Encore: The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Magazine | Issue 1, 2022 by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

QUIET IN THE HOUSE Chloe Hooper reflects on the sound of silence

A New Dawn

Deborah Cheetham’s latest masterpiece

Maestro

The

SAY ‘HOLA’ TO JAIME MARTĺN, THE CHARISMATIC SPANISH CONDUCTOR WHO TAKES THE REINS AT THE MSO IN 2022 ISSUE ONE | 2022

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ISSUE ONE

Contents

JANUARY 2022

Features 14 Hola, Melbourne Meet Jaime Martín, the charismatic, multitalented Spaniard who begins his tenure as the MSO’s Chief Conductor in February 22 Backstage Pass They’re the faces audiences don’t get to see – the behind-thescenes folk who are just as integral to the MSO as the Orchestra itself 28 Hector in Italy The story behind French composer Hector Berlioz’s Italian sojourn that led to the creation of Harold in Italy 32 A New Dawn We talk to the MSO’s First Nations Creative Chair, Deborah Cheetham AO, about her new work, Baparripna 38 From Little Things Big Things Grow Four MSO players reflect on how music became part of their lives growing up in regional Victoria

14 mso.com.au

44 Essay: After the Silence, Music Now that the MSO has returned to the stage, author Chloe Hooper looks back at how the pandemic silenced the sound of music

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Contents

ISSUE ONE

Regulars

JANUARY 2022

5 Welcome Letters from the Governor of Victoria and Lord Mayor of Melbourne 6 Contributors 7 Welcome Letter From the MSO’s Managing Director Sophie Galaise 9 The Moment A look back into the MSO’s archives 11 Proust Questionnaire MSO Concertmaster Sophie Rowell takes this revealing questionnaire

12 Spotlight On… An overview of what’s coming up at the MSO

46 Portrait of a Lady A tête-à-tête with MSO Patron and Life Member Lady Primrose Potter AC 48 Puzzles Test your musical knowledge and your word skills 50 Day Off Diary How Principal Third Horn Saul Lewis spends his Sunday (hint: it involves golf and bacon)

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ON THE COVER Jaime Martín shot at his home in London Photography: Anna Huix Hair and makeup: Mira Husseini

From the Governor of Victoria

From the Lord Mayor of Melbourne

As Patron of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, I am delighted to welcome the Orchestra and its audiences to another year of music. The Orchestra is for all Victorians, and we are fortunate that, with the publication of this new magazine, we now have another means through which to enjoy all the MSO has to offer. The Honourable Linda Dessau AC, Governor of Victoria

The City of Melbourne has a long and distinguished association with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The MSO has been at the heart of Melbourne’s cultural life for more than 116 years. Ours is a city that cherishes arts and culture, and that’s why we are proud to continue supporting this iconic cultural institution in 2022 through our Arts and Creative Investment Partnerships program. The Orchestra’s music provides the soundtrack to our city – from the free concerts in the famed Sidney Myer Music Bowl and great orchestral classics at our historic Melbourne Town Hall, to incredible pop-up performances in hidden locations across the city, through to keeping the music playing online for our community. We are lucky to have such talented and dedicated musicians. As we welcome in 2022, I look forward to the MSO once again playing a key part in reigniting the City of Melbourne’s rich cultural offerings. Sally Capp, Lord Mayor of Melbourne

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Contributors

JAMES GEER

SHARYN CAIRNS

One of the leading editorial photographers in Australia, Prahranbased Sharyn Cairns has an exceptional portfolio spanning interiors, food, travel and lifestyle. Her work has appeared in local and international magazines including Gourmet Traveller, Vogue Living and Elle Decoration UK, and she is the co-author of Perfect Imperfect, a book which explores the aesthetic of the Japanese principle of wabi-sabi. For this issue, she shot portraits of MSO staff who work behind the scenes for the “Backstage Pass” story on page 22.

Melbourne-born photographer James Geer began his career as a graphic designer but swapped to photography in 1999. Since then, James has worked in New York and been commissioned by ad agencies, entertainment companies and corporates around the world. Noted for his portraiture, he has photographed influential Australians for publications such as Monocle, Gourmet Traveller and Vogue Living. James took the portrait of MSO Managing Director Sophie Galaise at the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins for the Welcome Letter (opposite).

ANNA HUIX

Born in Barcelona and based in London, photographer Anna Huix regularly shoots portraits for The Sunday Times, The Telegraph and New York Times. She has a BFA in photography from the Parsons School of Design in New York City and has worked on campaigns for brands such as Google, San Miguel and UBS. Anna visited conductor Jaime Martín at his home in South London to take his portrait for the cover and the feature story “Hola, Melbourne” on page 14.

STEPHANIE BUNBURY

CHLOE HOOPER

Chloe Hooper is one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. Her 2008 non-fiction book The Tall Man: Death and Life on Palm Island won the Victorian, New South Wales, West Australian and Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards, as well as the John Button Prize for Political Writing. Chloe is also the author of The Arsonist: A Mind on Fire and two novels, A Child’s Book of True Crime and The Engagement. She wrote the essay “After the Silence, Music” on page 44.

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ELISSA BLAKE

Elissa Blake is an arts journalist who began her career at The Age after completing a BA in Professional Writing and Literature at Deakin University. She was the editor of Rolling Stone in the mid1990s and worked as a leading arts journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald for more than a decade. She now writes arts stories for The Guardian Australia and works with the University of Sydney as a media adviser. Elissa wrote the features “Hector in Italy” (page 28) and “A New Dawn” (page 32).

Stephanie Bunbury has been a journalist for 40 years, starting at The Age after studying visual arts and politics at Monash University and eventually becoming arts editor. She now lives in London, where she writes for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, and regularly covers European film festivals. Last year, the San Sebastian festival honoured her with its annual award of thanks to an international journalist for bringing recognition to culture in the Basque region. Stephanie wrote the cover story on conductor Jaime Martín on page 14.

“Encore builds out from our tradition of innovation and shines a light on the Orchestra beyond its music”

he past two years have undoubtedly been a very difficult time for the arts – as they have been for so many other essential parts of life. Thankfully, with the help of our many supporters, we re-emerge ready for the renewal and regeneration of our great work. What has been out of our reach is now fervently embraced as we return joyfully to the stages, concert halls and theatres of the world. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has a long and proud history, not only of giving superb performances across Melbourne, but of reaching audiences wherever they are. By touring Victoria and the world, recording and broadcasting music, streaming video online via MSO.LIVE and inspiring new generations with diverse and enriching programs that connect us all, the MSO states and restates its true commitment to its community, its culture and its artform. The MSO really is for all of us. Encore magazine builds out from this tradition of innovation and shines a light on the Orchestra beyond its music. In this first issue, you will find close encounters with the MSO’s new Chief Conductor, Jaime Martín; our First Nations Chair, Deborah Cheetham AO; an emotive essay by Chloe Hooper, as well as the chance to go behind the scenes and meet just some of our amazing musicians and staff – those who devote themselves to our community and to the MSO and its great work week in, week out. I hope that Encore brings you a little closer to the MSO – to the people and the beautiful music that binds us all together. Please enjoy!

Sophie Galaise Managing Director, MSO

Acknowledgement of Country

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra respectfully acknowledges the people of the Eastern Kulin Nations, on whose unceded lands we honour the continuation of the oldest music practice in the world.

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1975

THE MOMENT

Danny Kaye Danny Kaye might not be a household name now, but at the peak of his fame in the 1940s and ’50s, he was adored the world over. Kaye, born in Brooklyn in 1911, was more than just a triple threat – he was a singer, actor, comedian, TV show host, radio star, chef, pilot and humanitarian. Among his many accolades, he won two Oscars (one honorary; the other, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award) and was given three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He devoted much of his later life to charity work, including conducting orchestras across the globe in aid of musicians’ pension funds – it’s estimated he raised more than $US5 million for the cause. After a chance run-in with Australian musicians at Hong Kong’s Mandarin Hotel in 1974, Kaye was eventually invited to conduct the MSO in a Gala Evening at Melbourne Town Hall on 2 August, 1975. The Orchestra’s then Chief Conductor, Hiroyuki Iwaki, a long-time fan of Kaye, handed over the baton to the marvellously unpredictable and uniquely talented American and took a seat in the orchestra playing the timpani.

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Sophie Rowell

PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE

Our Concertmaster tackles the Proust Questionnaire ... and wants to be reincarnated as a doted-on dog.

What is your idea of perfect happiness? On my mother’s kitchen veranda, the table laden with all the good things in life, the birds singing in the garden and we’re in the middle of a very competitive card game. What is your greatest fear? Snakes. Which living person do you most admire? [Former German Chancellor] Angela Merkel. What is your greatest extravagance? My shared wine storage unit. What is your current state of mind? Hopeful and optimistic that the world is about to smile again. What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Temperance. I’m not very good at it. On what occasion do you lie? When the doctor asks me how many standard drinks I have a week. What are the qualities you most like in a person?

Warmth and generosity. Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Perhaps we could consider… Who or what is the greatest love of your life?

My dog Arthur. When and where were you happiest? I like

Melbourne. I’m very happy here. Which talent would you most like to have? To be

able to swim like a fish – I’m a dead weight in the water. What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Being the Concertmaster of the MSO with my dear friend Dale Barltrop. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

Definitely a doted-on dog. What is your most treasured possession?

My violin. What is your most marked characteristic?

My determination. What do you most value in your friends? That

they accept me, warts and all, and that they make me laugh. What are your favourite names? I need 20 more dogs so I can use them all – Ivy, Maeve, Audrey, Daphne, George. Should I keep going? What is it that you most dislike? I’m very uncomfortable with the feeling of tension in the room. I want to run away. How would you like to die? In my sleep, and with a tidy house.

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A New Beginning

SPOTLIGHT ON…

The world premiere of a new work by Indigenous composer Deborah Cheetham AO and the first Melbourne performance by our new Chief Conductor Jaime Martín – welcome to our Season Opening Gala for 2022. The theme of this year’s gala concerts, on Friday 25 February and Saturday 26 February, is “New Beginnings” – fitting for two nights that mark the start of Martín’s stewardship of the MSO and which herald a major new Australian work, Cheetham’s Baparripna. It includes a piece written specifically for the yidaki (didgeridoo), which will be performed by Indigenous player William Barton.

Season Events Highlights of what’s coming up in the first half of 2022

Deborah Cheetham is profiled on page 32.

M I LDUR A MOM ENTS

The MSO returns to Mildura in March, with a special guest – new Chief Conductor, Jaime Martín, who is passionate about touring. “Jaime has thrown himself into learning about Victoria’s cultural history and wants to reach MSO audiences and communities not just in Melbourne but across the state,” says John Nolan, MSO Director of Learning, Engagement and Innovation. The visit reflects the blossoming relationship between the MSO and Mildura, which was rekindled in 2017 after a two-decade hiatus. The MSO has collaborated with the Mildura Arts Centre to present a mainstage performance regularly and a program of engagement including workshops with local students and free pop-up chamber performances. In 2018, the MSO commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Mildura Symphony Orchestra by performing with them. In March, the Orchestra will perform Beethoven’s Symphony No.7, prefaced by the MSO’s Acknowledgement of Country, which will be performed in Latji Latji – the language of the traditional owners. Deborah Cheetham composed the musical acknowledgement (see opposite); the Latji Latji wording was created in partnership with local cultural custodian Uncle Brendan Kennedy. The concert will be held on Saturday 5 March at the Mildura Performing Arts Centre.

Roar Talent

Ring in the Year of the Tiger with our renowned Chinese New Year concert on Saturday 5 February. The program is a blend of Chinese works and Western opera, from Zhao Jiping’s Cello Concerto in D minor to Puccini’s ‘O Soave Fanciulla’ from La Bohème. Joshua Tan conducts the Orchestra, with guest Opera Australia stars Sharon Zhai (soprano) and Kang Wang (tenor). The concert is one part of this year’s East meets West program, a concert series reflecting the multiculturalism of Melbourne and Victoria. MSO Artistic Ambassador Tan Dun brings his Organic Trilogy to Hamer Hall on 29–30 April, while Principal Guest Conductor Xian Zhang helms a program that includes Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 on 30 June–1 July.

The MSO’s annual Chinese New Year concert is supported by the Li Family Trust and presented in collaboration with Arts Centre Melbourne and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People’s Republic of China, with prestigious partner Life Space Group.

FABULOUS AN D FREE

What’s summer in Melbourne without the MSO’s free Sidney Myer Concert Series? The Sidney Myer Music Bowl plays host to three diverse concerts in February. ‘A Symphonic Soiree’ on Wednesday 9 February features the world premiere of Bianca Gannon’s new work for orchestra and Indonesian instruments, commissioned by the MSO. Dive into some of your favourite movie soundtracks with ‘An Evening of John Williams’ on Saturday 12 February. Finally, ‘One Song: The Music of Archie Roach’ on Saturday 19 February sees MSO Composer-inResidence Paul Grabowsky collaborate with one of Australia’s best-loved First Nations artists. Made possible by the MSO Sidney Myer Trust Fund in association with ABC Classic, the University of Melbourne and Arts Centre Melbourne.

Ready to Book? Visit mso.com.au or call (03) 9929 9600 to find out more.

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DID YOU KNOW? The 2022 MSO Subscription Season in numbers…*

TH E STORY OF OUR ACKNOWLED GEM ENT OF C OUNTRY

hen it came to creating a distinct Acknowledgement of Country that reflected the essence of the MSO, we turned to Indigenous composer and opera singer – and our First Nations Creative Chair – Deborah Cheetham (pictured). “We felt that we could do something more meaningful than just playing a prerecorded Acknowledgement of Country into the hall before each concert,” says John Nolan, the MSO’s Director of Learning, Engagement and Innovation. “The idea developed that we would commission a musical acknowledgment in the language of the land we’re on and then also in our language – music. Deborah was involved from the very beginning.” And so began a long process of collaborating and working with Victoria’s Indigenous cultural groups to create the piece. “That was about two years of conversations and workshops

Largest orchestral ensemble

with different leaders and Elders and committees and artists all around the state, and then came a period of composition for Deborah to actually write the piece,” Nolan recalls. The finished Acknowledgment was premiered at the start of 2020 and is now performed before every single concert. It can be performed by the full orchestra with the text sung by a singer or a choir or, if there are no singers, by the orchestra with one of our musicians speaking the text. The beauty of the piece is that it’s performed in the language of the land where the MSO is playing. So, for example, in Mildura, it will be in Latji Latji; in Ballarat, in Wadawurrung.

A tie between Firebird and The Rite of Spring: 100 players plus the Chief Conductor

Top 3 featured composers John Williams (seven works) Beethoven (five works) Ravel (five works)

Number of…

Concerti

Symphonies

112

Works in total

Photography: Keith Saunders; Wayne Quilliam

Morning Music Returns

Our ever-popular MSO Mornings concerts return in 2022, bringing sublime classical music to Hamer Hall on Fridays at 11am. First up, on 1 April, is Brahms’ Piano Concerto No.2, conducted by Benjamin Northey (pictured) with much-lauded Australian musician Daniel de Borah on piano. Then, on 24 June, French conductor Fabien Gabel leads the Orchestra through two dramatic works by Strauss and Dvořák, featuring German cellist Daniel Müller-Schott.

A three-concert MSO Mornings package is available from $138. Go to mso.com.au/mornings to book your place.

Works by Australian composers

By living composers

By female composers

Oldest work

O Euchari in Leta Via by Hildegard von Bingen (who died in 1179)

Newest work

Melody Eötvös’ Sonarmilo for Harp and Orchestra * Figures subject to change.

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Hola, Brimming with enthusiasm, hugely talented, deeply passionate … meet Jaime Martín, the London-based Spanish conductor who takes the reins at the MSO in February. By Stephanie Bunbury.

Melbourne Photography ANNA HUIX Hair and makeup MIRA HUSSEINI

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is how we sound, we are the MSO’. No, it’s incredibly open to aime Martín feels he got the measure of Melbourne explore – and that’s incredibly important.” when he had to see a dentist during his last visit. The plan now is that he will spend 15 weeks of the year in “I’m sitting there with my mouth open,” recalls Melbourne in three five-week bursts, returning to his home base Martín, “and he says, ‘What are you doing here?’ in London’s riverside suburb of Teddington or to his other post as I’m a conductor. ‘Well, now you’re registered here, tell me Principal Conductor of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. This when you do concerts and maybe we can meet afterwards; I is the life of a modern conductor, he can show you some bars!’” says. He is just looking forward to Martín beams. “How nice that is! spending five weeks in one place To be in a place where people detect at a stretch, including some real that you are new in town or have weekends. “What I would like is to some connection with the city and live in a residential area, somewhere are so friendly and open – and proud! you can meet your neighbours and go That’s what I find in Melbourne! to the local shops.” ‘Look, this is us! This is how we live. Jaime Martín is 56, but he has been Please join us!’” working full-time as a conductor Jaime (it’s pronounced Hi-meh) for only nine years. For most of his Martín takes up the position of career, he has played the flute. Not Chief Conductor of the Melbourne that conducting was a new interest; Symphony Orchestra in February. when he was only 19, studying in It has been a whirlwind courtship; The Hague in the Netherlands, there he first came to the MSO as a guest was the option of taking a course in conductor two years ago. “From the conducting. But at the same time, he first rehearsal it was love at first sight. was chosen for the European Union At least on my side!” Youth Orchestra – where he first met He chuckles, a full-throated his wife Rachel Gough, who is now Spanish laugh. Stepping up to the Principal Bassoon with the London podium on your first day with an Symphony Orchestra. orchestra is never easy, he says. No way was he giving that up. “Everyone is silent and looking at “It was young musicians from all you. ‘And now what? What are you over Europe,” he recalls. “That going to tell us that we don’t already The conductor at home in London: he will split his time in 2022 between there, Melbourne and LA. was an incredible orchestra. And on know?’ It is a delicate moment. But in my first project with this orchestra, some places, you feel deep down that the conductor was Claudio Abbado and the soloist was Jessye everyone is willing to go, ‘OK, first of all, thank you for being here. Norman; we were doing Schoenberg. What are we going to do?’ And I felt like that in Melbourne from “The second tour was with Zubin Mehta; we went to India and the beginning.” met Ravi Shankar, playing the sitar. Imagine! I am 21; I love music Musically, what struck him most was the orchestra’s flexibility. and suddenly I have one-on-one time with Claudio Abbado and “I really appreciated that so much in that first program, because it Zubin Mehta. I thought, ‘Well, if I was conducting, I would never was actually a difficult one.” meet these people.’ And if I want to get to know conducting, what Ravel’s Mother Goose ballet score preceded Mozart’s Requiem. better classroom than to play in the best orchestras I could?” “They are completely different styles,” he says. “Ravel is full of At the end of his studies, he moved to London and became colours and subtleties, lots of ethereal sounds. With Mozart, it Principal Flute at the Academy of St Martin in the Fields under the is all much more structured, clear and articulated. I thought the late Sir Neville Marriner, who often told him he should conduct.  orchestra was amazing in adjusting to the sounds. It is not, ‘This

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Martín in his London garden.

hen the transition came, he says with a grin, it was right at the time when men are supposed to have mid-life crises – in his early 40s. But this was anything but a crisis; it just crept up on him. He was asked if he would be interested in conducting a youth orchestra. “I thought, ‘Why not?’ I did it. And then, from that moment, it snowballed. People who listened to that concert invited me to do other things.” Nine years ago, he got his first position as Principal Conductor at Gävle in Sweden. For Martín, it was always about the music. Flute was not his first choice. When he was eight, his father took him to his first orchestral concert in Santander, the city in northern Spain where he grew up. There were records at home, but they had never interested him. The experience of instruments playing live, however, was something else. “That made me completely crazy. No, really!” He imagined playing the violin. Now when his father put Tchaikovsky on the turntable, he would grab a broomstick and pretend to saw away at its imaginary strings. Martín was the eldest of six children living in a small apartment. There was no money for private lessons. It was possible, however, to learn a wind instrument for free through a scheme run by the city administration. Twice a week, he took lessons from the flute player in the Santander municipal band. “If I hadn’t had that

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“I loved the violin, but I am very thankful to the flute because, thanks to it, I made contact with music. And, as it happened, I was pretty good at it”

possibility, I wouldn’t be here,” he says. “I loved the violin, but I am very thankful to the flute because, thanks to it, I made contact with music. And actually, as it happened, I was pretty good at it.” At 15, he was travelling every week on an overnight train to Madrid – the local bank subsidised his ticket – to do a class at the Conservatorio. The train arrived at 8am and his class was at 4pm. “I didn’t have a place to stay, so I went to the centre of Madrid and did some busking. I would get some practice and the people would throw some coins.” After the class he would be allowed to watch the Spanish Symphony’s weekly concert, then get back to the station. It seems a remarkable commitment for a boy of 15. Martín shrugs. “I had to miss out on some things, but actually I felt so lucky, you know, every time I was on that train.” 

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Rachmaninov Symphony No.2 Experience one of the great Romantic symphonies on demand, compellingly led by Dutch-Maltese conductor Lawrence Renes.

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Inspire

e remains a person of tremendous enthusiasms, by no means all musical ones. Talk turns to the family trekking expeditions to Machu Picchu, the Galápagos Islands and Borneo, where he and his younger son took recorders to play to their hosts in the jungle (the couple has two sons, aged 23 and 21); then it moves on to cooking and Martín’s favourite recipes for fish pie. Most exciting of all, however, are the programs in the pipeline. On one of his visits to Melbourne he conducted a concerto by the composer Deborah Cheetham, who told him her story as one of the Stolen Generation. “I realised how important it is, what she represents. I was really moved,” he says. In lockdown, he read more about Australia’s relationship with the past and its First Nations people before inviting Cheetham to write a new piece for his opening concert on the theme of morning, to be followed by Mahler’s First Symphony. “The soloist will be William Barton who is a very well-known Australian yidaki player and also a composer himself. Two First Nations artists, absolutely at the highest level, but they have never worked together before. It’s really very exciting!” Serving a city of five million people, he says, the Orchestra must cater to broad tastes. But there are some enticing rabbit holes he wants to explore, including reviving local composers who have been largely forgotten. “Margaret Sutherland: amazing! We are going to do a Spanish program in December, with flamenco music and dancing. “And we are going to do Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Mahler, but we are going to do a new piece by Brett Dean and the latest piece by Thomas Adès, The Exterminating Angel,” he enthuses. “For me, the important thing is to have as wide a combination of repertoire as possible.” He is thrilled about all of it. And judging by the huge banner of his face on the Arts Centre spire when he was last in Melbourne – he sent a picture of it to his mother – Melbourne is ready to be thrilled by him. On the way back from the dentist, he says, his taxi driver asked what he did. He told him, to which the taxi driver said he was an MSO subscriber; could he have a selfie? “I thought this is ridiculous!” Martín gives another of those huge laughs. “I don’t know, maybe it was my lucky day, but I was very impressed by that. For me, this is the feel of the city.” ■

“Two First Nations artists, absolutely at the highest level, but they have never worked together before. It’s really very exciting!”

The Hit List We asked the Maestro about some of his musical influences. What was the first album you bought? Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. What was the first concert you ever went to? The Spanish Radio Orchestra – I was eight. It was Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. What kind of music were you listening to as a teenager? Alban Berg and Wagner. Beatles or Rolling Stones? Beatles!!!! Name your three favourite non-classical songs. The Beatles’ ‘Yesterday’ – I just love it; Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’; and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. What music was played at your wedding? There wasn’t any music at my wedding. What’s the last album you bought/ downloaded? Shostakovich’s Symphony No.5 with [Yevgeny] Mravinsky. What’s your favourite piece of classical music? Impossible to say, but if I had to take a composer to a desert island, it would have to be Mozart. I would take Mozart operas. What do you consider the most difficult piece of classical music to conduct? Any Mozart.

Open Rehearsal with Jaime Martín is on Thursday 24 February; In Conversation with Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Jaime Martín is on Wednesday 27 July. Bookings, (03) 9929 9600 or mso.com.au.

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B ACKSTAGE PA S S

Behind every great orchestra is a team of people who work to make sure everything is note perfect. Daniela Elser meets three of the MSO’s unsung heroes. Photography SHARYN CAIRNS

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Inspire LUKE SPEEDY-HUTTON Orchestra Library Manager

hen audiences watch the musicians of the MSO take to the stage, they see dedicated and passionate professionals, committed to giving the best performance they can. What they don’t see is the equally dedicated army of people working behind the scenes, people who play an integral role in bringing the Orchestra’s repertoire to life. Here, meet three other members of the MSO family.

Luke Speedy-Hutton Orchestra Library Manager

When the Orchestra plays those first wonderful notes on stage, the hundreds and hundreds of pages of sheet music on the stage are the result of the hard work of Library Manager Luke Speedy-Hutton and his team. While that might sound straightforward, the reality can be anything but. The process begins with SpeedyHutton diving into the research necessary to source the specific music for every show. (While the MSO library holds some music, the majority comes from the centralised Symphony Services International or is hired.) This means taking into account whether “the conductor has certain preferences for different editions, what edition they want to use, if they’re doing any cuts or changes and working out exactly what we need to do in order to prepare music,” Speedy-Hutton says. It is also the library’s job to go through the scores and to work out how many players and which instruments are needed, at which point Speedy-Hutton tells the Orchestra Manager so they can book the necessary players. “That means, especially if it’s newer music that isn’t known as well, you have to get the physical score and open it and look through and make sure we just count all of the instruments and what type. Sometimes if it’s not very well edited, there’ll be hidden instruments that aren’t properly marked. You have to be very thorough and pedantic,” he says. Once the actual music arrives, then it’s time for “the conveyor belt”, as Speedy-Hutton and his team call the “really long bench” where they keep the music for the whole Orchestra for a number of upcoming performances. When one batch of music is ready – that is, marked up and put in folders and ready to go to the musicians – it goes into a trunk and is then delivered to the concert hall. At that point, all the waiting music on the “conveyor belt” slides one place along to the left and the process starts again. “Keeping that conveyor belt moving is basically 

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Building the Future At the MSO, we believe in building the future of our artform. As Australia’s oldest professional orchestra, we have done this for more than 100 years by supporting the next generation of musicians, artists, composers, and conductors, contributing to a culture of artistic excellence within the MSO and broader arts ecology. From mentorships and residencies, to structured learning through our new MSO Academy, and partnerships with leading education and training organisations, our programs create a multi-disciplinary talent pipeline for the advancement of Australian orchestral music. But we can’t do this alone. Please help us continue to build the future of our artform by donating today.

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SHANNON TOYNE Senior Manager, Sales and Customer Experience

our main job. You can’t ever really just focus on a single concert because there’s so much happening at once.” Speedy-Hutton joined the MSO in 2018 as Assistant Librarian and was officially appointed to his current role in June last year. Having studied composing at university, “I get a lot of satisfaction from having to open up scores and look through them and work out exactly what’s going on.” The library’s work is crucial for the smooth running of the Orchestra, because, as Speedy-Hutton explains, “what we do both gives the players that music to practise and rehearse and it saves time in rehearsal. All of those markings stop them from having to stop and ask a question. “I’ll sit in on rehearsals... and bring my laptop and do some work while I’m listening to them, which is often more rewarding for me, to see how a conductor works and how the players work.”

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Shannon Toyne

Senior Manager, Sales and Customer Experience When it comes to Shannon Toyne’s role, the numbers are nothing short of impressive. As Senior Manager, Sales and Customer Experience, her job involves managing the tens of thousands of tickets sold across the more than 150 concerts performed annually. (And that’s before you get to the live recordings, live streams, regional touring, open rehearsals and other special events on the schedule.) Getting that veritable army of patrons into their seats – be they dedicated attendees who never miss a performance or someone enjoying a special outing – falls to Toyne, who joined the MSO in April last year. “There’s just so much going on and I think looking in from the outside, you wouldn’t realise that,” she says. Her job has been made that much more complex 

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by Covid-related lockdowns and restrictions, which has seen much of her time spent overseeing ticket refunds and exchanges. Looking to the future, the biggest challenge, she says, is “trying to predict sales trends and what the audience landscape looks like for the year ahead. It’s an unknown for everyone and there’s no real markers to base trends on. It’s a lot of guesswork.” However, she finds the zeal and dedication of the entire MSO infectious, which Toyne says “helps drive my passion for doing my best and [making sure] I’m getting the best results for the Orchestra”. After a nine-year career in arts management including working with the Perth International Comedy Festival and the Australian Ballet, “I really enjoy how diverse it all is, the performances and the concerts. It’s all very dynamic, fast-paced and exciting.”

Steele Foste r Production Manager

The key to what Production Manager Steele Foster and his MSO team do is simple: their job is for the audience to never notice them. “There is the really visible stuff like packing the trucks, building the stage, doing the stage moves,” he says. “There’s stuff that’s probably a little less visible such as pre-production work like scheduling, designing the stage layout so that it works [for all the musicians], and creating freight lists so all the right gear is in the right place. “Then there’s the stuff that hopefully is relatively invisible to people, which is the most enjoyable part,” he says. For example, if in a piece “the percussion section would really benefit by being on the floor closer to the wind section, that’s possible but it does then mean that you’re running the risk of creating noise issues or you might be squishing other people. “With 80-plus musicians on stage, in a confined space,” Foster says, “they’ve all got different needs. It’s a joyous challenge, but it’s trying to find that balance for everyone to be able to give their best.” Performing this particular balancing act is one that Foster has plenty of experience in, having worked with bands in high school and later, on a volunteer basis, with community music groups. After completing a performance degree studying music, Foster moved into a role with the Melbourne Youth Orchestra before joining the MSO in 2013. He moved into a full-time position in 2015, became the Production Manager in March 2020, and will join the Learning, Engagement and Innovation team this year. “It’s wonderful. Even on the hardest days it’s still rewarding. Everyone is pulling in the same direction to make sure we give the best performance we can.” ■

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“Everyone is pulling in the same direction to make sure that we give the best performance we can”

STEELE FOSTER Production Manager

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Hector in Italy Hector Berlioz wrote Harold in Italy following a roving 15-month stay in the country. Here, Elissa Blake dives into the fascinating history behind the 1834 work.

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“I was constantly off to Florence, Genoa, Nice, Naples, the mountains,

s it is for the modern-day traveller circling over Rome’s Fiumicino Airport, so it was for the French composer Hector Berlioz when he saw the city for the first time: “As I gazed down on the far-off city, standing in purple majesty in the midst of its vast desolate plain, my heart swelled with awe and reverence, and suddenly I realised all the grandeur, all the poetry, all the might of that heart of the world.” The impressions formed in young Berlioz’s mind at that moment –and thousands of others formed on his rambles through Italy over the course of a peripatetic, adventure-strewn 15 months – would eventually be distilled into Harold in Italy, a symphonic poem in four movements that became one of the composer’s most cherished works. “There is something about Harold in Italy that is irresistible,” says the MSO’s new Chief Conductor Jaime Martín, who will conduct the work in a program also featuring Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony. “These pieces are like the second wines from the best vintage,” Martín says. “Both composers are best known for other work but I’m really excited about pairing them together.”

BERLIOZ IN ITALY

Berlioz arrived in Italy in 1831, not as a tourist but as the winner (on his fourth attempt) of the 1830 Prix de Rome, a scholarship dating back to the reign of Louis XIV providing a stipend for French artists to study the art treasures of antiquity. He was 28.

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Like any modern-day award, the Prix de Rome came with outcomes to fulfill and stakeholders to manage. But Berlioz wasn’t the kind of artist used to ticking bureaucratic boxes. “He was a very unconventional character,” says Luke SpeedyHutton, the MSO’s Orchestra Library Manager. “When Berlioz was awarded the prize, he was not a popular composer. He had some fanatical fans and people recognised his talents but he was as eccentric in life as he was in his music.” At first, Berlioz tried to postpone his trip. He’d just become engaged and believed his career would be better served by staying in Paris. He eventually buckled, but then baulked at the requirement to spend two years in Italy. All up, Berlioz actually stayed 15 months in Italy and spent little time in any one place. “I have hardly ever spent more than two consecutive months in Rome,” Berlioz confessed to fellow composer Gaspard Spontini in a letter written in 1832. “I was constantly off to Florence, Genoa, Nice, Naples, the mountains, on foot, with the sole aim of wearing myself out to the point of numbness and being able to endure more easily the spleen that was tormenting me.” (It’s worth noting here, perhaps, that early on in his stay in Italy, Berlioz threw himself into the sea in Genoa in an attempt to drown himself, having received word that his fiancée intended to marry another man.) From his base in Rome, Berlioz travelled far and wide. He tramped through the Abruzzo region to the city’s east. He rambled the Apennines and Campania. He visited Pompeii. Inspired to write prose rather than music, he became something of a foreign

Berlioz’s wanderings through Italy took him everywhere from (left to right) the Appian Way and Florence to Abruzzo and Genoa.

on foot, with the sole aim of wearing myself out to the point of numbness”

correspondent. Many of his impressions were serialised in France and, later, burnished further for his book, Mémoires. Walking from Naples to Rome, he recalled daydreaming about being “in the service of a brigand chief … That’s the life I crave: volcanos, rocks, rich piles of plunder in mountain caves, a concert of shrieks accompanied by an orchestra of pistols and carbines”. On his way back from Naples, he recalled spending a rough night in a wayside inn, his rest plagued by “young men serenading, going round the village all night singing beneath their mistresses’ windows, to the accompaniment of … a terrible squawking clarinet”. His daydreams and memories were to prove indelible. Berlioz returned to France in 1832 a somewhat changed man.

SPARKS OF GENIUS

Harold in Italy was born two years later when, in a way, Italy came to Berlioz. In 1834 in Paris, he received a visit from an admirer, “a man with flowing hair, piercing eyes … haunted by genius”. The visitor was no less than Niccolò Paganini, a musical superstar of his day and Genoa’s favourite son. An ardent admirer of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, he requested the composer create a work in which Paganini could display his prodigious technique and his recently acquired Stradivarius viola. Berlioz accepted, though, as was often the case, he didn’t deliver quite what was ordered. Drawing on his Italian sojourn and inspired by the poetry of Lord Byron – in this case the narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, published in 1812 – Berlioz (in his own words) “conceived the idea

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of writing a series of scenes for the orchestra, in which the viola should find itself involved, like a person more or less in action, always preserving its own individuality”. In Harold in Italy, Berlioz breathed the gift of personality into the viola. The viola is Harold, a melancholy traveller through shifting landscapes captured in the work’s four movements. “One of the most profound moments in the piece is right at the start,” says Speedy-Hutton. “The opening is melancholy, the first three or four minutes are really slow. You get a sense of torment, a lot of dark stuff going on. Then everything cuts out and you’re left with just the harp and the viola. It’s so simple and delicate and beautiful and that is the Harold theme. It really is quite an amazing moment.” In the second movement, the audience hears a procession of pilgrims and tolling bells – all of which Berlioz saw and heard on his Italian journey. The third movement is a serenade – that of an Abruzzo peasant singing to his sweetheart. The riotous fourth movement, The Orgy of the Brigands, contrasts Berlioz’s fantasy of a reckless life of adventure with the more melancholy themes in the earlier movements. “It feels like you’re listening to a story,” says Speedy-Hutton. “It’s not always clear what that story is but if you listen closely to the viola, your imagination takes over.” ■

Harold in Italy will be performed as part of the Poetry in Music concert on Friday 19 August, and in its own right on Monday 22 August. Jaime Martín conducts Christopher Moore on viola. Bookings, (03) 9929 9600 or mso.com.au.

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Imbued with the burgeoning light and energy of a new dawn, Deborah Cheetham’s Baparripna is a fitting tribute to a time of both renewal and continuation. Elissa Blake talks to the composer to find out more. Photography DARRIAN TRAYNOR

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o you have to be an early riser to compose a musical tribute to the dawn? Deborah Cheetham hopes not. “Honestly, I’m not really a morning person,” she laughs. “The idea of getting up at first light doesn’t appeal to me as it might have done to my ancestors. As far as I’m concerned, the best time to see the dawn is when you’ve been up all night.” And Cheetham has been up all night – composing a new work, she’s quick to add – for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s New Beginnings: Season Opening Gala, a dawnthemed orchestral piece to sit in a program alongside Haydn’s Symphony No.6 (Le matin) and Mahler’s Symphony No.1, whose opening, Mahler said, evokes the “awakening of nature from a long winter sleep”. “I like to work through the night and watch the dawn arrive,” Cheetham says. “I like the stillness, the uninterrupted space it provides. And the pre-dawn light you see about 25 minutes before the sun … I seem to draw a lot of energy from that.” That same energy is in Cheetham’s earlier works, notably her opera Parrwang Lifts the Sky, which tells a story from Wadawurrung Country of a great mythic magpie who, with the help of human friends, lifted the blanket of darkness from the land to create the first dawn. “I love the sound of the birds,” she says. “When you wake up with them it’s like they are singing you into consciousness.” Cheetham’s new piece, titled Baparripna (meaning “good morning” or “beautiful morning” in the Yorta Yorta language of Cheetham’s ancestors), began life as a commission from the MSO’s incoming Chief Conductor Jaime Martín, who suggested Cheetham might write the piece in collaboration with composer, multi-instrumentalist and yidaki virtuoso William Barton. “The opening concert in February will be my first contact with the audience,” says Martín. “I have really thought a lot about this. This is a new adventure for me, a new country, a new orchestra and culture. “I’m using two pieces that are very important to me. For the Haydn, I will use a very small orchestra to slowly unveil sounds to the Concert Hall and we will finish with the Mahler, which depicts awakening after a long winter. This is the idea I passed to Deborah when I asked her to write a new piece.”

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“I immediately said yes. The idea of dawn as a new beginning, a new era, a new understanding is so powerful. It’s something we’ve all come to understand and appreciate more deeply over the past couple of years of the pandemic.”

R O O T E D I N H I S T O R Y Cheetham, a Yorta Yorta woman, distinguished soprano, composer and educator, knew she could bring a different perspective to a dawn-themed program – one informed by her heritage and experience. She composed Australia’s first First Nations opera (Pecan Summer) and is the founder of Short Black Opera, a company devoted to the development of First Nations singers. In 2019, she also established the One Day in January project, designed to develop and nurture First Nations orchestral musicians. Cheetham is also the writer of a requiem based on the frontier wars between First Nations people of south-western Victoria and settlers from 1840 to 1863. Titled Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace, the symphonic version was given its world premiere performance by the MSO and was sung entirely in the Gunditjmara language. “This time I wanted to reach into the Yorta Yorta language and into the First Nations idea of time – one that stretches beyond the kind of time measured in European culture.” In Baparripna, Cheetham captures not just the beauty of a sunrise on Yorta Yorta Country but also the anguish the composer felt at being unable to visit that Country for most of the past two years. Yorta Yorta Country, Cheetham explains, includes the junction of the Murray and Goulburn rivers, and towns such as Echuca, Shepparton, Benalla, Wangaratta and Violet Town. “I live on St Kilda Road, smack in the middle of Melbourne, but I’ve always been on Country within a couple of hours if I’ve needed to be. However, during the pandemic, that’s not been possible. It’s been very strange for me. In a way, the lockdown gave me the space to write but it also gave me a sense of 

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“ The idea of dawn as a new beginning, a new era, a new understanding is so powerful. It’s something we’ve all come to understand and appreciate more deeply over the past couple of years of the pandemic”

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Inspire incredible frustration. You could really hear it in my first drafts of Baparripna. It sounded more like Armageddon!” Writing music is more of an experiential process than an abstract one for Cheetham. “It’s something connected to my narrative, to the heritage within my DNA. I need to stand with my feet in the water of the Dungala [Murray River]. I need to hear nature surround me. I need to stand in the Barmah Forest and hear what it is my ancestors need me to say in my music. ”

THE CHANCE TO CONTINUE If the music of Haydn and Mahler evoke a sense of new beginnings and new opportunities, it is something of a European notion, Cheetham believes. “I think dawn in any culture brings with it a sense of possibility,” she says. “But underpinning that for me as a First Nations woman is the notion that dawn brings with it a sense of certainty and continuity. The sun brings its light into our world each morning and that’s our opportunity to continue to grow and develop our knowledge and our stories.” The very idea of time is different in First Nations thinking, says Cheetham. “There isn’t the same emphasis on linearity, of

past, present and future. For me, each day is a fresh chance to continue rather than start afresh.” Baparripna also chimes with the arrival of Jaime Martín as Chief Conductor. For the MSO, it marks a new beginning. “Jaime comes to us at a time when we’ve experienced a great dislocation from who we are and what we do through no fault of our own,” says Cheetham. “Rising from the pandemic, we have a fresh start and to have that while contributing to the oldest music practice in the world brings with it a great deal of significance for the Orchestra, for William and for me.” Baparripna’s place in the MSO’s Season Opening Gala positions the company as a leader in First Nations commitment, adds Cheetham, who is the MSO’s inaugural First Nations Creative Chair. “It speaks to the need to articulate how much still needs to be done in the classical music space in terms of Indigenous engagement and the forming of true relationships and understandings with First Nations cultures.”

YIDAKI MAN Baparripna’s feature instrument is the yidaki, the instrument often known – erroneously – as the didgeridoo (“an Anglicised, onomatopoeic word coined by the continent’s colonisers”).

It Takes a Village Deborah Cheetham has lent her name – and given her blessing – to Ryman Healthcare’s newest residential community. RYMAN HEALTHCARE was abuzz with excitement when word came through that one of Australia’s brightest First Nations stars was delighted to be associated with the company’s newest residential community. The purpose-built retirement village, in the town of Ocean Grove, has now been named after Deborah Cheetham. All involved believe it’s a perfect fit. After all, Ryman is a Premier Partner of the MSO and sets itself apart by programming a wide range of creative activities and performances at its village communities, from music classes to art exhibitions. Another point of difference is the company’s pioneering values,

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An artist’s impression of the village and (opposite) Debra Richardson with Deborah Cheetham.

particularly its commitment to providing tailored living options for people of all backgrounds, faiths and orientations. Cheetham – a member of the Stolen Generations and the LGBTQI+ community – has been an influential advocate for First Nations people and a powerful public voice in the fight against all forms of discrimination.

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“When she learned about what we try to achieve at our villages, she came on board wholeheartedly,” says Debra Richardson, Ryman’s Victorian Sales and Community Relations Manager. Says Cheetham: “In my talks with Ryman, I discovered a level of understanding, a duty of care to its residents and a welcoming heart. Ryman are pouring their understanding

Inspire Yidaki is a Yolngu word, one of several First Nations names bestowed on the instrument of which Barton is an internationally acclaimed master. “William and I have known each other for more than 20 years,” Cheetham says. “I’ve always harboured a secret desire to write a work for him. It’s a really incredible opportunity.” But the yidaki is a challenging voice to write for, Cheetham admits. “For a start, as a woman, it’s not my place to play the yidaki. With every other instrument that I’ve written for, I’ve had a go and, in some cases, have even become proficient. But the yidaki is one that I do not play because, from a cultural perspective, it’s not appropriate.” Barton, who draws on the instrumental traditions of the Wannyi, Lardil and Kalkadunga tribes of western Queensland, and who has collaborated with several leading composers since he made his orchestral debut on the instrument as a teenager, has developed a form of musical notation that makes it possible for Cheetham to ask for specific effects, tones and sounds. “It’s a very exciting process,” she says. “Being able to indicate what it is that I’d like an instrument to do is fundamental to the composer for any instrument. But traditionally, for First Nations instruments, you acquire this knowledge by learning from a master who passes it down to you in a practical sense.” Composer and instrumentalist must strike a delicate balance, Cheetham says. “Sometimes, when you write something

of Country and their willingness to learn further into the bricks and mortar of their establishment. “I’m so incredibly proud to be associated with them in this way.” With the honouree confirmed, Ryman set about organising a naming ceremony for the village, which is located at Ocean Grove on the Bellarine Peninsula. Ryman Healthcare works with First Nations communities in each of its locations to perform culturally appropriate events – in this case, a smoking ceremony conducted by the Wathaurong people. Cheetham offered to make a surprise appearance, too. “She came up from the back of the room, singing an aria,” says Richardson. “People were moved to tears.” Not all the new residents were familiar with Cheetham’s story. But after her appearance at the naming ceremony, many of them went online to find out more. “The residents

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“The sun brings its light into our world each morning and that’s our opportunity to continue to grow and develop our knowledge and our stories”

down, you run the risk of diminishing it and I don’t want to limit William to just those things we are able to write down at any one time. “That’s why coming together and being on Country and sharing the experiences I’ve been through to write the piece has been so very important. It has been a privilege and a joy to work on this.” ■

Baparripna makes its world premiere as part of the New Beginnings: Season Opening Gala, on 25 and 26 February. Bookings and enquiries, (03) 9929 9600 or mso.com.au.

couldn’t be prouder that they are living in a village named after this incredible woman,” says Richardson. During the most recent Melbourne lockdown, Richardson decided to make masks and sell them to raise funds for Cheetham’s Dhungala Children’s Choir. “Deborah asked that the proceeds go towards a project she’s organising for 2022, when some of the older

children in the choir will travel to Melbourne and record with a famous Indigenous musician.” She raised an impressive $3,000, which will cover about half the cost of the recording project. But the choir needn’t worry about the other half: “What Deborah doesn’t know yet is that Ryman has decided to match what I’ve raised, dollar for dollar.” Richardson, who recently discovered her own Indigenous heritage, says she’s proud to work for a company that is recognising the importance of First Nations voices. “I don’t mean to suggest that putting an Indigenous Australian’s name on a retirement village is in itself the balm for what ails race relations in this country,” she says. “But by amplifying the voice of someone who has been an agent of understanding and reconciliation, we really hope to help hasten the process of healing in our own unique Ryman way.”

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From little things

BIG THINGS GROW As the MSO gears up for more regional touring in 2022, four of our performers share stories of their musical lives outside Melbourne. By Dan F. Stapleton.

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Benjamin Northey P R I N C I PA L C O N D U C TO R IN RESIDENCE

It wasn’t until Benjamin Northey left his hometown of Ballarat and began touring with orchestras that he realised how lucky he had been as a child. “Ballarat was an extraordinary place because it was full of really talented musicians and teachers, despite its relatively small size,” he says. “Many places don’t have that.” Ballarat’s musical scene came alive in the mid-1800s, when gold prospecting made the town one of the wealthiest in Australia. “Everyone toured through

Ballarat, from Dame Nellie Melba to Paderewski,” Northey says. The gold rush ended, but the musical community endured. As a teenager, Northey was able to gain valuable handson experience. “There were chances to work as a professional, even when you were young,” he says. “From the age of 15, I was playing in pit orchestras and at events, on top of the music I did at school.” But opportunities to see performances by full-size orchestras were limited. At the time, Northey recalls, the MSO was still establishing its regional presence. “My school took us to an MSO Schools Concert in the city instead,” he says. “That was a significant experience.” Northey remembers being filled with a sense of awe. “Hearing an orchestra can transform the imagination of a young person. Seeing professionals making great music opened up amazing windows of possibility in my mind.” Then, in Year 10, Northey won a scholarship that involved a month-long tour of music camps in the United States.

“In Ballarat, there were chances to work as a professional, even when you were young” Benjamin Northey

“That was the turning point for me. I decided on that trip I was going to be a professional musician.” As stimulating as Ballarat was, it was these trips to Melbourne and the US that inspired young Northey the most. “Learning that there was a whole world of music out there was a powerful thing.” Today, he actively encourages the orchestras he conducts, particularly the MSO, to tour regionally. “The MSO is an extraordinary orchestra, and it’s really Victoria’s orchestra, not just Melbourne’s. “It’s so important that we give people outside Melbourne access to it. We can’t just expect people to travel to us. Not every kid gets that opportunity.”

Andrew Macleod P R I N C I PA L P I C C O LO *

Photography: Paul Hermes

Having grown up in regional Queensland, Andrew Macleod appreciates wide open spaces and the opportunity to slow down. But he also loves the culture, convenience and buzz of Melbourne. So, when an opportunity arose to move to Mount Macedon in the Macedon Ranges, an easy 45-minute drive from the concert hall, Macleod and his partner jumped at it. “We’d been living in Elsternwick for quite a few years and the time felt right for a tree change,” he says. “The idea was to get away, but not too far away.” However, moving out of the city has reminded Macleod that regional Australians don’t always have the same access to the arts as their inner-city counterparts. “There’s a lot of excellent 

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community music and some wonderful festivals, however rarely do people get to hear a professional symphony orchestra.” This is why he is such a big supporter of the MSO’s regional touring program. “It’s such an important part of the MSO’s vision: to make sure all Victorians get to experience great orchestral music performed by a world-class symphony orchestra. Taking this incredible music out to people all over Victoria is a very important thing for us to do, because this music belongs to everybody.” He is particularly proud of the MSO’s commitment to schools, pointing out that it plays to more than 2,000 regional students in a normal touring year. “When I was in primary school, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra came through on a regional tour and performed Dvořák’s New World Symphony, and I still remember what a thrill it was,” he says. “Hearing a full symphony orchestra in flight is an incredible experience. Nothing else sounds like it. And when you’re a kid,

“Hearing a full symphony orchestra in flight is an incredible experience. Nothing else sounds quite like it” Andrew Macleod

experiencing it for the first time, it can really awaken the imagination.” Today, Macleod is well settled in Mount Macedon. He practises and teaches at the local yoga studio and, with flautist James Kortum from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, holds an annual retreat, The Complete Flute, for talented students. He says it’s important for the MSO to continue to strengthen its ties with regional Victoria. “Regional communities deserve to hear us just as much as everyone else. “If we can light a little fire inside that person sitting in a community hall, who’s not heard anything like this before, then we’ve done something very worthwhile.” * supported by John McKay and Lois McKay

Matthew Tomkins P R I N C I PA L S E C O N D V I O L I N *

Matthew Tomkins had never really thought about music before his parents suggested he start learning the violin. “I’m not one of those players who was transfixed by music as a toddler or who picked up an instrument of their own accord,” he says. “I just went along with

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Mum and Dad.” Nor was he surrounded by a large musical community to inspire him. “I grew up in Creswick, which is north of Ballarat,” he explains. “It’s a very small town.” When he started making progress on the violin, his parents realised he would need to get lessons in Melbourne. Soon, Tomkins was travelling into the city every Saturday for tuition and to play in a youth orchestra. The trips swallowed up his weekends – a big sacrifice for a teenager. The thought of quitting occasionally crossed his mind. However, like many of his peers in the MSO, there was a formative concert experience that encouraged him to keep going. “We went to an MSO concert in Ballarat,” he recalls. “I can’t remember too many specifics, but I do remember hearing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.” It was the first time Tomkins had seen a full-size orchestra on stage. “I just remember being captivated by how big the sound was,” he says. “Dad had quite a big classical music record collection, but to actually see 80 or so people on stage performing, it was something completely different.” Even so, Tomkins didn’t pursue a music career straight out of high school. “I was still a little bit unsure, so I enrolled in an engineering and science degree at Melbourne Uni.” After university, “I wanted to try music for a couple of years as I knew I would have regrets later if I didn’t and I felt like I could always return to engineering if music didn’t work out. “But towards the end of that time, I won my first position in the MSO, and began a string quartet that I played in for 13 years, so the decision to pursue music was made.” He hopes the MSO’s ever-expanding touring program will help today’s regional kids make up their minds sooner. “When you see an orchestra perform, you realise that they are so much bigger than any one person, and that being part of one thing is something to cherish,” he says.  * supported by The Gross Foundation

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“When you see an orchestra perform, you realise that they are so much bigger than any one person” Matthew Tomkins

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Katharine Brockman VIOLA The MSO Receptions that Katharine Brockman’s parents hosted in their grand old home in Geelong were far from ordinary. “After every MSO concert in Geelong, they’d throw a party for the conductor and the soloist and invite 50-or-so members of the audience,” she recalls. “Growing up in that house gave me an extraordinary sense of connection with the Orchestra. It was very exciting.” Brockman’s father John was the longstanding president of the MSO subscribers’ committee in Geelong and was tasked with making sure the Orchestra’s local Subscription Series remained viable. There was a widespread understanding among the Geelong musical community that the Subscription Series – the MSO’s only such program outside Melbourne – was something to be cherished. “We felt pretty special that it wasn’t just a one-off concert each year. Each of those concerts was a highlight.” Brockman and three of her siblings ended up becoming musicians: after all, their mother was a also a fine singer. “Mum visited Geelong as a soloist with the MSO, having won the Young Performer of the Year competition,” Brockman says. “She came to one of Dad’s receptions and, before long, they decided to get married.” Today, both Brockman and her sister Miranda, a cellist, play with the MSO full-time. Two other siblings are violin teachers. Their father has passed away and their mother is in a care facility, so the family home has been sold. But Brockman still visits Geelong regularly, both to visit extended family and as part of the MSO. She reckons the Subscription Series is a key reason why the Geelong music scene continues to punch above its weight. “There are some great groups in town now, including Orchestra Geelong and the Geelong Symphony,” she says. “Music is something that people in Geelong take seriously, and I think the MSO is a big reason why.” ■

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Country life We’ve rounded up the best things to see and do in three regional destinations with MSO connections.

B A LL A R AT

“Growing up in that house gave me an extraordinary sense of connection with the Orchestra” Katharine Brockman

Ballarat’s ever-changing cultural scene encompasses much more than music. The visual arts are particularly well represented: at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, Australia’s oldest regional gallery, there’s work by Streeton and Drysdale and Clarice Beckett, plus contemporary exhibitions galore. Immerse yourself in the region’s history at the Eureka Centre (the site of the Eureka Stockade), or visit the Gold Museum and Sovereign Hill, an interactive live-theatre re-creation of gold-rush times. Hungry? Try modEuropean Restaurant Lola and newcomer Underbar (run by an alum of New York’s lauded Per Se). Bed down at Craig’s Royal Hotel, a grand dame that opened in the 1850s, or boutique Oscars Hotel.

M AC ED O N R A NG E S A N D B EN D I G O This picture-postcard region has long been a bolthole for harried Melburnians, and

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there are plenty of options if all you want to do here is relax and recuperate. Daylesford is, of course, home to the famed mineral springs, as well as topnotch galleries and homey cafes. At The Spa at Lake House, you can bathe in Daylesford’s healing waters, enjoy a massage or facial and then linger in the serene restaurant. North of the Macedon Ranges, the goldrush town of Bendigo is full of heritage buildings, quaint cafes and the Bendigo Art Gallery, which holds work by Emily Kame Kngwarreye. The MSO will perform at Bendigo’s Ulumbarra Theatre on Saturday 19 March.

G EELO N G The bayside city is home to diverse cultural attractions, from Narana Aboriginal Cultural Centre, with its impressive collection of contemporary art, to the National Wool Museum. The Geelong district is one of the state’s largest winemaking regions, and there’s a strong craft-beer scene, too – check out Little Creatures and White Rabbit breweries. Outside Geelong, the windswept Bellarine Peninsula beckons, with its rugged beaches, rolling hills and charming small towns. Book into Lon Retreat & Spa, a tucked-away property with direct beach access. The MSO performs four times in Geelong throughout 2022 at Deakin University’s Costa Hall.

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ESSAY

After the silence, music For the players of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, consigned to silence, the global pandemic was a time of melancholy separateness. Author Chloe Hooper reflects on the slow return to the stage. Illustration HOLLY WARBURTON

he first step was switching off the ghost light. For months, a bulb glowed from centre stage of Hamer Hall, as ghost lights did in unoccupied concert halls all over the world. It felt good to pack the light stand away. Through the endless nights of lockdown, the spirits of the stage had been appeased, but there was now much to do. The stage manager discovered that the longer a venue had been asleep, the longer it took to wake up. The place smelt musty. Security staff had been checking the sea of empty seats, but in the day-after-day of haunting quiet, the air had become dank. One moment, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was a single organism on stage, a multitude of voices, lost together in the same music. Then, suddenly, each musician was wrenched into a melancholy separateness. They had the anxiety of catching and unwittingly spreading the virus, layered with other fears about survival. So many musician friends were finding themselves falling over the precipice, unable to make a living. In this brutal landscape, would the Orchestra make it through? If it did, would an audience be waiting? And in the meantime, there was only so much practising a person could stand every day in, say, a one-bedroom apartment. There was Zoom, but that’s too much like talking to yourself to call a real conversation. Performing alone in your room, it’s hard to muster the necessary attention and vigour. Something precious is always missing. The computer takes away essential elements of music — the close communion of people and instruments, the visceral feedback — often accentuating the worst parts of playing, the self-conscious and internal critic. Also, no-one wanted issues with the neighbours. A trumpeter received a series of abusive anonymous letters under her door, complaining of noise. Shaken, she took to practising in a local park, and was moved by the number of strangers who came up to thank her for sharing her music with them, for the reminder of life before. How to fill the slow-going hours? When not rehearsing, some members of the Orchestra added rollerblading, or knitting, or baking to their repertoire (they were relearning what it was to be home at night around dinner time). Some

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started new degrees. Some found that teaching helped them through; they were transmitting something of purpose and meaning, even if that thing wasn’t perfect notes in a concert hall. Through night after night of carefully planned then cancelled repertoire, all of them waited. Just when it felt this would never end, the exorcism began. With the ghost light turned off, the stage manager and technicians raised the house lights, replaced the bulbs that had blown, made sure there were no gremlins on the switchboard, that the panelling on the roof was at the right height and position for the acoustics. The players picked up their instruments again with an added sense of purpose. At first, it could be horrible. The disconnect of what a viola player heard in his head and what his fingers could do didn’t align. And somehow he’d lost a pair of black trousers, and wasn’t sure he’d find the MSO’s standard-issue silver tie. But he could play, and he found trousers and tie, even as across the road from his apartment a mob had taken over the Shrine, protesting at the vaccines that would make it safe to hear live music again… Savour that sound of the orchestra tuning to an “A”. The instruments following the oboe in a wave, the pitch building. Even in the cacophony, there are the stories beyond words, the music telling us about the mourning of the past two years, the hardships faced by so many musicians, the loneliness of waiting, the wondering if they would ever step onto the stage, but also the relief, the sheer joy of now being home. Between the notes, for the musicians there’s an even sweeter sound. The bag checkers whispering, “Is the phone off?”; the seat shifters finding their ideal positions; the throat clearers preparing themselves for quiet. Here is the grand potential for hundreds of people to be enthralled together. All this time, the orchestra has been waiting for this moment — the silence after the tuning. All this time, they’ve been waiting for an audience, for you. ■

Chloe Hooper is one of Australia’s most versatile writers. She lives in Melbourne.

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Connect

“If you don’t support the things you like, you might not have them”

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

Lady Primrose Potter AC After a lifelong love affair with music, MSO Patron Lady Primrose Potter is still mesmerised by the sights and sounds of a live orchestra.

ady Primrose Potter, Patron and life member of the the dress circle. The seats have been “hotly held” (wherever the MSO, believes it’s important to look after people venue) ever since. “I’m very lucky,” she declares. “The sound and support them. “You don’t need to call yourself a comes to me most beautifully.” philanthropist as it’s not a word I particularly like,” She says she “wants to hear the things that are meaningful to she says. “You do things because you love them. And me”, which includes both concertos and opera, Beethoven, if you don’t support the things you like, you might not have them.” Tchaikovsky and Strauss. When asked which instrument she Lady Potter has always loved music. Born in 1931, young would choose to play herself, she replies: “If I had to choose an Primrose was given a small gramophone player for Christmas instrument, I think I’d probably go for the cello. when she was just five or six years old. “It was a little suitcase “My mother was a very good pianist and wanted to be a thing and you wound it up, and I played all my music on it.” professional,” she adds. “She was always playing the piano, every Listening to an Edwin Fischer recording of Beethoven’s Emperor afternoon. It was lovely. We grew up with music all the time.” concerto, she recalls, “I heard this, and I was just overcome.” Lady Potter believes the most important task for the future of the The evolution of home sound systems in recent decades delights arts is enticing children. “I think if the young are taken, and taken her, but Lady Potter is quick to point out nothing to the right sort of thing, you’ve got them for life. They beats being in the room. “It’s not the same as sitting get the wriggles, but they remember, too.” At 90, Lady Potter there, with all the orchestra around you,” she says. It’s impossible for Lady Potter to imagine life without remains an ardent “It’s amazing. You sit there, you can be cross and music. “It eases distress and settles people,” she says. music fan; (inset) with the Governor tired, and suddenly you hear that music.” She feels the excitement and eagerness of crowds of Victoria and MSO Now 90, Lady Potter remembers the first time she returning to concerts after the interminable Melbourne Patron, the Hon. Linda saw the MSO at the Melbourne Town Hall, decades lockdowns. “People are smiling about it. You can feel Dessau AC, at an MSO performance. ago, sitting in the very centre of the front row in the enthusiasm.”

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INTRODUCING CHIEF CONDUCTOR

Jaime Martín New Beginnings: Season Opening Gala 25–26 February / 7.30pm

Bartók and Beethoven 3–4 March / 7.30pm

Sheku Kanneh-Mason: Mid-Season Gala 30 July / 7.30pm

New World Symphony 1 August / 6.30pm

Stravinsky’s Ballets 12–13 August / 7.30pm

Poetry in Music: Berlioz and Tchaikovsky 19 August / 7.30pm

Harold in Italy

22 August / 6.30pm

Sibelius and Ravel

25 August / 7.30pm & 27 August / 2pm All concerts at Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall

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PUZZLES

Answers on page 50

ACROSS 1. Who composed Valses nobles et sentimentales? (5) 7. What is the Latin “Day of Wrath” hymn often included in requiems? (4,4) 8. What is the first name of Sydney-born, US-based violinist Park? (5) 10. This creamy dessert comes in New York, Basque and ricotta variations. (10) 12. W hat is the name of a work for orchestra and one or more soloists, usually in three movements? (8) 14. Complete the title of this Borodin opera, Prince ______. (4) 16. Name the British composer whose The Exterminating Angel Symphony was first performed in Birmingham in 2021. (4) 17. He wrote the Academic Festival Overture in response to being awarded an honorary doctorate, ______ Brahms. (8) 20. His Violin Concerto No.2 was the only one published during his lifetime. (4,6) 23. What is the tempo indication for slow? (5) 24. ... and for twice that pace? (8) 25. Which Peter Carey novel was adapted into an opera by Brett Dean? (5) DOWN 1. Which word, meaning of the countryside, is missing from this Karl Goldmark work … ______ Wedding Symphony? (6) 2. What’s a term for an extended narrative poem? (4) 3. Which Australian composed the cantata Tree of Man? (4) 4. W hat is the name of the most famous Australia-England cricketing trophy, The ______? (5) 5. What’s another term for orchestrating? (9) 6. What’s the scientific name for a shooting star? (6) 9. What’s the surname of the Canadian violinist performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the MSO in 2022, James _____? (5) 11. W hat’s another name for an intermezzo, the interval in a play or ballet? (9)

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13. How many singers perform a duet? (3) 15. What type of song is Deborah Cheetham’s Christmas with You? (5) 16. W hat’s a term for both music LPs and places to display photos? (6) 18. What type of seats are used by pianists? (6) 19. W hich Frenchman composed Escales and Trois Pièces Brèves? (5) 21. Complete the name of this renowned Stravinsky work, The ______ of Spring. (4) 22. What is the lengthwise section of a yacht’s framework known as? (4)

Answers on page 50

B O H

10 Good | 15 Very Good | 20+ Excellent

Wheel Words

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Magazine

Create words of four letters or more using the given letters once only, but always including the middle letter. Do not use proper names or plurals ending with S. See if you can find the nine-letter word using all the letters.

^ Definitions courtesy brittanica.com

Crossword

The Quiz

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

is the 10 Who composer/

Answers on page 50

eethoven’s much-loved Ode to Joy B appears in which of his symphonies? Which of these is not an Italian word for a musical tempo: (a) legato; (b) leggere; (c) largo; or (d) larghetto? The conductor Sir Georg Solti was born in which country? Which short piece of classical music was used as the theme for ABC news broadcasts from 1952 to 1982 (in its unadulterated form)? An extra point if you can name the composer. What is the first name of the Czech composer Janáček? In which decade did Gustav Holst write The Planets: the 1910s, 1920s or 1930s? What is the American term for a crotchet? Hildegard von Bingen was a nun (and abbess) in which religious order? Which European composer is credited with saying: “Music begins where the possibilities of language end?”

conductor pictured right? Which of these is not a work by Schubert: (a) Die schöne Müllerin; (b) Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759; (c) Liebeslieder Waltzes, Op. 52; or (d) Trout Quintet? The baroque chalumeau is most closely related to which modern instrument? What term, beginning with “c”, means the use of notes foreign to the mode or diatonic scale upon which a composition is based^? What does this marking (mf) denote in a piece of music? Peter Sculthorpe was born in which Australian city? Is a scherzo (a) a vigorous, light or playful composition; (b) a partsong for several voices, typically unaccompanied and arranged in elaborate counterpoint; (c) a short piece of sacred choral music; or

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(d) a continuous slide upwards or downwards between two notes^? Who played Salieri in the 1984 film Amadeus ? Edvard Grieg reputedly carried a small figurine of which animal for good luck? Felix Mendelssohn was born in 1809. True or false? Which diacritical symbol is missing from Camille Saint-Saen’s name? Chopin’s Études comprise how many compositions overall? Whose name is missing from this album cover, right? Australian-born composer and pianist Percy Grainger died in which country? In Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, which instrument represents the duck? The 1982 experimental film Koyaanisqatsi features a score by which American composer?

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DAY OFF DIARY

Saul Lewis Our Principal Third Horn* prioritises good food, fresh air and a spot of practice on his leisurely Sundays. Photography DANIEL MAHON

UP WITH THE SUN. Saturday can be a late night if there’s a concert, but I try to start Sunday with an early run regardless. It’s a good energy boost – and it means I can reward myself with a proper weekend breakfast. I’ll get some eggs and bacon going and chuck in a few extras to make it a bit more fun. TO A TEE. I’m a pretty keen golfer and a member of the Victoria Golf Club. So, on a Sunday morning, I’ll often team up with a few other regulars for a bit of friendly competition. Although we try not to take it too seriously, the loser has to buy a round of drinks afterwards, so there’s always something to play for. TUNE UP. When I’m home from golf, I’ll usually get out my instrument. Sometimes, the MSO has a Monday concert, and if it’s a particularly difficult program, I’ll do a solid practice to make sure I’m in shape. If I have the next day off, I might just do a bit of maintenance on my French horn instead. KEY FACTORS. My wife plays the violin, so to make her laugh I’ll pick it up and have a go. Or I’ll sit down at the piano and have a tinkle. I used to play piano as a kid, but it’s not my ‘serious’ instrument, so I don’t feel any pressure to perform to a certain level. I’ll just pull out a score and have a go. It’s a relaxing way to engage with music. MAKING A NEST. Freya and I got married in July, and she’s pregnant, so we’re starting to think about life with a child. One thing we like to do on a Sunday evening is cook together. We’ll go to Prahran Market and get some nice fish or a T-bone and then bring it home. I’ll have a gin and tonic, we’ll put some music on the stereo, and then we’ll spend a couple of hours cooking. I think ‘nesting’ is a good word for it. We’re really enjoying creating domestic routines. AS IT COMES. We’re both very disciplined during the week with our jobs, so on a Sunday evening we enjoy playing it by ear. Sometimes I build things – most recently, I made a CD and record cabinet – or I’ll dig into a book. If it’s on, we’ll watch The Block: that’s probably our biggest indulgence. It’s a nice coda to what is usually an active weekend.  * supported by The Hon Michael Watt QC and Cecilie Hall

“My wife plays the violin, so to make her laugh I’ll pick it up and have a go”

Puzzle Page answers. QUIZ: 1. Symphony No. 9. 2. (b) – it means “to read”. 3. Hungary. 4. Majestic Fanfare by Charles Williams. 5. Leoš. 6. 1910s. 7. Quarter note. 8. Benedictine. 9. Sibelius. 10. Antonín Dvořák. 11. (c). This is a work by Brahms. 12. Clarinet. 13. Chromaticism. 14. Mezzo-forte. 15. Launceston, Tasmania. 16. (a). 17. F. Murray Abraham. 18. A frog. 19. True. 20. The trema (le tréma) above the “e” in Saëns … also known as the dieresis (umlaut in German). 21. 27. 22. Erik Satie. 23. USA. 24. An oboe. 25. Philip Glass. WHEEL WORDS: Book, floe, folk, fool, hobo, hole, hoof, hook, hose, kohl, lobe, look, lose, oboe, shoe, shoo, slob, sloe, sole, solo, bloke, loose, shook, befool. Nine-letter word: Bookshelf.

R A V E L U D P S U S I E C H E T N I I C O N C E R S T J A D E S I R L B E L A B A U U E M O D E R A S T E

A V I E S I N H E S E C S T O I C W O H A N R R T O K L E I E T O B L E

A R R A N G I N G

M A E T K E O O R

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10–12 MARCH

IN CONCERT LIVE TO FILM

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Encore: The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Magazine | Issue 1, 2022

Articles inside

Essay: After the Silence, Music

A New Dawn

Hola, Melbourne

Backstage Pass

Hector in Italy

Welcome

The Moment

Welcome Letter