squares and rectangles.) But the Symphony in Three Movements is like a neoclassical harking back to the energy of 1913’s Rite of Spring, harnessing its earthy passions in an elegant formal structure.

There are also extramusical associations going on, something that one does not expect from a composer who despised programs and argued the abstract nature of music at Harvard (‘music is powerless to express anything other than itself’). The second movement – with harp rather than piano obbligato – was originally to have accompanied the Apparition scene in the film Song of Bernadette. The wonky march which begins the third movement was inspired by World War II newsreel footage of goose-stepping German soldiers, and Stravinsky even conceded that the fugal-style passage that begins on piano and harp in the last movement (punctuated in typical Stravinskian fashion by single notes on trombone) represented the ‘turning point’ of the war, when the Allies finally began to prevail against the Nazis. Stravinsky’s love of sound is always obvious, nowhere more so than in a neoclassical work which is bound to make the abstract nature of sound its business. But the combining of harp and piano in the third movement might actually have denoted a nostalgia for mother Russia. Mikhail Glinka too had used the combination of piano and harp in Ruslan and Ludmila in 1842 to suggest the gusli, a zither-like instrument Stravinsky loved.

Stravinsky may have passed through many different phases, but there were elements, standards, a cast of mind that he maintained. His attention to sound, his ‘motor habits’, his concertante use of instruments, always gave his work their particular stamp, their ‘physiognomy’, as he liked to say. And there may be an extra-musical association of a more personal nature. Critic Paul Griffiths thinks the piano, present as an obbligato in so many of his works, always represents Stravinsky himself.

About the same time as the Symphony in Three Movements, Stravinsky had thought of revising The Rite of Spring, but in the end he revised only one movement. Why no further? Perhaps because there was no need. The Symphony fulfilled the purpose of the revision perfectly: the need for a reprise of that sort of volcanic expression.

GORDON KALTON WILLIAMS SYMPHONY AUSTRALIA © 2002

Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements calls for two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, cor anglais, three clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), two bassoons and contrabassoon; four horns, three trumpets, three trombones and tuba; timpani and percussion; harp and piano (both prominently featured), and strings.

The Symphony was premiered by the New York Philharmonic on 24 January 1946 with the composer conducting. The SSO gave the Australian premiere in 1951 under Eugene Goossens, and performed it most recently in 2002, conducted by Richard Gill.

Stravinsky

‘…music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all…’

STRAVINSKY, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1936)

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John Adams Absolute Jest, for string quartet and orchestraAustralian String Quartet

In Absolute Jest, Adams indulges his lifelong affinity for the music of Beethoven. Comprising a large, widely spanning single movement, Absolute Jest incorporates more than a half dozen Beethoven fragments, mostly from the late string quartets. These fragments, however, are not simply rearranged ‘quotations’ but provide the raw material for a score that could be by none other than John Adams.

The unifying factor is the composer’s attraction to what he calls ‘the emphatic energy of Beethoven’. As Adams points out, Beethoven ‘was the master of taking the minimal amount of information and turning it into fantastic, expressive, and energized structures’. He compares what Beethoven achieved with the Fifth Symphony’s famous four-note motto to ‘atomic theory’ in action and to the construction of complex compounds out of basic molecules.

But it was a later composer who provided the catalyst for the underlying concept of Absolute Jest. And that is a story best told by John Adams. TM

The composer writes…

The idea for Absolute Jest was suggested by a performance by Michael Tilson Thomas of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, a piece that I’d known all my life but had never much paid attention to until hearing MTT conduct it. Hearing this (and knowing that I was already committed to composing something for the San Francisco Symphony’s 100th anniversary), I was suddenly stimulated by the way Stravinsky had absorbed musical artefacts from the past and worked them into his own highly personal language.

But there the comparison pretty much ends. Stravinsky was apparently unfamiliar with the Pergolesi and other Neapolitan tunes when Diaghilev brought them to him. I, on the other hand, had loved the Beethoven string quartets since I was a teenager, and crafting something out of fragments of Opus 131, Opus 135, and the Grosse Fuge (plus a few more familiar ‘tattoos’ from his symphonic scherzos) was a totally spontaneous act for me.

‘String quartet and orchestra’ is admittedly a repertory black hole – is there a single work in that medium that is regularly heard? And there are good reasons for why this is. The first is a simple issue of furniture: The problem of placing four solo players in the ‘soloist’ position but still in front of the podium (so that they can follow the conductor) is daunting. The inner players, the second violin and viola, are frequently lost to the audience both visually and aurally.

KeynotesADAMSBorn Worcester, Massachusetts, 1947

John Adams is one of the most performed of all living composers. He’s often classified as a minimalist, and his music frequently features the trademark repetition, harmonic language and energy of that style. But his works vary greatly, embracing the cyclic Shaker Loops (1978), popular orchestral showpieces such as Short Ride in a Fast Machine and celebrated operas such as Nixon in China (1987). More recently, his Gospel According to the Other Mary (2012) was described by Alex Ross as a work of daring from a popular, celebrated artist willing to set aside familiar devices and step into the unknown.

ABSOLUTE JEST

Looking at the stage, you’ll notice the first quirk in this piece: string quartet as ‘soloist’. John Adams’ next joke is in the music: Absolute Jest makes multiple references to Beethoven’s scherzos. (Scherzo is Italian for ‘joke’.) Listen at the beginning for the telltale timpani solo from Beethoven’s Ninth, or for the rollicking scherzo theme from the Opus 135 string quartet ten minutes later. You might even catch a glimpse of the Pastoral Symphony. This high-energy music seems to end big – and you’ll be tempted to applaud – but Adams has the last laugh, giving the final word to the soft, dreamy echoes of piano, harp and cowbells.

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But placement on the stage aside, the real challenge is in marrying the highly charged manner and sound of a string quartet to the mass and less precise texture of the large orchestra. Unless very skilfully handled by both composer and performers, the combining of these two ensembles can result in a feeling of sensory and expressive overload.

At its premiere in March 2012, the first third of the piece was largely a trope on the Opus 131 C sharp minor Quartet’s scherzo and suffered from just this problem. After a moody opening of tremolo strings and fragments of the Ninth Symphony signal an octave-dropping motif, the solo quartet emerged as if out of a haze, playing the driving foursquare figures of that scherzo, material that almost immediately went through a series of strange permutations.

This original opening never satisfied me. The clarity of the solo quartet’s role was often buried beneath the orchestral activity, resulting in what sounded to me too much like ‘chatter’. And the necessity of slowing down Beethoven’s tempo of the Opus 131 scherzo in order to make certain orchestral passages negotiable detracted from its vividness and breathless energy.

Six months after the premiere I decided to compose a different beginning to Absolute Jest – a full 400 bars of completely new music, replacing the ‘quadrangular’ feel of the Opus 131 scherzo with a bouncing 6/8 pulse that launches the piece in what is, to my ears, a far more satisfying fashion. The rolling 6/8 patterns recall the same Ninth Symphony scherzo but also summon up other references – of the Hammerklavier Sonata, of the Eighth Symphony, and other archetypal Beethoven motifs that come and go like cameo appearances on a stage.

‘The quartet plays a lot of Beethoven but it has been passed through a hall of mirrors, some kind of Einsteinian universe where time, structure and harmonies are warped – not in a grotesque or satirical way – rather as a trope on the Beethoven with the orchestra sounding more like John Adams.’

JOHN ADAMS

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The high-spirited triple-time scherzo to the F major Opus 135 Quartet (Beethoven’s final work in that medium) enters about a third of the way through Absolute Jest and becomes the dominant motivic material for the remainder of the piece, interrupted only by a brief slow section that interweaves fragments of the Grosse Fuge with the opening fugue theme of the C sharp minor Quartet. A final furious coda features the solo string quartet charging ahead at full speed over an extended orchestral pedal based on the famous Waldstein Sonata harmonic progressions.

Absolute Jest had elicited mixed responses from listeners on its first outing. Quite a few reviewers assumed, perhaps because of its title, that the piece was little more than a backslapping joke. (One Chicago journalist was offended and could only express disgust at the abuse of Beethoven’s great music.)

There is nothing particularly new about one composer internalising the music of another and ‘making it his own’. Composers are drawn to another’s music to the point where they want to live in it, and that can happen in a variety of fashions, whether it’s Brahms making variations on themes by Handel or Haydn, Liszt arranging Wagner or Beethoven for piano, Schoenberg crafting a concerto out of Monn or, more radically, Berio ‘deconstructing’ Schubert.

But Absolute Jest is not a clone of my Grand Pianola Music or Chamber Symphony. Of course there are ‘winks’, some of them not entirely subtle, here and there in the piece. But the act of composing the work (one that took nearly a year of work) was the most extended experience in pure ‘invention’ that I’ve ever undertaken. Its creation was for me a thrilling lesson in counterpoint, in thematic transformation and formal design. The ‘jest’ of the title should be understood in terms of its Latin meaning, gesta: doings, deeds, exploits. I like to think of ‘jest’ as indicating an exercising of one’s wit by means of imagination and invention.

JOHN ADAMS © 2012 NOTE BY JOHN ADAMS WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THOMAS MAY REPRINTED BY PERMISSION. © SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY, 2014

Absolute Jest calls for string quartet with a large orchestra of two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons and contrabassoon; four horns, two trumpets and two trombones but no tuba; timpani and two percussionists; harp and piano (both with special tuning), celesta and strings.

Absolute Jest was premiered in its original form on 15 March 2012 by the San Francisco Symphony and the St Lawrence String Quartet conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, and with a substantially revised beginning on 1 December 2012 by the New World Symphony and the SLSQ conducted by John Adams. This is the Australian premiere.

‘Building the piece around this material was a thrill, but wasn’t easy – having Beethoven in the car while you are driving is exhilarating, terrifying and very humbling.’

JOHN ADAMS

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Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No.7 in A, Op.92Poco sostenuto – Vivace Allegretto Presto Allegro con brio

Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony received its first performances in December 1813 in an atmosphere of triumph and euphoria: Napoleon’s imperial ambitions had been squashed; the composer was at the height of his popularity. The symphony had been completed in the summer of 1812 so its joyous spirit had nothing to do with liberation or military victory, but nonetheless audiences heard in it the enthusiastic mood of the ‘battle symphony’ that Beethoven had composed for the occasion, the overwhelmingly popular Wellington’s Victory. One critic went so far as to describe the Seventh as a ‘companion piece’ to Wellington’s Victory.

Despite the competition, the Seventh Symphony made a genuine impression of its own. Louis Spohr, assistant concertmaster for the premiere, noted that the symphony was exceptionally well received and that the ‘wonderful second movement had to be repeated’.

The key to the symphony’s direct appeal – then and now – lies in a single musical element: rhythm. Never before had rhythm been given such a fundamental role in Beethoven’s music. It generates the symphony’s structure, its melodic and harmonic gestures, and ultimately its powerful rhetoric. But unlike the Fifth Symphony, where the opening rhythmic motif is developed, fragmented and expanded, the Seventh Symphony adopts a treatment of rhythm and pulse that emphasises obsessive repetition of distinctive patterns.

Rhythm – and the gesture of the repeated note – defines the Seventh Symphony from the outset. After an imposing slow introduction, almost a movement in itself, Beethoven spins his first main theme from a skipping rhythm on a single note, at once relentless and static. At least, most listeners today are likely to hear it as a ‘skipping rhythm’, agreeing with Wagner’s description of the symphony as the ‘apotheosis of the dance’. For us, as for Wagner, the experience of Beethoven’s Seventh is a kinetic one.

But Beethoven’s listeners, Romantics all and therefore attuned to the niceties of classicism, would also have recognised in that rhythm the dactylic metre of classical Greek poetry. Beethoven’s student Carl Czerny was among the first to detail the extensive use of poetic metres in the symphony. Czerny points out the ‘weighty spondees’ of the introduction, the dactylic figures in the first movement, the combination

KeynotesBEETHOVENBorn Bonn, 1770 Died Vienna, 1827

Beethoven’s work is traditionally divided into three periods – often disputed in detail, but prevailing as a way of tracing the progress of his life and musical style. The Seventh Symphony represents the middle ‘Heroic’ period (beginning in 1803 with the completion of the Eroica Symphony and ending in 1812 with the composition of the Seventh and Eighth symphonies) – the period in which Beethoven, devastated by irreversible deafness but ‘saved’ by his art, produced six of his nine symphonies and three of his five piano concertos.

SEVENTH SYMPHONY

Rhythm is the essence of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. In each of its four movements, whether fast or slow, is the rhetoric of repeated rhythmic patterns and a propelling energy. The Seventh Symphony has a pulse; more than that, it moves. There is the skipping of the first movement, the throbbing tread of the second, a relentless scherzo, and a whirling and delirious finale. The most famous part of the Seventh Symphony is the Allegretto second movement. Hypnotic and irresistible, the Allegretto was encored – right then and there, between movements! – at the premiere in 1813.

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of these two patterns in the Allegretto, and other poetic foundations for the musical content, concluding: ‘It isn’t improbable that Beethoven…was thinking about the forms of heroic poetry and must have deliberately turned toward the same in his musical epic.’

Other writers of Beethoven’s generation interpreted the conspicuous use of poetic metre as deliberate evocation of Greek music and poetry, and of the ancient world in general. Henri de Castil-Blaze, for example, heard in the much-loved Allegretto ‘an antique physiognomy’. A.B. Marx described the massive opening of the first movement as ‘the kind of invocation with which we are particularly familiar in epic poets’, and the finale as a ‘Bacchic ecstasy’ – this last interpretation given the seal of approval by Wagner (who also recognised an ‘orgiastic’ character in the music), and in the 20th century by Donald Tovey.

Beethoven himself is silent on the Seventh Symphony. We don’t know whether he was trying to evoke the ancient world or not, but such an aim would certainly have been in keeping with the spirit of Romanticism, which sought the fusion of the Modern and the Antique, the simultaneous stewardship and redefinition of classicism.

In 1804 Willibrord Joseph Mähler painted Beethoven’s portrait. He posed the composer in an Arcadian landscape, a lyre in his left hand and a temple of Apollo just visible in the background near his right – a model of classical serenity and a marked contrast to the popular image of Beethoven – all wild hair and scowling looks.

the ‘apotheosis of the dance’

RICHARD WAGNER

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Nowhere is this more strikingly conveyed than in the hypnotic second movement, ‘the menacing chorus of ancient tragedy’. It’s not a true slow movement but a more animated Allegretto. Its point of departure – and indeed its point of return – is uncertainty, with harmonically unstable chords that draw us forward from stasis to metamorphosis. The movement proper adopts the simplest of means: the throbbing tread of an austerely repeated pattern (ostinato) and the piling on of instrumental weight and transforming woodwind colour for ever increasing intensity. (This quietly spectacular movement was encored at the premiere, it’s easy to hear why.)

The dazzling scherzo shows Beethoven at play: setting his basic rhythms against each other, inverting and varying them, and cultivating ambiguity within a relentless pulse. The vehemence of the Presto comes from repeated notes that subdivide the melody into its most basic rhythmic unit; in the trio these repeated notes join to create a sustained figure, more expansive and lyrical but equally insistent.

For his finale, Beethoven compresses the contrasts of the first movement into the opening bars: two explosive gestures unleash whirling figurations above unremitting syncopation in the bass. Once more he spins a web of interlocking rhythms, ensnaring us in what his contemporaries described as ‘absurd, untamed music’ and a ‘delirium’. As Beethoven himself claimed: ‘Music is the wine which inspires us to new acts of generation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine to make mankind spiritually drunk.’

On its surface, this symphony conforms to classical structure, but underneath the Apollonian equilibrium of a four-movement symphony Beethoven creates a feeling of spontaneity, motion and Dionysian vitality. The introspective moments of the introduction, the central part of the scherzo, and the second movement only highlight the irrepressible brilliance of the symphony over all. Whether we attribute its magic to Terpsichore, the muse of the dance, or to Clio, the muse of epic poetry, Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony is an inspired invention.

YVONNE FRINDLE © 2004

Further reading: Maynard Solomon’s essay ‘The Seventh Symphony and the Rhythms of Antiquity’ (in Late Beethoven, University of California Press, 2003) examines Beethoven’s deployment of Greek poetic metres and the influence of classicism on Romantic creative thought.

Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony calls for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets; timpani and strings.

The SSO first performed the symphony in 1939 under Malcolm Sargent and most recently in 2011 when Edo de Waart programmed it with Harmonium by John Adams.

Beethoven, a portrait by Carl Jaeger, 1818

‘Music is the wine which inspires us to new acts of generation...’

BEETHOVEN

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Broadcast Diary

February–March

Saturday 15 February, 8pmABSOLUTELY BEETHOVENSee this program for details

Thursday 20 February, 9.30pm MOZART & SHOSTAKOVICH (2013) Dene Olding conductor Avan Yu piano Shostakovich, Mozart, Britten

SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA 2014 Tuesday 11 March, 6pm

Musicians, staff and guest artists discuss what’s in store in our forthcoming concerts.

MORE MUSIC

STRAVINSKYYou can hear the composer conduct his own music with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra on CBS Masterworks’ recording of Stravinsky’s symphonies, which includes the Symphony in Three Movements.CBS MASTERWORKS 42434

For the Stravinsky piece that provided a catalyst for John Adams’ Absolute Jest, look for the London Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, which also includes other famous ballets such as The Rite of Spring and The Firebird. An ideal recording in which to hear the late Claudio Abbado conducting. DECCA 478 4253

To hear David Robertson conducting Stravinsky, look out for his new recording of The Firebird with the SSO. Find it in the foyer at SSO concerts – any day now!SSO LIVE 201402

JOHN ADAMSThere is no commercial recording of Absolute Jest yet, but you can find a live concert recording on SoundCloud with the composer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and the St Lawrence String Quartet. This set of two tracks also includes commentary by John Adams discussing his use of Beethoven’s music in the piece. soundcloud.com/johnadamsabsolutejest/sets/ john-adams

On a previous visit, David Robertson conducted the Australian premiere of Adams’ Doctor Atomic Symphony. He’d previously recorded it with the St Louis Symphony, coupled with Guide to Strange Places. NONESUCH 468 220

If you would like to hear still more from John Adams, look for Hallelujah Junction – A Nonesuch Retrospective, a 2-CD set bringing together highlights from Adams’ concert music and stage works. An excellent introduction to his range and stylistic development if you’re just beginning to explore his music.NONESUCH 512396

BEETHOVEN Two of the Beethoven string quartets used by Adams in Absolute Jest (Opp.131 and 135) appear together in some strikingly successful versions for string orchestra recorded by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Leonard Bernstein. Available in a 7-CD set with Symphonies No.5, 7 and 9 and other music.DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 477 6690

For the original versions, try the Emerson String Quartet’s recording of the late Beethoven quartets, available in a 3-CD set.DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 474 3412

For a phenomenal recording of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, look for Carlos Kleiber with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. Available coupled with his recording of Beethoven’s Fifth.DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 447 4002

Gustavo Dudamel’s recording with the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra captures the sheer energy of this symphony and the finale is taken at a thrilling pace. Again, the Seventh is paired with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 477 6228

AUSTRALIAN STRING QUARTETFrom an earlier incarnation of the ASQ you can hear Mozart string chamber music: the ‘Dissonance’ Quartet (K465) and the Quintet in G minor (K516), assisted by violist Katharine Brockman.TALL POPPIES 87

Or from the same year, 2008, look for their recording of chamber music by Roger Smalley, Through a Glass Darkly.MELBA 301112

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SSO Live RecordingsThe Sydney Symphony Orchestra Live label was founded in 2006 and we’ve since released more than a dozen recordings featuring the orchestra in live concert performances with our titled conductors and leading guest artists, including the Mahler Odyssey cycle. To purchase, visit sydneysymphony.com/shop

Glazunov & ShostakovichAlexander Lazarev conducts a thrilling performance of Shostakovich 9 and Glazunov’s Seasons. SSO 2

Strauss & SchubertGianluigi Gelmetti conducts Schubert’s Unfinished and R Strauss’s Four Last Songs with Ricarda Merbeth. SSO 200803

Sir Charles MackerrasA 2CD set featuring Sir Charles’s final performances with the orchestra, in October 2007. SSO 200705

Brett DeanBrett Dean performs his own viola concerto, conducted by Simone Young, in this all-Dean release. SSO 200702

RavelGelmetti conducts music by one of his favourite composers: Maurice Ravel. Includes Bolero. SSO 200801

Rare RachmaninoffRachmaninoff chamber music with Dene Olding, the Goldner Quartet, soprano Joan Rodgers and Vladimir Ashkenazy at the piano. SSO 200901

Prokofiev’s Romeo and JulietVladimir Ashkenazy conducts the complete Romeo and Juliet ballet music of Prokofiev – a fiery and impassioned performance. SSO 201205

Tchaikovsky Violin ConcertoIn 2013 this recording with James Ehnes and Ashkenazy was awarded a Juno (the Canadian Grammy). Lyrical miniatures fill out the disc. SSO 201206

Mahler 1 & Songs of a Wayfarer SSO 201001

Mahler 2 SSO 201203

Mahler 3 SSO 201101

Mahler 4 SSO 201102

Mahler 5 SSO 201003 Mahler 6 SSO 201103

Mahler 7 SSO 201104

Mahler 8 (Symphony of a Thousand) SSO 201002

Mahler 9 SSO 201201

Mahler 10 (Barshai completion) SSO 201202

Song of the Earth SSO 201004

From the archives: Rückert-Lieder, Kindertotenlieder, Das Lied von der Erde SSO 201204

LOOK OUT FOR…Our second release featuring music by Brett Dean and our new recording of Stravinsky’s Firebird with David Robertson.

MAHLER ODYSSEYDuring the 2010 and 2011 concert seasons, the SSO and Vladimir Ashkenazy set out to perform all the Mahler symphonies, together with some of the song cycles. These concerts were recorded for CD and the set is now complete, together with a special disc of historical SSO Mahler performances. Available individually or as a handsome boxed set.

Join us on Facebook facebook.com/sydneysymphony

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Watch us on YouTube www.youtube.com/SydneySymphony

Visit sydneysymphony.com for concert information, podcasts, and to read the program book in the week of the concert.

Stay tuned. Sign up to receive our fortnightly e-newsletter sydneysymphony.com/staytuned

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SSO Online

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American conductor David Robertson is a compelling and passionate communicator whose stimulating ideas and music-making have captivated audiences and musicians alike, and he has established strong relationships with major orchestras throughout Europe and North America.

He made his Australian debut with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2003 and soon became a regular visitor to the orchestra, with projects such as The Colour of Time, a conceptual multimedia concert; the Australian premiere of John Adams’ Doctor Atomic Symphony; and concert performances of The Flying Dutchman with video projections. This is his first year as Chief Conductor of the SSO.

He has been Music Director of the St Louis Symphony since 2005. Other titled posts have included Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the Orchestre National de Lyon and resident conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. A recognised expert in 20th- and 21st-century music, he has also been Music Director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris (where composer and conductor Pierre Boulez was an early supporter) and his discography includes music by such composers as Adams, Bartók, Boulez, Carter, Ginastera,

Milhaud and Reich. He is also a champion of young musicians, devoting time to working with students and young artists.

Last season he appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and at the Metropolitan Opera, and in Europe with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic and Ensemble Intercontemporain. He also toured Europe with the St Louis Symphony and violinist Christian Tetzlaff.

His awards and accolades include Musical America Conductor of the Year (2000), Columbia University’s 2006 Ditson Conductor’s Award, and, with the SLSO, the 2005–06 ASCAP Morton Gould Award for Innovative Programming. In 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2011 a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

He was born in Santa Monica, California, and educated at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he studied French horn and composition before turning to conducting. He is married to pianist Orli Shaham.

THE POSITION OF CHIEF CONDUCTOR AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR IS SUPPORTED BY EMIRATES

David Robertson Chief Conductor and Artistic Director

THE ARTISTS

MIC

HA

EL

TAM

MA

RO

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With a rich history spanning 28 years, the Australian String Quartet has established a strong national profile as an Australian chamber music group of excellence, performing at the highest international level. From its home base at the University of Adelaide, Elder Conservatorium of Music, the ASQ presents a vibrant annual artistic program encompassing performances, workshops, commissions and education projects across Australia and abroad.

The ASQ is frequently broadcast on ABC Classic FM and records regularly, and, as one of Australia’s finest music exports, has appeared at international music festivals and toured extensively throughout the United Kingdom, Europe, New Zealand and Asia in recent years.

Projects beyond the national season of concerts include the quartet’s own flagship festivals in the Southern Grampians and Margaret River, regional touring and invitations to perform at leading festivals across Australia. As an advocate for Australian music, the ASQ presents an annual forum for emerging composers and regularly commissions, showcases and records new Australian work. Its education program extends beyond workshops and masterclasses to include the Quartet Project – a national mentoring program for emerging quartets.

The members of the ASQ are privileged to perform on a matched set of Guadagnini instruments. Hand crafted by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini between c.1743 and 1784 in Turin and Piacenza, these exquisite Italian instruments were brought together through the vision of Ulrike Klein. The instruments are on loan to the Australian String Quartet for their exclusive use through the generosity of Ulrike Klein, Maria Myers and a group of donors who have supported Ngeringa Arts to acquire the viola.

Kristian Winther plays a 1784 Guadagnini violin, Turin

Ioana Tache plays a 1748–49 Guadagnini violin, Piacenza

Stephen King plays a 1783 Guadagnini viola, Turin

Sharon Draper plays a c.1743 Guadagnini cello, Piacenza, ‘Ngeringa’

Australian String Quartet

JAC

QU

I WAY

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SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Founded in 1932 by the Australian Broadcasting Commission, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra has evolved into one of the world’s finest orchestras as Sydney has become one of the world’s great cities.

Resident at the iconic Sydney Opera House, where it gives more than 100 performances each year, the SSO also performs in venues throughout Sydney and regional New South Wales. International tours to Europe, Asia and the USA have earned the orchestra worldwide recognition for artistic excellence, most recently in the 2012 tour to China.

The orchestra’s first Chief Conductor was Sir Eugene Goossens, appointed in 1947; he was followed by Nicolai Malko, Dean Dixon, Moshe Atzmon, Willem van Otterloo, Louis Frémaux, Sir Charles Mackerras, Zdenĕk Mácal, Stuart Challender, Edo de Waart and Gianluigi Gelmetti. Vladimir Ashkenazy was Principal Conductor from 2009 to 2013. The orchestra’s history also boasts collaborations with legendary figures such

as George Szell, Sir Thomas Beecham, Otto Klemperer and Igor Stravinsky.

The SSO’s award-winning education program is central to its commitment to the future of live symphonic music, developing audiences and engaging the participation of young people. The orchestra promotes the work of Australian composers through performances, recordings and its commissioning program. Recent premieres have included major works by Ross Edwards, Lee Bracegirdle, Gordon Kerry, Mary Finsterer, Nigel Westlake and Georges Lentz, and the orchestra’s recordings of music by Brett Dean have been released on both the BIS and SSO Live labels.

Other releases on the SSO Live label, established in 2006, include performances with Alexander Lazarev, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Sir Charles Mackerras and Vladimir Ashkenazy. In 2010–11 the orchestra made concert recordings of the complete Mahler symphonies with Ashkenazy, and has also released recordings of Rachmaninoff and Elgar orchestral works on the Exton/Triton labels, as well as numerous recordings on ABC Classics.

This is the first year of David Robertson’s tenure as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director.

DAVID ROBERTSON Chief Conductor and Artistic Director

PATRON Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir ac cvo

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MUSICIANS

David RobertsonCHIEF CONDUCTOR AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR SUPPORTED BY EMIRATES

Dene OldingCONCERTMASTER

Jessica CottisASSISTANT CONDUCTOR SUPPORTED BY PREMIER PARTNER CREDIT SUISSE

Andrew HaveronCONCERTMASTER

FIRST VIOLINS Andrew Haveron CONCERTMASTER

Dene Olding CONCERTMASTER

Sun Yi ASSOCIATE CONCERTMASTER

Kirsten Williams ASSOCIATE CONCERTMASTER

Lerida Delbridge ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

Fiona Ziegler ASSISTANT CONCERTMASTER

Jenny Booth Brielle Clapson Sophie Cole Amber Davis Georges Lentz Nicola Lewis Alexander Norton Léone Ziegler Emily Qin°Nicholas Waters†Jennifer Hoy Alexandra Mitchell

SECOND VIOLINS Kirsty Hilton Marina Marsden Emma Jezek ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Emily Long Marianne Broadfoot Emma Hayes Shuti Huang Stan W Kornel Benjamin Li Nicole Masters Philippa Paige Biyana Rozenblit Maja Verunica Vivien Jeffery* Maria Durek

VIOLASRoger Benedict Tobias Breider Anne-Louise Comerford Justin Williams ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Sandro Costantino Rosemary Curtin Jane HazelwoodGraham Hennings Stuart Johnson Justine Marsden Amanda Verner Leonid VolovelskyFelicity Tsai

CELLOSCatherine Hewgill Umberto ClericiHenry David Varema Leah LynnASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Kristy ConrauFenella GillTimothy Nankervis Elizabeth Neville Christopher PidcockAdrian WallisDavid Wickham

DOUBLE BASSESKees Boersma Alex Henery Neil Brawley PRINCIPAL EMERITUS

David Campbell Steven Larson Richard LynnBenjamin Ward Aurora Henrich†David Murray

FLUTES Janet Webb Carolyn HarrisRosamund Plummer PRINCIPAL PICCOLO

Emma Sholl

OBOESDiana Doherty David Papp Alexandre Oguey PRINCIPAL COR ANGLAIS

Shefali Pryor

CLARINETSLawrence Dobell Christopher TingayCraig Wernicke PRINCIPAL BASS CLARINET

Francesco Celata

BASSOONSMatthew Wilkie Fiona McNamara Noriko Shimada PRINCIPAL CONTRABASSOON

HORNSBen Jacks Robert Johnson Marnie Sebire Rachel Silver Euan Harvey Geoffrey O’Reilly PRINCIPAL 3RD

TRUMPETSDavid Elton Anthony Heinrichs Greg Flynn*Paul Goodchild

TROMBONESChristopher Harris Ronald Prussing Nick Byrne Scott Kinmont

TUBASteve Rossé

TIMPANIRichard Miller

PERCUSSIONRebecca Lagos Mark Robinson

HARP Louise Johnson

KEYBOARDS Catherine Davis*Susanne Powell*

BOLD = PRINCIPAL

ITALICS = ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL

° = CONTRACT MUSICIAN

* = GUEST MUSICIAN† = SSO FELLOW

GREY = PERMANENT MEMBER OF THE

SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA NOT

APPEARING IN THIS CONCERT

The men of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra are proudly outfitted by Van Heusen.

To see photographs of the full roster of permanent musicians and find out more about the orchestra, visit our website: www.sydneysymphony.com/SSO_musiciansIf you don’t have access to the internet, ask one of our customer service representatives for a copy of our Musicians flyer.

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BEHIND THE SCENES

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Rory Jeffes

EXECUTIVE TEAM ASSISTANT

Lisa Davies-Galli

ARTISTIC OPERATIONS

DIRECTOR OF ARTISTIC PLANNING

Peter Czornyj

Artistic AdministrationARTISTIC ADMINISTRATION MANAGER

Eleasha Mah

ARTIST LIAISON MANAGER

Ilmar Leetberg

RECORDING ENTERPRISE MANAGER

Philip Powers

Education ProgramsHEAD OF EDUCATION

Kim Waldock

EMERGING ARTISTS PROGRAM MANAGER

Mark Lawrenson

EDUCATION COORDINATOR

Rachel McLarin

CUSTOMER SERVICE OFFICER

Amy Walsh

LibraryAnna CernikVictoria GrantMary-Ann Mead

ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT

DIRECTOR OF ORCHESTRA MANAGEMENT

Aernout Kerbert

ORCHESTRA MANAGER

Chris Lewis

ORCHESTRA COORDINATOR

Georgia Stamatopoulos

OPERATIONS MANAGER

Kerry-Anne Cook

PRODUCTION MANAGER

Laura Daniel

STAGE MANAGER

Courtney Wilson

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR

Tim Dayman

PRODUCTION COORDINATOR

Ian Spence

SALES AND MARKETING

DIRECTOR OF SALES & MARKETING

Mark J Elliott

SENIOR SALES & MARKETING MANAGER

Penny Evans

MARKETING MANAGER, SUBSCRIPTION SALES

Simon Crossley-Meates

MARKETING MANAGER, CLASSICAL SALES

Matthew Rive

MARKETING MANAGER, WEB & DIGITAL MEDIA

Eve Le Gall

MARKETING MANAGER, CRM & DATABASE

Matthew Hodge

DATABASE ANALYST

David Patrick

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Lucy McCullough

CREATIVE ARTWORKER

Nathanael van der Reyden

MARKETING COORDINATOR

Jonathon Symonds

ONLINE MARKETING COORDINATOR

Jenny Sargant

Box OfficeMANAGER OF BOX OFFICE SALES & OPERATIONS

Lynn McLaughlin

BOX OFFICE SYSTEMS SUPERVISOR

Jacqueline Tooley

BOX OFFICE BUSINESS ADMINISTRATOR

John Robertson

CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVES

Karen Wagg – Senior CSR Michael DowlingKatarzyna OstafijczukTim Walsh

EXTERNAL RELATIONS

DIRECTOR, EXTERNAL RELATIONS

Yvonne Zammit

PhilanthropyHEAD OF PHILANTHROPY

Luke Andrew Gay

DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

Amelia Morgan-Hunn

PHILANTHROPY COORDINATOR

Sarah Morrisby

Corporate RelationsHEAD OF CORPORATE RELATIONS

Jeremy Goff

CORPORATE RELATIONS MANAGER

Janine Harris

CommunicationsPUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER

Katherine Stevenson

DIGITAL CONTENT PRODUCER

Kai Raisbeck

SOCIAL MEDIA AND PUBLICITY OFFICER

Caitlin Benetatos

PublicationsPUBLICATIONS EDITOR & MUSIC PRESENTATION MANAGER

Yvonne Frindle

BUSINESS SERVICES

DIRECTOR OF FINANCE

John Horn

FINANCE MANAGER

Ruth Tolentino

ACCOUNTANT

Minerva Prescott

ACCOUNTS ASSISTANT

Emma Ferrer

PAYROLL OFFICER

Laura Soutter

PEOPLE AND CULTURE IN-HOUSE COUNSEL

Michel Maree Hryce

John C Conde ao ChairmanTerrey Arcus am

Ewen Crouch am

Ross GrantJennifer HoyRory JeffesAndrew Kaldor am

David LivingstoneGoetz Richter

SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA COUNCIL

Geoff Ainsworth am

Andrew Andersons ao

Michael Baume ao

Christine BishopIta Buttrose ao obe

Peter CudlippJohn Curtis am

Greg Daniel am

John Della BoscaAlan FangErin FlahertyDr Stephen FreibergDonald Hazelwood ao obe

Dr Michael Joel am

Simon JohnsonYvonne Kenny am

Gary LinnaneAmanda LoveHelen Lynch am

David Maloney am

David Malouf ao

Deborah MarrThe Hon. Justice Jane Mathews ao

Danny MayWendy McCarthy ao

Jane MorschelDr Timothy Pascoe am

Prof. Ron Penny ao

Jerome RowleyPaul SalteriSandra SalteriJuliana SchaefferLeo Schofield am

Fred Stein oam

Gabrielle TrainorIvan UngarJohn van OgtropPeter Weiss ao HonDLittMary WhelanRosemary White

SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA BOARD

SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA STAFF

23

04

08

CHAIR PATRONS

07 Robert Johnson Principal Horn James & Leonie Furber Chair

08 Elizabeth Neville Cello Ruth & Bob Magid Chair

09 Emma Sholl Associate Principal Flute Robert & Janet Constable Chair

10 Janet Webb Principal Flute Helen Lynch am & Helen Bauer Chair

01 Roger Benedict Principal Viola Kim Williams am & Catherine Dovey Chair

02 Lawrence Dobell Principal Clarinet Terrey Arcus am & Anne Arcus Chair

03 Diana Doherty Principal Oboe Andrew Kaldor am & Renata Kaldor ao Chair

04 Richard Gill oam Artistic Director, Education Sandra & Paul Salteri Chair

05 Catherine Hewgill Principal Cello The Hon. Justice AJ & Mrs Fran Meagher Chair

06 Kirsty Hilton Principal Second Violin Corrs Chambers Westgarth Chair

01 02 03 04

05 06 07 08

09 10

FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THE CHAIR PATRONS PROGRAM,

CALL (02) 8215 4619.

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SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PATRONS

MAESTRO’S CIRCLESUPPORTING THE ARTISTIC VISION OF DAVID ROBERTSON, CHIEF CONDUCTOR AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Peter Weiss ao Founding President & Doris WeissJohn C Conde ao ChairmanGeoff Ainsworth am Tom Breen & Rachael KohnIn memory of Hetty & Egon GordonAndrew Kaldor am & Renata Kaldor aoVicki Olsson

Roslyn Packer aoPenelope Seidler amMr Fred Street am & Mrs Dorothy StreetWestfield GroupBrian & Rosemary WhiteRay Wilson oam in memory of the late James Agapitos oam

Through their inspired financial support, Patrons ensure the SSO’s continued success, resilience and growth. Join the SSO Patrons Program today and make a difference.

sydneysymphony.com/patrons (02) 8215 4674 • philanthropy@sydneysymphony.com

MAKE A DIFFERENCE

24

PLAYING YOUR PART

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra gratefully acknowledges the music lovers who donate to the orchestra each year. Each gift plays an important part in ensuring our continued artistic excellence and helping to sustain important education and regional touring programs. Donations of $50 and above are acknowledged on our website at www.sydneysymphony.com/patrons

DIAMOND PATRONS: $30,000+Geoff Ainsworth am

Mr John C Conde ao

Mr Andrew Kaldor am & Mrs Renata Kaldor ao

In Memory of Matthew KrelMrs Roslyn Packer ao

Paul & Sandra SalteriScully FoundationMrs W SteningMr Fred Street am &

Mrs Dorothy StreetPeter Weiss ao & Doris WeissMr Brian & Mrs Rosemary

WhiteKim Williams am &

Catherine Dovey

PLATINUM PATRONS: $20,000–$29,999Brian AbelRobert Albert ao &

Elizabeth AlbertTerrey Arcus am & Anne ArcusTom Breen & Rachael KohnSandra & Neil Burns

BRONZE PATRONS: PRESTO $2,500–$4,999Mr Henri W Aram oam

Dr Francis J AugustusThe Berg Family Foundation in memory of Hetty GordonMr B & Mrs M ColesMr Howard ConnorsGreta DavisFirehold Pty LtdStephen Freiberg &

Donald CampbellAnn HobanIrwin Imhof in memory of

Herta ImhofGary LinnaneRobert McDougallJames & Elsie MooreMs Jackie O’BrienJ F & A van OgtropMarliese & Georges TeitlerMr Robert & Mrs Rosemary

WalshYim Family FoundationMr & Mrs T & D Yim

BRONZE PATRONS: VIVACE $1,000–$2,499Mrs Lenore AdamsonMrs Antoinette AlbertAndrew Andersons ao

Sibilla BaerDavid BarnesAllan & Julie BlighDr & Mrs Hannes BoshoffJan BowenMr Peter BraithwaiteLenore P BuckleMargaret BulmerIn memory of RW BurleyIta Buttrose ao obe

Mr JC Campbell qc & Mrs Campbell

Dr Rebecca ChinDr Diana Choquette &

Mr Robert MillinerMr Peter ClarkeConstable Estate Vineyards Dom Cottam &

Kanako ImamuraDebby Cramer & Bill CaukillMr John Cunningham SCM &

Mrs Margaret Cunningham

Lisa & Miro DavisMatthew DelaseyMr & Mrs Grant DixonColin Draper & Mary Jane

BrodribbMalcolm Ellis & Erin O’NeillMrs Margaret EppsPaul R EspieProfessor Michael Field am

Mr Tom FrancisWarren GreenAnthony GreggAkiko GregoryIn memory of Dora &

Oscar GrynbergJanette HamiltonMrs Jennifer HershonMrs & Mr HolmesMichael & Anna JoelAron KleinlehrerMr Justin LamL M B LampratiMr Peter Lazar am

Professor Winston LiauwDr David LuisPeter Lowry oam &

Dr Carolyn Lowry oam

Kevin & Deirdre McCannIan & Pam McGawMacquarie Group FoundationRenee MarkovicHenry & Ursula MooserMilja & David MorrisMrs J MulveneyMr & Mrs OrtisMr Darrol NormanDr A J PalmerMr Andrew C PattersonDr Natalie E PelhamAlmut PiattiRobin PotterIn memory of Sandra Paul

PottingerTA & MT Murray-PriorDr Raffi QasabianMichael QuaileyErnest & Judith RapeeKenneth R ReedPatricia H Reid Endowment

Pty LtdRobin RodgersLesley & Andrew RosenbergIn memory of H St P ScarlettCaroline Sharpen

Robert & Janet ConstableJames & Leonie FurberIn memory of Hetty &

Egon GordonI KallinikosHelen Lynch am &

Helen BauerMrs T Merewether oam

Vicki OlssonMrs Penelope Seidler am

G & C Solomon in memory of Joan MacKenzie

Westfield GroupRay Wilson oam in memory of

James Agapitos oam

Anonymous (1)

GOLD PATRONS: $10,000–$19,999Doug & Alison BattersbyAlan & Christine BishopIan & Jennifer BurtonMichael Crouch ao &

Shanny CrouchCopyright Agency Cultural

Fund Edward & Diane FedermanNora Goodridge

Mr Ross GrantMr Ervin KatzJames N Kirby FoundationMs Irene LeeRuth & Bob MagidThe Hon. Justice AJ Meagher

& Mrs Fran MeagherMr John MorschelDrs Keith & Eileen OngMr John SymondAndy & Deirdre PlummerCaroline WilkinsonAnonymous (1)

SILVER PATRONS: $5000–$9,999Stephen J BellMr Alexander & Mrs Vera

BoyarskyMr Robert BrakspearMr David & Mrs Halina BrettMr Robert & Mrs L Alison Carr Bob & Julie ClampettEwen Crouch am &

Catherine CrouchThe Hon. Mrs Ashley Dawson-

DamerIan Dickson & Reg Holloway

Dr Lee MacCormick Edwards & Mr Michael Crane

Dr Colin GoldschmidtThe Greatorex Foundation Mr Rory JeffesJudges of the Supreme Court

of NSW J A McKernanDavid Maloney am & Erin FlahertyR & S Maple-BrownJustice Jane Mathews ao

Mora MaxwellMrs Barbara MurphyWilliam McIlrath Charitable

FoundationMr B G O’ConorRodney Rosenblum am &

Sylvia RosenblumEstate of the late

Greta C RyanManfred & Linda SalamonSimpsons SolicitorsMrs Joyce Sproat &

Mrs Janet CookeMichael & Mary Whelan TrustJune & Alan Woods Family

BequestAnonymous (1)

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David & Isabel SmithersMrs Judith SouthamCatherine StephenThe Hon. Brian Sully qc

Mildred TeitlerKevin TroyJohn E TuckeyIn memory of Joan &

Rupert VallentineDr Alla WaldmanMiss Sherry WangHenry & Ruth WeinbergThe Hon. Justice A G WhealyMs Kathy White in memory

of Mr Geoff WhiteA Willmers & R PalMr & Mrs B C WilsonDr Richard Wing

Mr Robert WoodsIn memory of Lorna WrightDr John YuAnonymous (11)

BRONZE PATRONS: ALLEGRO $500–$999David & Rae AllenMr & Mrs Garry S AshDr Lilon BandlerMichael Baume ao & Toni BaumeBeauty Point Retirement ResortRichard & Margaret BellMrs Jan BiberMinnie BiggsMrs Elizabeth BoonMr Colin G BoothDr Margaret BoothMr Frederick BowersMr Harry H BrianR D & L M BroadfootMiss Tanya BryckerDr Miles BurgessPat & Jenny Burnett

Mrs Margaret KeoghDr Henry KilhamChris J KitchingAnna-Lisa KlettenbergMr & Mrs Gilles T KrygerThe Laing FamilySonia LalDr Leo & Mrs Shirley LeaderMargaret LedermanMrs Erna Levy Sydney & Airdrie LloydMrs A LohanPanee LowDr David LuisMelvyn MadiganBarbara MaidmentHelen & Phil MeddingsDavid MillsKenneth Newton MitchellHelen MorganChris Morgan-HunnMr Graham NorthE J NuffieldDr Margaret ParkerDr Kevin PedemontDr John PittMrs Greeba PritchardMr Patrick Quinn-GrahamMiss Julie RadosavljevicRenaissance ToursDr Marilyn RichardsonAnna RoAgnes RossMr Kenneth Ryan

Eric & Rosemary CampbellBarrie CarterMr Jonathan ChissickMrs Sandra ClarkMichael & Natalie CoatesCoffs Airport Security Car ParkJen CornishDegabriele KitchensPhil Diment am & Bill

ZafiropoulosDr David DixonElizabeth DonatiMrs Jane DrexlerDr Nita Durham &

Dr James DurhamJohn FavaloroMs Julie Flynn & Mr Trevor

CookMrs Lesley FinnMr John GadenVivienne GoldschmidtClive & Jenny GoodwinMs Fay GrearIn Memory of Angelica GreenMr Robert GreenRichard Griffin am

Mr & Mrs Harold & Althea Halliday

Benjamin Hasic & Belinda Davie

Mr Robert HavardRoger HenningSue HewittIn memory of Emil HiltonDorothy Hoddinott ao

Mr Joerg HofmannMr Angus HoldenMr Kevin HollandBill & Pam HughesDr Esther JanssenNiki KallenbergerMrs W G Keighley

Garry Scarf & Morgie Blaxill

Peter & Virginia ShawV ShoreMrs Diane Shteinman am

Victoria SmythDr Judy SoperDoug & Judy SotherenRuth StaplesMr & Mrs Ashley StephensonMargaret SuthersMs Margaret SwansonThe Taplin FamilyDr & Mrs H K TeyAlma Toohey Judge Robyn TupmanMrs M TurkingtonGillian Turner & Rob BishopRonald WalledgeIn memory of Denis WallisThe Wilkinson FamilyEvan Williams am &

Janet WilliamsDr Edward J WillsAudrey & Michael Wilson

Dr Richard WingateDr Peter Wong &

Mrs Emmy K WongGeoff Wood & Melissa WaitesMrs Robin YabsleyAnonymous (29)

List correct as of 17 January 2014

Vanguard CollectiveJustin Di Lollo ChairKees BoersmaDavid McKeanAmelia Morgan-HunnJonathan PeaseSeamus R QuickChloe Sasson

MembersDamien BaileyMar BeltranEvonne BennettNicole BilletDavid BluffAndrew BraggPeter BraithwaiteBlake Briggs

SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA VANGUARDA MEMBERSHIP PROGRAM FOR A DYNAMIC GROUP OF GEN X & Y SSO FANS AND FUTURE PHILANTHROPISTS

TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT BECOMING A

SYDNEY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PATRON, PLEASE

CONTACT THE PHILANTHROPY OFFICE ON (02) 8215 4674

OR EMAIL PHILANTHROPY@SYDNEYSYMPHONY.COM

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Andrea BrownProf. Attila BrungsHelen CaldwellHilary CaldwellHahn ChauAlistair ClarkPaul ColganJuliet CurtinAlistair FurnivalAlistair GibsonSam GiddingsMarina GoTony GriersonLouise HaggertyRose HercegPhilip HeuzenroederPaolo HookePeter Howard

Jennifer HoyScott JacksonJustin JamesonAernout KerbertTristan LandersGary LinnanePaul MacdonaldKylie McCaigRebecca MacFarlingHayden McLeanTaine MoufarrigeNick NichlesTom O’DonnellKate O’ReillyLarissa PoulosJingmin QianLeah RanieMichael Reede

Paul ReidyChris RobertsonDr Benjamin RobinsonEmma RodigariJacqueline RowlandsKatherine ShawRandal TameSandra TangMichael TidballJonathan WatkinsonJon Wilkie

SALUTE

PRINCIPAL PARTNER

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra is assisted by the

Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council,

its arts funding and advisory body

GOVERNMENT PARTNERS

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra is

assisted by the NSW Government

through Arts NSW

PREMIER PARTNER

PLATINUM PARTNER

EDUCATION PARTNER MAJOR PARTNERS

GOLD PARTNERS

SILVER PARTNERS

REGIONAL TOUR PARTNER MARKETING PARTNER

❝…brass playing is a very physical thing.

❞and second horns together in the tonic, or ‘home’ key, third and fourth together in a related key. First and third are traditionally considered ‘high’, while second and fourth are ‘low’.

Recently appointed to the position of section horn, Rachel is discovering that playing in the SSO requires a degree of flexibility. ‘I’m definitely most comfortable playing second or fourth, but sometimes I’ll be required to bump the first horn.’ (‘Bumping’ means sharing the first horn part between two players.) ‘The bumper won’t play any of the big solos, but we do some of the grunt work to give the first horn a break.’ That might mean taking over some of the really loud notes, or occasionally helping out in the middle of a phrase to disguise the need to take a breath. ‘It’s satisfying when you can assist your first horn and help make them feel comfortable.’

Pho

to: K

eith

Sau

nder

s

‘When my niece asks what I do for a job, I blow a raspberry and tell her, “Someone pays me to do that all day.”’ French horn player Rachel Silver has her tongue firmly in cheek, of course. It’s a whole lot more complicated than that. ‘Actually, brass playing is a very physical thing. It involves the whole body – using big muscles to take in a lot of air and blow it out, with the vibration of your lips to produce the sound. Smaller movements with little muscles around the embouchure help make sure we hit the right note.’

As with many instruments, playing the horn for a long time

can result in physical changes to a musician’s body. ‘If you use a finger hook [to support the weight of the instrument], you can end up with a bent little finger.’ Or too much pressure on the mouthpiece, for instance, and a pair of small crescent moon-shaped indentations may appear on the lips. Check twice next time you’re talking to a brass player!

The internal structure of an orchestral horn section dates back to a time when crooks (sections of tubing) were used to change the key in which the instrument was playing. The horns would play in pairs – first

GRUNT WORKRachel Silver, recently appointed to the SSO horn section, finds herself doing some of the heavy lifting.

ORCHESTRA NEWS | JANUARY–FEBRUARY 2014

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en Vanguard took members and guests on a sensory adventure, matching Brokenwood Wines and Young Henry’s beer with music played by an ensemble of SSO musicians. Dan Hampton (Young Henry’s), Justin Di Lollo (Vanguard Chair), and Oscar MacMahon (Young Henry’s) clearly enjoyed the night!

Welcome to our 2014 season – and what a season it promises to be, under the leadership of our new Chief Conductor and Artistic Director, David Robertson. From Strauss’s epic opera Elektra to the film music of John Williams, from the enduring mastery of Beethoven and Brahms to a commissioned work celebrating our Indigenous culture, Jandamarra by Paul Stanhope, we aim to offer something that will inspire everyone who loves to hear live orchestral music.

As I look ahead at this year’s feast of musical offerings, I pay tribute to the extraordinary talents and commitment of our players, administrators and artists. And I also thank you, our audience, for your contribution and support for your orchestra. An inspiring performance requires not just great music making on stage, but also an engaged audience, full of people who come to see, hear and love what these talented individuals create when they come together in the name of that thing which we love above all – music.

So welcome, and enjoy this performance and the forthcoming season, with our thanks and commitment to providing you with a year of outstanding artistic experiences.

RORY JEFFES

From the Managing Director Education HighlightWhat’s my motivation?There are motives, and then there are motives. What does it mean when a composer uses a motive in his or her composition? This was the question explored by participants in our Sinfonietta Composition Project at the end of 2013. Supported by Leighton Holdings and CAL Cultural Fund, the Sinfonietta Project is now in its eighth year, and in 2013 attracted the highest ever number of applicants. Fourteen students from around Australia, aged 13 to 17, were selected to take part in a three-day intensive workshop under the mindful care of Richard Gill, and with the expert assistance of our Fellowship quartet. Two teachers also travelled from Tasmania with their students to observe the workshops.

The string quartets of Haydn and Shostakovich were examined for examples of rhythmic and harmonic motives, before each participant had the opportunity to try their own hand, composing for performance by the string quartet. Working with the Fellows, said one participant, ‘gave a sense of realism to what, until then, had been quite an abstracted practice’. There’s clearly no substitute for the real thing! Another student, from Melbourne, acknowledged the depth and breadth of the program: ‘I learn much more about music from the Sinfonietta project than any other class I’ve been to at the specialist music school I attend.’

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Richard Gill with the 2013 Sinfonietta composers

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The ScoreAlexander NevskyThis year we’ve planned four concerts with an overt film connection, but there’s a fifth concert with a hidden connection: Russian Daydreams in March.

In 1938 Prokofiev – newly returned to Russia from a visit to Hollywood – was invited by film director Sergei Eisenstein to write the music for Alexander Nevsky. The result has become a cult classic among film buffs and is still regarded as one of the greatest collaborations between composer and director in the history of cinema. (So closely did they work, Eisenstein would often cut his shots to the music rather than vice versa.)

Thanks to the machinations of history, Prokofiev’s music has also survived in the concert hall. Not long after the December 1938 premiere, the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939 was signed and the film – which told the story of the Russians’ victory over the Teutonic knights in 1242 – was withdrawn. But Prokofiev salvaged the most powerful moments of his score to create a seven-movement cantata for mezzo-soprano, chorus and orchestra.

Eisenstein declared Prokofiev ‘a perfect composer for the screen’, saying that his music was never merely illustrative but embodied the emotion of the events on screen. And even without the striking imagery of the film, the cantata conveys the dramatic range of the story: from the tragedy of Russia under oppression to the Battle on the Ice and the triumph of victory.

Russian Daydreams Master Series 12, 14, 15 March | 8pm

Artistic Focus

in concert’ presentations (West Side Story is the other), chief conductor David Robertson will set the tone in February when he conducts and compères a concert hall program dedicated to the music of John Williams.

John Williams’ film scores include Jaws, E.T., Superman and Schindler’s List, to name just a few, and David is in awe of his skill as a composer. ‘His range is without bounds, his inspiration seems unending, and his power to unlock our emotions is breathtaking.’ He says Williams understands that when we enter a movie theatre, we become aware of sound in a different way, and open ourselves to the complete experience of a film. Williams ‘finds just the right combination of sounds and timbres to communicate with us on a very deep emotional level. Those moments in cinema when people say “I couldn’t help but cry” are often brought on by his music or framed by it.’

28 Feb, 1 MarRobertson conducts John Williams: Music from the Movies

2, 3 MayStrictly Luhrmann: Music from the Movies

26, 27 SepThe Matrix Live: Film in Concert

7, 8 NovWest Side Story: On Stage and Screen

More info: bit.ly/SSOfilmmusic

‘Never send a human to do a machine’s job.’ So says Agent Smith in a chilling monotone in The Matrix. With this advice he would surely find himself at odds with conductor Frank Strobel, who joins us in September to conduct the film in concert.

It’s true that a live orchestra accompanying a big screen picture requires a machine-like synchronicity between orchestra and film, but Frank argues there’s still plenty of room for spontaneity. ‘Similar to an operatic performance, I need to be able to shape and structure a work and to uphold its tension, without having the feeling of being at the movie’s mercy. And it is especially important to me that a performance takes place without any additional technical aids, such as a click track in my ear or a visible time code on the monitor – for musicality’s sake.’

So without the usual mechanical or electronic assistance, how is the necessary precision achieved to play in time with the picture? ‘Synchronicity can be achieved with a precise knowledge of the film, plentiful (often more than a thousand) synchronicity pointers in the score, exact tempo specifications (preferably metronomic indications) and the aforementioned feeling for movement and mounting in the picture. Spontaneity does not need to suffer because of this.’

In a year featuring two ‘film

SSO GOES TO THE MOVIES

David Robertson will present highlights from John Williams’ film scores in his first visit to Sydney as chief conductor. (Pictured: Alex Mitchell and Emma Jezek)

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SYMPHONY SERVICES INTERNATIONALSuite 2, Level 5, 1 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst NSW 2010PO Box 1145, Darlinghurst NSW 1300Telephone (02) 8622 9400 Facsimile (02) 8622 9422www.symphonyinternational.net

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE TRUSTMr John Symond am [Chair]Mr Wayne Blair, Ms Catherine Brenner, The Hon Helen Coonan, Ms Brenna Hobson, Mr Chris Knoblanche, Mr Peter Mason am, Ms Jillian Segal am, Mr Robert Wannan, Mr Phillip Wolanski, am

EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENTChief Executive Officer Louise Herron am

Chief Operating Officer Claire SpencerDirector, Programming Jonathan BielskiDirector, Theatre and Events David ClaringboldDirector, Building Development and Maintenance Greg McTaggartDirector, External Affairs Brook TurnerDirector, Commercial David Watson

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All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of the editor, publisher or any distributor of the programs. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of statements in this publication, we cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, or for matters arising from clerical or printers’ errors. Every effort has been made to secure permission for copyright material prior to printing.

Please address all correspondence to the Publications Editor: Email program.editor@sydneysymphony.com

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By arrangement with the Sydney Symphony, this publication is offered free of charge to its patrons subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s consent in writing. It is a further condition that this publication shall not be circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it was published, or distributed at any other event than specified on the title page of this publication 17254 — 1/120214 — 04 S6/8

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Chairman Brian Nebenzahl OAM RFD

Managing Director Michael Nebenzahl Editorial Director Jocelyn Nebenzahl Manager—Production—Classical Music Alan Ziegler

Operating in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart & Darwin

SYMPHONY SERVICES INTERNATIONALSuite 2, Level 5, 1 Oxford Street, Darlinghurst NSW 2010PO Box 1145, Darlinghurst NSW 1300Telephone (02) 8622 9400 Facsimile (02) 8622 9422www.symphonyinternational.net

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE TRUSTMr John Symond am [Chair]Mr Wayne Blair, Ms Catherine Brenner, The Hon Helen Coonan, Ms Brenna Hobson, Mr Chris Knoblanche, Mr Peter Mason am, Ms Jillian Segal am, Mr Robert Wannan, Mr Phillip Wolanski, am

EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENTChief Executive Officer Louise Herron am

Chief Operating Officer Claire SpencerDirector, Programming Jonathan BielskiDirector, Theatre and Events David ClaringboldDirector, Building Development and Maintenance Greg McTaggartDirector, External Affairs Brook TurnerDirector, Commercial David Watson

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSEBennelong Point GPO Box 4274, Sydney NSW 2001Administration (02) 9250 7111 Box Office (02) 9250 7777Facsimile (02) 9250 7666 Website www.sydneyoperahouse.com

Clocktower Square, Argyle Street, The Rocks NSW 2000GPO Box 4972, Sydney NSW 2001Telephone (02) 8215 4644Box Office (02) 8215 4600Facsimile (02) 8215 4646www.sydneysymphony.com

All rights reserved, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing. The opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of the editor, publisher or any distributor of the programs. While every effort has been made to ensure accuracy of statements in this publication, we cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions, or for matters arising from clerical or printers’ errors. Every effort has been made to secure permission for copyright material prior to printing.

Please address all correspondence to the Publications Editor: Email program.editor@sydneysymphony.com

PAPER PARTNER

All enquiries for advertising space in this publication should be directed to the above company and address. Entire concept copyright. Reproduction without permission in whole or in part of any material contained herein is prohibited. Title ‘Playbill’ is the registered title of Playbill Proprietary Limited. Title ‘Showbill’ is the registered title of Showbill Proprietary Limited.

By arrangement with the Sydney Symphony, this publication is offered free of charge to its patrons subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s consent in writing. It is a further condition that this publication shall not be circulated in any form of binding or cover than that in which it was published, or distributed at any other event than specified on the title page of this publication 17241— 1/310114 — 01S S1/3

This is a PLAYBILL / SHOWBILL publication. Playbill Proprietary Limited / Showbill Proprietary Limited ACN 003 311 064 ABN 27 003 311 064

Head Office: Suite A, Level 1, Building 16, Fox Studios Australia, Park Road North, Moore Park NSW 2021PO Box 410, Paddington NSW 2021Telephone: +61 2 9921 5353 Fax: +61 2 9449 6053 E-mail: admin@playbill.com.au Website: www.playbill.com.au

Chairman Brian Nebenzahl OAM RFD

Managing Director Michael Nebenzahl Editorial Director Jocelyn Nebenzahl Manager—Production—Classical Music Alan Ziegler

Operating in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart & Darwin

EDITOR Genevieve Lang Huppert sydneysymphony.com/bravo

NEWBIESWe welcome Rachel Silver (horn) and Amanda Verner (viola) to the permanent ranks of the SSO, following successful completion of their trials.

FAREWELLSIn December 2013 we farewelled three of the orchestra’s longest-serving musicians – Julie Batty (first violin), Robyn Brookfield (viola) and Colin Piper (percussion). Combined, they have given the orchestra almost 100 years of service. We thank them for their dedication, inspiration and wonderful collegiality over all these years, and wish them the very best for their future retirement projects.

And at the end of this month we will bid a fond farewell to our director of artistic planning, Peter Czornyj, who is returning with his family to the United States to take up the same role at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

TURNING JAPANESERosamund Plummer (SSO Principal Piccolo) has been selected as the very first Global Winds Artist in Residence at the Tokyo Academy of Instrumental Heritage Music. Rose will travel to Japan and America for three months to study the ryuteki, a traditional Japanese transverse bamboo flute. This award is an initiative of the department of mediæval Japanese music at Columbia University, which hopes to seed high profile Western orchestras with musicians who can play traditional Japanese instruments and thus perform specialised music. Rose is currently learning as much Japanese language as possible to get the most out of daily lessons with her ryuteki mentor in Tokyo. がんばって、ローズ!

MOVIN’ ON UPWe can report exciting times for our most recent crop of Fellowship alumni, with multiple successes following their time with SSO. The string Fellows have all been

accepted into a winter residency at The Banff Centre in Canada; Som Howie (clarinet) has won a position in the Southbank Sinfonia in London for 2014; and Laura van Rijn (flute) is taking up a contract position as Associate Principal Flute with the Auckland Philharmonia. Bravi tutti!

PARK & DINEDid you know…? If you’re an SSO subscriber you can take advantage of InterContinental Sydney’s exclusive park and dine package. Enjoy valet parking when combined with a meal at Cafe Opera, just a short stroll from the Sydney Opera House. Call (02) 9240 1396 to find out more about this deal from our accommodation partner.

HIGH TEAOn 9 December we thanked our wonderful and dedicated volunteers with a special Christmas high tea backstage at the Sydney Opera House. Volunteers are special members of the SSO family whose support is invaluable.

CODA

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