Music / First Light, Canberra Symphony Orchestra Chamber Ensemble. At National Museum of Australia, September 12. Reviewed by ROB KENNEDY.

Through a program that delved into the mysterious nature of light and musical creation, this concert celebrated the poetic relationship between artists and their art.

Jessica Cottis, the Canberra Symphony Orchestra chief conductor curated a captivating 70-minute journey that unfolded with music featuring ideas that expanded our sense of time, Aboriginal Dreaming, musical meditation, the earth and poetry.

The performers were Doreen Cumming and Brad Tham, violin; Thalia Petrosian, viola; Patrick Suthers, cello; Kiri Sollis, flute; Matthew O’Keeffe, clarinets; Veronica Bailey, percussion; Edward Neeman, piano and Craig Greening, electronics.

Opening with Burruguu (Time of Creation), by Nardi Simpson, it plays with the concept of Aboriginal time and musical creation that allows the players to construct within the piece. With the softest of cello lines, this work began. Clarinet, percussion and electronics added to the space around the cello. It was ethereal, earth-like, especially when Suthers on cello sang low accompanying notes.

The music rustled like leaves in the wind. It floated; it’s an experience, not a composition. But it’s all tonal, a soundscape, delicate and effecting. The experience evoked strong emotions.

Liza Lim’s The Heart’s Ear, partly inspired by the 13th century poet Rumi, like birdsong, a three-note motif opens and fills this piece. Conducted by Jessica Cottis, who introduced and spoke to the composer before the ensemble of players unleashed this complex and slightly disturbing piece.

It disturbed because it clashed; it had no tonal centre; it belied its title, yet its strange sound world said something original. One feels more than hears this sort of music. It was like a dry and forbidding, desolate landscape.

Canberra composer Bree Van Reyk’s Light for the First Time, which is dedicated to the composer’s daughter, imagines the experience of opening one’s eyes for the first time.

With the two violinists set up behind the audience in the Gandel Atrium of the Australian Museum, it began with a breath through the clarinet up on stage. With a rising and falling, starting and stopping motif, it built into an intense light and dark sonic world. Its sound came from speakers and players across all directions, which created an all-encompassing experience.

The final work, Light Visions (2024), by Natalie Williams, was a world premiere and a new CSO commission. Light reflects off almost every known surface. Over the 10 or so minutes, almost every sparkling image was put into music.

Light in nature and its concept, like a painting of light, the three movements beautifully represented the sensation of light through its tonal body into our ears. It left a lasting impression.

Williams, who spoke before her work, took to the stage again along with Lim and Reyk to take a well-deserved round of applause.

In this concert of music by all female composers, it was so rewarding to hear the voices of living creators reflecting our time.