CONCERT PROGRAM
Richard Tognetti and
The Lark Ascending Recorded in August 2016 at Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall.
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Sir Andrew Davis conductor Richard Tognetti violin BRITTEN Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes LUTOSĹ AWSKI Partita VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending RACHMANINOV Symphonic Dances
This performance was recorded by Foxtel Arts
RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
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Tonight’s program is a vivid journey conjured in music from storm-thrashed seas to stratospheric heights on the wings of a lark and through a Russian ‘Afternoon’, ‘Twilight’ and ‘Midnight’ as we #keepthemusicgoing.
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BRITTEN Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes Dawn The flutes and violins create a wash of early sun, glistening on dew. The harp, violas and clarinets exclaim periodically and the rest of the orchestra interrupts with ominous chords as the shadows of the night recede. Sunday Morning Hear the church bells of a Sunday created by the clanging chords from the horns – and later with actual bells!
RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
Program at a Glance
Moonlight Britten uses a composer trick here by basing the whole piece around a combination of notes which in harmony-language creates a feeling of unrest. You never quite get to that last, satisfying chord. Feel the unrest; nothing is quite as it seems by moonlight. Storm Listen for rolling thunder on the kettle drums (timpani) and shards of brass lightening striking through the string-rain.
DID YOU KNOW? While romance and emotion flooded his music, Britten could be quite the pragmatist: “The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting up in the middle of the night to write it is nonsense. Night time is for sleeping.”
LUTOSLAWSKI Partita for violin and orchestra Our bold 20th century Polish composer makes use of some unusual special effects in his vibrant writing. Listen for: • Glissando When the soloist slides his finger from one note to another. As a student, I spent much of my lesson being a fire-engine while ‘practising’ this technique. • Quarter tones Notes happen step by step, right? Not for Lutoslawski. You can hear the eerie sound of quarter tones where Richard sounds like he’s just turning the dial ever so slightly on a note as though he’s tuning in to an old radio station. 3
Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending is an astonishingly beautiful piece. If you don’t already love the violin, prepare to fall hard and fast as soloist Richard Tognetti brings this poem by George Meredith to life: He rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound Of many links without a break, In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake RACHMANINOV Symphonic Dances Originally entitled ‘Afternoon’, ‘Twilight’ and ‘Midnight’, anecdotes associated with Symphonic Dance’s three sections paint a picture of the Artist, the Patriot and the Man nearing the end of his career in this, his last composition. Rachmaninov writes in the first solo for alto saxophone. He consulted with Broadway orchestrator Robert Russell Bennet who, on meeting the world-famous artist was alarmed that “he sang, whistled, stamped, rolled his chords and otherwise conducted himself not as one would expect of so great and impeccable a piano virtuoso!”
RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending
The second movement, a waltz, conjures the past splendour of ballrooms belonging to a Russia long gone while, in the third, he uses the music to quote the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath). Out of this swirling sound-depiction of destruction, rises the Resurrection Hymn from his Vespers. As this theme emerges triumphant over death, he writes into the score from which the conductor is reading, the word ‘Alliluja’. Jen Lang © 2020
DID YOU KNOW? As his music might suggest, Rachmaninov was a serious chap. His contemporary Stravinsky described him as a “six-and-a-half-foot scowl.”
To read more about the works on this program, see page 10.
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RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is a leading cultural figure in the Australian arts landscape, bringing the best in orchestral music and passionate performance to a diverse audience across Victoria, the nation and around the world. Each year the MSO engages with more than 5 million people through live concerts, TV, radio and online broadcasts, international tours, recordings and education programs. The MSO is a vital presence, both onstage and in the community, in cultivating classical music in Australia. The nation’s first professional orchestra, the MSO has been the sound of the city of Melbourne since 1906. The MSO regularly attracts great artists from around the globe including AnneSophie Mutter, Lang Lang, Renée Fleming and Thomas Hampson, while bringing Melbourne’s finest musicians to the world through tours to China, Europe and the United States. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land on which we perform and would like to pay our respects to their Elders and Community both past and present.
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RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
Sir Andrew Davis conductor Conductor Laureate of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis is also Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. He is Conductor Laureate of both the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony, where he has also been named interim Artistic Director until 2020. He also holds the honorary title of Conductor Emeritus from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. One of today’s most recognized and acclaimed conductors, Sir Andrew has conducted virtually all of the world’s major orchestras, opera companies, and festivals. A vast and award-winning discography documents Sir Andrew’s artistry, with recent CDs including the works of Berlioz, Bliss, Elgar (winner of the 2018 Diapason d’Or de l’Année – Musique Symphonique), Grainger, Ives, Holst, and Handel (nominated for a 2018 GRAMMY® for Best Choral Performance). In 1992, Maestro Davis was made a Commander of the British Empire, and in 1999, he was designated a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours List.
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RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
Richard Tognetti violin Richard Tognetti is the Artistic Director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. After studying both in Australia and overseas at the Bern Conservatory with Igor Ozim, Richard returned home in 1989 to lead several performances with the ACO. In November that year, he was appointed the Orchestra’s lead violin and, subsequently, Artistic Director. As director or soloist, Richard has appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Academy of Ancient Music. Richard is also an acclaimed composer. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2010. He holds honorary doctorates from three Australian universities and was made a National Living Treasure in 1999. Most recently, he was awarded the JC Williamson Award for longstanding service to the live performing industry by the Helpmann Awards in 2017. He performs on a 1743 Guarneri del Gesù violin, lent to him by an anonymous Australian private benefactor.
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BENJAMIN BRITTEN
(1913–1976)
Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Op.33a Dawn (Act I) Sunday Morning (Act II) Moonlight (Act III) Storm (Act I) It was Peter Grimes which first made Britten’s name as a musical dramatist of the highest order. In this, his first full-scale opera, the young composer turned out a masterpiece. Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears were visiting California in 1941 when Pears bought a copy of the works of poet George Crabbe – a native of Suffolk like Britten. However it was an article in The Listener by E.M. Forster, ‘George Crabbe: the Poet and the Man’, with its evocations of Aldeburgh and England’s east coast, which first prompted the pair’s interest in the subject matter of The Borough, the poem by Crabbe upon which Peter Grimes is based.
RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
Program Notes
With financial assistance from the Koussevitzky Foundation, Britten and Pears began to sketch out a scenario for Peter Grimes before leaving America in 1942. They fleshed it out aboard ship, and on arrival home in England called in a librettist to write the words. Britten began to compose the music in January 1944. In June 1945, Sadlers Wells decided to reopen their North London theatre with the work, and it was premiered there on 7 June that year. Serge Koussevitzky relinquished his right to conduct the US premiere, which was conducted by Leonard Bernstein at Tanglewood in 1946. Britten was fascinated by the sea, and particularly his native coast. He once wrote: ‘My parents’ house in Lowestoft directly faced the sea, and my life as a child was coloured by the fierce storms that sometimes drove ships on our coast and ate away whole stretches of neighbouring cliffs.’ But The Borough didn’t just provide Britten with opportunities for musical portrayal of the forces of nature. Britten and Pears found something to sympathise with in the human drama of the protagonist Peter Grimes and his isolation from his community. In Peter Grimes, Britten gave primacy to the voice, but his orchestral writing is particularly substantial. This can be seen in the Four Sea Interludes, which, taken from the opera, where they form interludes or introductions to scenes, stand as concert pieces. Although they comprise some of the most effective portrayals of the sea in all of orchestral literature, they are also riven with the emotion which makes Grimes a very human drama. Dawn appears in Act I, after the Prologue’s coronial inquest which has established that Peter Grimes cannot be held culpable for the death by drowning of his young apprentice. The high flutes and violins suggest almost uncannily the cold, glassy
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The tolling of Sunday morning church bells is rendered most effectively by the overlapping clashing pairs of French Horns in Sunday Morning. Violas and cellos sing the melody which accompanies the words of Peter’s friend Ellen Orford (‘Glitter of waves and glitter of sunlight…’) as the curtain rises, and the interlude extends into what is the beginning of Act II in the opera. Onstage, the repose of Moonlight is ironic. Another of Grimes’ apprentices has died by misadventure, and already the audience senses that Grimes is steering unavoidably towards tragedy. Stage directors can flounder on attempts to render a visual analogue to Britten’s highly effective Act I Storm; it is sometimes best to leave the curtain down. The storm here is also a mental storm, a musical postscript to Peter’s outpouring of anguish and lonely confusion in his account of events to one of his few friends, Balstrode. A minute or so of respite is granted by the violins’ recollection of the melody which in the opera accompanied Peter’s words: ‘What harbour shelters peace?…What harbour can embrace terrors and tragedies?’ but the return of the storm snuffs out any hope of peace or happiness.
RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
greyness of the sea, or of a deserted beach; the swirl of harp, clarinets and violas an encroaching wave; while a brass chorale suggests the swell, with even, at one point, a note of menace.
Gordon Kalton Williams © Symphony Australia
WITOLD LUTOSŁAWSKI
(1913–1994)
Partita for violin and orchestra Allegro giusto – Ad libitum – Largo – Ad libitum – Presto Richard Tognetti violin Born into a distinguished Polish family, Lutosławski was marked out for extermination by the Nazis during World War II and then denounced as ‘formalist’ (the catch-all Soviet-era criticism) by the post-war Communist government. But his Concerto for Orchestra, developing his love of both folk-based material and rich orchestral sound, earned him rehabilitation at home and contributed to his growing reputation elsewhere. By the 1960s that international reputation was assured; he went on to compose major works for soloists and orchestras around the world. Lutosławski believed that the twelve-note serial method which had launched the work of the post-war avant-garde ‘removes music from the realm of human sensibility’, by its erasure of contrasting emotional states. In his mature music the twelve notes of the chromatic scale are in fairly constant circulation, but the harmony is based on chords which each have a restricted number of intervals, and therefore
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Lutosławski also developed the principle of ‘limited aleatoricism’: at certain points he allows rhythmic freedom and independence to the various instrumental parts. (Marked ad libitum, the material is notated as a fragment, with a repeat sign, followed by a line that indicates roughly how it should be played, and for how long.) This can cause effects of sudden fluidity, wildly busy textures, or a sense of weightlessness. Around 1979 Lutosławski refined these techniques further and at the same time explored aspects of Baroque form, notably in his Double Concerto for oboe and harp, which affectionately distorts 18th-century formal manners. The title of the Partita for violin and orchestra is, as the composer put it, ‘to suggest a few allusions to Baroque music, for example at the beginning of the first movement, in the main theme of the Largo and in the finale, which resembles a gigue’.
RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
a very distinctive character. Thus, the composer can create sudden changes of tension and emotion by moving from dissonant to consonant chords just as a composer working in traditional diatonic harmony can. Each of the horizontal strands is derived from the intervals of the prevailing chord, but allows the composer to use any note freely – not in a fixed sequence. Thus, Lutosławski creates infinitely extensible, rhapsodic tunes at will.
The original version of the work was for violin and piano, and was composed in 1984 for Pinchas Zukerman and Marc Neikrug. At around the same time he composed Chain 2 for violin and orchestra to a commission from Paul Sacher, who engaged Anne-Sophie Mutter to premiere it. In 1988, Lutosławski made this orchestral version (including a piano part) of the Partita for Mutter, and composed a short Interlude for the same forces to bridge the two works and create a kind of ‘mega-concerto’. The Partita is in five symmetrically arranged movements, of which the second and fourth are short Ad libitum interludes that provide a certain lowering of the temperature and bring the contrast between the main movements into sharper relief. Lutosławski noted that the three major movements follow, rhythmically at least, the tradition of pre-classical, 18th-century keyboard music. This, however, is no more than an allusion. Harmonically and melodically, Partita clearly belongs to the same group of recent compositions as the Symphony No.3 and Chain 1. The Allegro giusto begins with a brusque drum-stroke, with a strong impetus fuelled by repeated motifs that often consist of repeated single notes. These are passed restlessly between the soloist and various sections of the orchestra, before the violin announces a broad theme. Later, momentum is interrupted by a ghostly interlude featuring soft tuned percussion that leads to a passage of vigorous counterpoint. After the first Ad libitum, which features violin and piano, the Largo follows, its ‘Baroque’ theme developing an expansive lyricism, interrupted by motifs that suggest birdcalls, that becomes highly impassioned before the major climax of the work. The second Ad libitum, again a kind of recitative with piano, ruminates gently as insistent bells lead into the finale, where repeated-note patterns, sometimes rhythmically crosshatched to provide metrical ambiguity, reappear. Here the inexorably increasing frenetic energy, punctuated only briefly by lyrical passages, surges to a conclusion not unlike that of the Third Symphony, where strongly accented chords cut across a febrile texture before an emphatic closing gesture. © Gordon Kerry 2016
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The Lark Ascending – Romance for violin and orchestra Richard Tognetti violin Surely one of Vaughan Williams’ most loved and best-known works is the miniature masterpiece The Lark Ascending. A magical opening and a serene simplicity transport the listener to an unmistakably English landscape, perhaps to the Cotswolds where Vaughan Williams grew up. Inspiration for the work came from a poem of the same name by George Meredith (1828–1909), one of the most admired literary figures of his day. Vaughan Williams precedes the score with lines from Meredith’s poem: He rises and begins to round, He drops the silver chain of sound, Of many links without a break, In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake. For singing till his heaven fills, ‘Tis love of earth that he instils, And ever winging up and up, Our valley is his golden cup
RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
(1872–1958)
And he the wine which overflows To lift us with him as he goes. Till lost on his aerial rings In light, and then the fancy sings. Vaughan Williams composed The Lark Ascending in 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I when birdsong was gradually to be replaced by the horrifying sounds of conflict and destruction; but he put the score aside until 1920. It was dedicated to Marie Hall, a brilliant violinist who had, at one time, been given lessons by Elgar. She gave the first performance with Geoffrey Mendham in December 1920 in an arrangement for violin and piano. The first performance of the orchestral version took place at the Queen’s Hall in a British Music Society concert held on 14 June 1921 with Marie Hall as soloist, and the British Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. The Times reported that ‘it showed serene disregard of the fashions of today or yesterday. It dreams its way along.’ The brevity of The Lark Ascending belies its significance in the emergence of what came to be referred to as ‘English Pastoralism’. Alarmed at the spread of industrialism over the English landscape and expressing a nostalgia for rural traditions, writers such as George Meredith, Edward Thomas, W.H. Hudson and Thomas Hardy sought to promote and preserve a quintessentially English landscape through the literary medium. Until The Lark Ascending was performed, few musical equivalents existed. Following its first public performance, English critics described The Lark Ascending as a musical evocation of the English landscape and the pre-eminent example of English Pastoralism in music. Wilfrid Mellers comments that ‘the ramifications of this magical piece haunted Vaughan Williams throughout the rest of his creative life, and its presence is at least latent in the finest music of his successors… But by no other composer is the interdependence of man and Nature more movingly expressed.’
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The ethereal opening establishes the tone and also provides the main thematic material of the entire piece. Above pianissimo sustained muted strings, the solo violin emerges, trilling, swooping, rising in emulation of Meredith’s lark soaring above the English countryside. Vaughan Williams’ lark sings a pentatonic melody (a five-note phrase equivalent to playing just the black notes on the piano). James Day observes that, unlike Messiaen in his treatment of birdsong, Vaughan Williams makes no attempt to replicate the lark’s microtonal call. The harmonic background, which is essentially modal, shifts subtly so that orchestral colours and textures provide a changing musical landscape. The Lark Ascending is in a simple ternary form with the outer lifting sections framing a middle section in 2/4 time. While the rhapsodising violin soars far above the countryside in the first section, it is drawn earthward in the central section which features a simple folk-like theme introduced initially by the flute and clarinet. The nature of the folk-song theme constrains even the lark as the solo violin’s melismas become separate and marked notes which are forced into duple patterns. In the last section the main theme is fully orchestrated and the tempo more animated but in the final ethereal moments the soloist’s lyrical melody is heard alone as the lark flies beyond our vision of this tranquil idyll.
RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
The ‘Romance’ of Vaughan Williams’ subtitle is unlikely to mean the common idea of ‘romantic’; rather, it may refer to the 18th century musical term for an instrumental slow movement in ABA form. He also used the term for other slow movements, including those of his Piano Concerto and Fifth Symphony.
Catherine Hocking © 2001
SERGEI RACHMANINOV
(1873–1943)
Symphonic Dances, Op.45 Non Allegro Andante con moto (Tempo di valse) Lento assai – Allegro vivace After Rachmaninov left Russia in 1917, the seizure of his Russian income by the Soviets meant he had to earn a living as a performing musician and so he set about establishing his career as a concert pianist. Although famous for interpreting his own music, he had never been called upon to perform music by other composers in public, and now, at the age of 44, he began building up a soloist’s repertoire. This left little time for composition, and he wrote no original work for another nine years. Then the urge to compose began to reassert itself. A fitful procession of ‘Indian summer’ pieces emerged between 1926 and 1940, many of which are now regarded as among his finest compositions. But at the time most of these works met with indifference from audiences and hostility from critics. His success as a pianist far outstripped that of his music. Among the first fruits of his period in the West were the Fourth Piano Concerto (1926) and the Variations on a theme of Corelli (1931). Neither was successful. The public and critical acclaim for his Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini (1934) gave him the confidence to write his Third Symphony (1936), to which, in the composer’s
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The orchestral style Rachmaninov cultivated in his later years was marked by great clarity of texture, a freer and more independent approach to brass and woodwind writing, and a tendency to express ideas more concisely than in his earlier large-scale pieces. Harmonically and rhythmically, his music of the 1930s bears the influence of Prokofiev and Stravinsky, but very much on Rachmaninov’s own terms. His melodies still move, on the whole, in stepwise fashion, in the manner of Russian Orthodox chant, and although he clothes his melodies in lighter textures, he is not ashamed to write tunes that could be called ‘vintage Rachmaninov’. The result was too ‘modern’ and lean-sounding for audiences who wanted him to keep rewriting the Second Piano Concerto, and too conservative for critics, whose twin gods were Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Collectively, the Symphonic Dances represent perhaps the richest results of Rachmaninov’s new approach to the orchestra. They were also his last original composition. The idea of a score for a programmatic ballet had been at the back of Rachmaninov’s mind since 1915, and when Michel Fokine successfully choreographed the Paganini Rhapsody in 1939 the opportunity presented itself again. He wrote the Dances the following year, giving the three movements the titles Midday, Twilight and Midnight respectively. At this point the work was called Fantastic Dances. Fokine was enthusiastic about the music but non-committal about its balletic possibilities. His death a short time later cooled Rachmaninov’s interest in the ballet idea. He deleted his descriptive titles, substituted the word ‘Symphonic’ for ‘Fantastic’, and dedicated the triptych to his favourite orchestra, the Philadelphia, and its chief conductor Eugene Ormandy.
RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
words, ‘audiences and critics responded sourly’. This indifference to his music sapped his confidence once again.
It is a work full of enigmas which Rachmaninov, surely one of the most secretive of composers, does nothing to clarify. In the coda of the first movement, for example, there is a transformation from minor to major of a prominent theme from his first symphony, which at that time Rachmaninov thought he had destroyed (it was reconstructed from orchestral parts after his death). The premiere of that work in 1897 had been such a fiasco that Rachmaninov could not compose at all for another three years. The reference in this new piece had a meaning that was entirely private. There is also the curious paradox that the word ‘dance’, with its suggestion of lifeenhancing, joyous activity, is here put at the service of a work that is essentially concerned – for all its vigour and sinew – with endings, with a chromaticism that darkens the colour of every musical step. The sense of foreboding and finality is particularly strong in the second movement, with its evocations of a spectral ballroom, and in the bell-tolling and chant-intoning that pervade the finale. Here the extensive use of the Dies irae (Day of Wrath) theme from the Mass for the Dead (a regular source for Rachmaninov) and the curious inscription ‘Alliluya’, written in the score above the last motif in the work to be derived from Orthodox chant, suggest the most final of endings mingled with a sense of thanksgiving. Abridged from a note by Phillip Sametz © 1999
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FIRST VIOLINS Dale Barltrop
Concertmaster
Eoin Andersen Concertmaster
Sophie Rowell
Associate Concertmaster The Ullmer Family Foundation#
Peter Edwards
Assistant Principal
Kirsty Bremner Sarah Curro Peter Fellin Deborah Goodall Lorraine Hook Kirstin Kenny Ji Won Kim Eleanor Mancini Mark Mogilevski Michelle Ruffolo Kathryn Taylor Michael Aquilina#
Robert John* Oksana Thompson*
SECOND VIOLINS
CELLOS
Matthew Tomkins
David Berlin
Robert Macindoe
Rachael Tobin
Monica Curro
Nicholas Bochner
Principal Second Violin The Gross Foundation# Associate Principal
Assistant Principal Danny Gorog & Lindy Suskind#
Mary Allison Isin Cakmakcioglu Freya Franzen Cong Gu Andrew Hall Francesca Hiew Rachel Homburg Isy Wasserman Philippa West Patrick Wong Roger Young
Principal Cello MS Newman Family#
Associate Principal Assistant Principal
Miranda Brockman Rohan de Korte Keith Johnson Sarah Morse Angela Sargeant Michelle Wood
Andrew & Theresa Dyer#
Simon Svoboda* DOUBLE BASSES Steve Reeves Principal
Andrew Moon
VIOLAS
Associate Principal
Christopher Moore
Assistant Principal
Principal Di Jameson#
Fiona Sargeant
Associate Principal
Lauren Brigden Katharine Brockman Christopher Cartlidge Gabrielle Halloran Trevor Jones Cindy Watkin Caleb Wright Isabel Morse* James Munro*
RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra: 19-22 August 2016
Sylvia Hosking
Damien Eckersley Benjamin Hanlon Suzanne Lee Stephen Newton Hugh Kluger* FLUTES Prudence Davis Principal Anonymous#
Wendy Clarke
Associate Principal
Sarah Beggs PICCOLO Andrew Macleod Principal
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Jeffrey Crellin
HORNS
TIMPANI**
Jeff Garza*
Christine Turpin
Principal
Guest Principal
Thomas Hutchinson
Geoff Lierse
Ann Blackburn
Saul Lewis
Robert Clarke
Principal Third
Principal
Jenna Breen Abbey Edlin Trinette McClimont
John Arcaro Robert Cossom Timothy Hook* Evan Pritchard*
Associate Principal
COR ANGLAIS Michael Pisani Principal
CLARINETS David Thomas
Principal
Philip Arkinstall
Associate Principal
Craig Hill BASS CLARINET Jon Craven Principal
BASSOONS Jack Schiller
Principal
Elise Millman
Associate Principal
Associate Principal
TRUMPETS Geoffrey Payne* Guest Principal
Shane Hooton
Associate Principal
William Evans Julie Payne
HARP Yinuo Mu Principal
Julie Raines*
Guest Principal
PIANO
TROMBONES
Louisa Breen* CELESTE
Iain Faragher*
Peter de Jager*
Principal
BASS TROMBONE
SAXOPHONE
Mike Szabo
Justin Kenealy
Principal
CONTRABASSOON
TUBA
Principal
PERCUSSION
Brett Kelly
Natasha Thomas
Brock Imison
Principal
RICHARD TOGNETTI AND THE LARK ASCENDING
OBOES
Timothy Buzbee
Principal
# Position supported by * Guest Musician ^ Courtesy of Sydney Symphony Orchestra § Courtesy of Orchestra Victoria † Courtesy of University of Kansas ** Timpani Chair position supported by Lady Potter AC CMRI
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PLAYER PATRONS $1,000+ David and Cindy Abbey Dr Sally Adams Mary Armour Australian Decorative and Fine Arts Society Robbie Barker Adrienne Basser Janice Bate and the late Prof Weston Bate
Janet H Bell David Blackwell OAM John and Sally Bourne Michael F Boyt Dr John Brookes Nigel and Sheena Broughton Stuart Brown Suzie Brown OAM and Harvey Brown Shane Buggle Dr Lynda Campbell John Carroll Andrew Crockett AM and Pamela Crockett Panch Das and Laurel Young-Das Mary and Frederick Davidson AM Caroline Davies W and A Deane Rick and Sue Deering John and Anne Duncan Jane Edmanson OAM Doug Evans Grant Fisher and Helen Bird Applebay Pty Ltd David Frenkiel and Esther Frenkiel OAM David Gibbs and Susie O’Neill Janette Gill Mary and Don Glue Greta Goldblatt and the late Merwyn Goldblatt George Golvan QC and Naomi Golvan Dr Marged Goode Prof Denise Grocke AO Jennifer Gross Max Gulbin Dr Sandra Hacker AO and Mr Ian Kennedy AM Jean Hadges Paula Hansky OAM Amir Harel and Dr Judy Carman Tilda and Brian Haughney Geoff Hayes Anna and John Holdsworth Penelope Hughes Geoff and Denise Illing Peter Jaffe and Judy Gold Basil and Rita Jenkins Dorothy Karpin Merv Keehn and Sue Harlow
Supporters
Barry Fradkin OAM and Dr Pam Fradkin Alex and Liz Furman Dina and Ron Goldschlager Louise Gourlay OAM Susan and Gary Hearst Margaret Jackson AC Jenkins Family Foundation John Jones Andrew Johnston Irene Kearsey and Michael Ridley The Ilma Kelson Music Foundation Bryan Lawrence John and Margaret Mason H E McKenzie Allan and Evelyn McLaren Patricia Nilsson Bruce Parncutt AO Alan and Dorothy Pattison Sue and Barry Peake Mrs W Peart Christine Peirson and the late Graham Peirson Julie and Ian Reid Ralph and Ruth Renard Peter and Carolyn Rendit S M Richards AM and M R Richards Joan P Robinson and Christopher Robinson Tom and Elizabeth Romanowski Mark and Jan Schapper Dr Norman and Dr Sue Sonenberg Dr Michael Soon Jennifer Steinicke Peter J Stirling Jenny Tatchell Frank Tisher OAM and Dr Miriam Tisher Nic and Ann Willcock Lorraine Woolley Peter and Susan Yates Richard Ye Anonymous (5)
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Mary Valentine AO The Hon. Rosemary Varty Leon and Sandra Velik Sue Walker AM Elaine Walters OAM and Gregory Walters The Rev Noel Whale Edward and Paddy White Marian and Terry Wills Cooke OAM Richard Withers Jeffrey and Shirley Zajac Anonymous (21)
Supporters
Dr Anne Kennedy Julie and Simon Kessel KCL Law Kerry Landman Diedrie Lazarus Dr Anne Lierse Dr Susan Linton Andrew Lockwood Elizabeth H Loftus Chris and Anna Long June and Simon Lubansky The Hon Ian Macphee AO and Mrs Julie Macphee Eleanor & Phillip Mancini Annette Maluish In memory of Leigh Masel Wayne McDonald and Kay Schroer Lesley McMullin Foundation Ruth Maxwell Don and Anne Meadows new U Mildura Wayne and Penny Morgan Sir Gustav Nossal AC CBE and Lady Nossal Laurence O’Keefe and Christopher James Kerryn Pratchett Peter Priest Treena Quarin Eli Raskin Raspin Family Trust Tony and Elizabeth Rayward Cathy and Peter Rogers Andrew and Judy Rogers Peter Rose and Christopher Menz Marie Rowland Liliane Rusek and Alexander Ushakoff Elisabeth and Doug Scott Martin and Susan Shirley Penny Shore John E Smith Dr Sam Smorgon AO and Mrs Minnie Smorgon Lady Southey AC Starkey Foundation Geoff and Judy Steinicke Dr Peter Strickland Pamela Swansson Stephanie Tanuwidjaja Tara, Tessa, Melinda and Terence Ann and Larry Turner
MSO PATRON COMMISSIONS Snare Drum Award test piece 2019 Commissioned by Tim and Lyn Edward
CONDUCTOR’S CIRCLE Current Conductor’s Circle Members Jenny Anderson David Angelovich G C Bawden and L de Kievit Lesley Bawden Joyce Bown Mrs Jenny Brukner and the late Mr John Brukner Ken Bullen Peter A Caldwell Luci and Ron Chambers Beryl Dean Sandra Dent Lyn Edward Alan Egan JP Gunta Eglite Mr Derek Grantham Marguerite Garnon-Williams Drs Clem Gruen and Rhyl Wade Louis Hamon OAM Carol Hay Graham Hogarth Rod Home Tony Howe Laurence O’Keefe and Christopher James Audrey M Jenkins John Jones George and Grace Kass Mrs Sylvia Lavelle Pauline and David Lawton Cameron Mowat
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EAST MEETS WEST PROGRAM PARTNERS Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China Li Family Trust Noah Holdings Australia Post WeXchange Hengyi Asian Executive Fitzroys Laurel International Future Kids Executive Wealth Circle Asia Society Chin Communications LRR Family Trust Mr Wanghua Chu and Dr Shirley Chu David and Dominique Yu Lake Cooper Estate
Supporters
David Orr Matthew O’Sullivan Rosia Pasteur Elizabeth Proust AO Penny Rawlins Joan P Robinson Neil Roussac Anne Roussac-Hoyne Suzette Sherazee Michael Ryan and Wendy Mead Anne Kieni-Serpell and Andrew Serpell Jennifer Shepherd Profs. Gabriela and George Stephenson Pamela Swansson Lillian Tarry Dr Cherilyn Tillman Mr and Mrs R P Trebilcock Michael Ullmer AO The Hon. Rosemary Varty Mr Tam Vu Marian and Terry Wills Cooke OAM Mark Young Anonymous (29) The MSO gratefully acknowledges the support of the following Estates: Angela Beagley Neilma Gantner The Hon Dr Alan Goldberg AO QC Gwen Hunt Audrey Jenkins Joan Jones Pauline Marie Johnston C P Kemp Peter Forbes MacLaren Joan Winsome Maslen Lorraine Maxine Meldrum Prof Andrew McCredie Miss Sheila Scotter AM MBE Marion A I H M Spence Molly Stephens Jennifer May Teague Albert Henry Ullin Jean Tweedie Herta and Fred B Vogel Dorothy Wood
HONORARY APPOINTMENTS Life Members Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO John Gandel AC and Pauline Gandel AC Sir Elton John CBE Harold Mitchell AC Lady Potter AC CMRI Mrs Jeanne Pratt AC Artistic Ambassador Tan Dun Artistic Ambassador Geoffrey Rush AC The MSO honours the memory of John Brockman OAM Life Member The Honourable Alan Goldberg AO QC Life Member Roger Riordan AM Life Member Ila Vanrenen Life Member
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Supporters
MSO BOARD Chairman Michael Ullmer AO Deputy Chairman David Li AM Managing Director Sophie Galaise Board Directors Andrew Dudgeon AM Danny Gorog Lorraine Hook Margaret Jackson AC Di Jameson David Krasnostein AM Hyon-Ju Newman Glenn Sedgwick Helen Silver AO Company Secretary Oliver Carton
The MSO relies on your ongoing philanthropic support to sustain our artists, and support access, education, community engagement and more. We invite our suporters to get close to the MSO through a range of special events. The MSO welcomes your support at any level. Donations of $2 and over are tax deductible, and supporters are recognised as follows: $1,000+ (Player) $2,500+ (Associate) $5,000+ (Principal) $10,000+ (Maestro)
$20,000+ (Impresario) $50,000+ (Virtuoso) $100,000+ (Platinum)
The MSO Conductor’s Circle is our bequest program for members who have notified of a planned gift in their Will. Enquiries P (03) 8646 1551 | E philanthropy@mso.com.au 23
Thank you to our Partners Principal Partner
Government Partners
Premier Partners
Premier Education and Research Partner
Major Partners
Venue Partner
Program Development Partner
Education Partners
Supporting Partners
Quest Southbank
The CEO Institute
Ernst & Young
Bows for Strings
The Observership Program
Trusts and Foundations
Gall Family Foundation, The Archie & Hilda Graham Foundation, The Gross Foundation, Ern Hartley Foundation, The A.L. Lane Foundation, Scobie & Clare McKinnon Foundation, Sidney Myer MSO Trust Fund, MS Newman Family Foundation, The Thomas O’Toole Foundation, The Ray & Joyce Uebergang Foundation, The Ullmer Family Foundation
Media and Broadcast Partners
BEST SEAT in the house
As Principal Partner of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, we know the importance of delighting an audience. That’s why when you’re in Emirates First, you’ll enjoy the ultimate flying experience with fine dining at any time in your own private suite.
*Emirates First Class Private Suite pictured. For more information visit emirates.com/au, call 1300 303 777, or contact your local travel agent.