News location:

Canberra Today 20°/24° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Arts / The ‘other’ orchestra has a world premiere

The National Capital Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Weiss. Photo by Peter Hislop

AN unusual blend of musical tradition will be at the centre of the National Capital Orchestra’s first concert for this year, with the world premiere performance of the new work “Zodiac Animalia” by the Australian composer Jessica Wells.

Wells, a graduate in composition from the Sydney Conservatorium and in screen composition from the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, has orchestrated more than 50 films and is perhaps best known for composing the theme music of ABC TV’s “Q&A” program.

In “Zodiac Animalia”, to be performed under the baton of musical director Leonard Weiss, she fuses Chinese and Australian heritage as the orchestra “describes” each of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac, challenging the instrumentalists to bring each of them to life.

The composition was workshopped last year at the Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s Composer Reading Day. In a set of 12 approximately one-minute episodes, Wells says she has “attempted to capture the personality of each animal, or perhaps the anthropomorphism that humans project on to them”.

In order, the animals are, Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig.

After the premiere, Weiss and the orchestra will then perform Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s concerto for guitar and orchestra with Matt Withers, the well-known classical guitar pedagogue and performer who has performed as a member of Guitar Trek and with musicians such as William Barton, Sally Whitwell and the Carl Pini Quartet.

After the interval, Withers will be joined by fellow guitarist Callum Henshaw, first prize winner at the 2012 Cordoba International Guitar Competition, the 2014 Tirana International Guitar Competition and the 2017 Melbourne International Concert Artist Guitar Competition, for which he secured a 10-concert tour in 2018.

Withers and Henshaw will join to play the “Concierto Madrigal” by Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo and a final work, also in the Spanish mode, “Capriccio Espagnol”, by Rimsky Korsakov.

Playfully tagged “Canberra’s OTHER orchestra”, the NCO sees itself a driving force in the presentation of works by living Australian composers, and has premiered works by Sean O’Boyle, Sally Greenaway, Graeme Koehne, Carl Vine, Christopher Gordon, Nigel Sabin and Natalie Williams.

In line with this, Jessica Wells will give a pre-concert talk about her work at 6.30pm.

National Capital Orchestra, Llewellyn Hall, Saturday, April 7, bookings to premier.ticketek.com.au

Who can be trusted?

In a world of spin and confusion, there’s never been a more important time to support independent journalism in Canberra.

If you trust our work online and want to enforce the power of independent voices, I invite you to make a small contribution.

Every dollar of support is invested back into our journalism to help keep citynews.com.au strong and free.

Become a supporter

Thank you,

Ian Meikle, editor

Helen Musa

Helen Musa

Share this

Leave a Reply

Related Posts

Music

Cunio takes top job at NZ School of Music

Immediate past head of the ANU School of Music, Kim Cunio, is to become head of school at Te Kōki, the NZ School of Music, part of the Victoria University of Wellington, reports HELEN MUSA.

Follow us on Instagram @canberracitynews