There is always something special and noble dressing up for a night out at the Sydney Opera House to listen to some of the finest music Australia has on offer. I was thrilled to attend the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s 2019 Season Opening Gala last night with my lovely friend Dea (from the Shangri-La Sydney hotel who I met through my blogging travels) to share and enjoy a night of sheer artistry and wonderment in the music industry.
The Sydney Symphony lead by conductor, David Robertson played three sensational pieces and although I’ve had very little musical training I appreciated the beauty and complexity of the compositions performed by the Sydney Symphony.
I might not have readily recognised the title of the first piece, but my ears readily recognised the music as soon as it played, awakening my mind to think, “Where have I heard that music before?”. Richard Strauss’ tone poem, Thus Spake Zarathustra will be a familiar piece to the general audience, particular those sci-fi fans who have seen Space Odyssey. The New York Times in 1897 once described this orchestra piece “as complex as the life they endeavour to portray, but, although it is reminiscent of ancient story, it is as variable and inconsistent as time of day… it is drama of the soul. Starting out with high aspirations, encountering difficulties from without and from within, attempting all things human from the acquirement of knowledge to the indulgence of joy, and finding all vanity, the poor soul makes its loud complaint, and at last resigns itself to the course of things”.
The second piece of Nigel Westlake’s Spirit of the Wild, an oboe concerto played by Diana Doherty felt to me distinctly ‘Australian’, the Australian bush in fact. The music inspiration for this piece was that as a young boy, Westlake’s parents introduced him to the Tasmanian wild which instilled a deep love of Australia’s wilderness fostered during numerous walking and boating expeditions. Westlakes’s recent trip to Bathurst Harbour in Tasmania reminded him of the preciousness of the wilderness and of mankind’s propensity to become subsumed into materialism, neglecting our connection to country and the wonders of the natural world. The concerto began when Westlake asked Doherty to drop by his studio one morning and asked her to just improvise which she did and we heard the result of that last night on stage. A truly sensational performance.
The performance finished off with Percy Grainger’s The Warriors – Music to an imaginary ballet.
The Sydney Symphony has a large line up of events coming up and it is a beautiful evening out with friends and family. An upcoming event on their program that may appeal is Breakfast at Tiffany’s In Concert in May where Truman Capote’s best-selling novella comes to life on the big screen accompanied by a full symphony orchestra. You can go to Sydney Symphony website to book your tickets.
See.Taste.Do was invited as a guest to the Sydney Symphony Opening Gala and the After Party
Conductor David Robertson, Sydney Symphony
