THE musically knowledgeable Governor-General of Australia, David Hurley, was on hand on Wednesday, to launch the 2024 season of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra in fine style at the ANU School of Music.

Presently patron of the orchestra, he was naturally inclined to talk up the importance of the CSO, asserting that “you cannot have a capital city without an orchestra.”

But he really was a fan, he explained, and in 12 months’ time when he retires from his vice-regal position, he and Mrs Hurley, he said, would be lining up to join the ranks of regular CSO subscribers.

The governor-general’s understanding of music was on show for all to see as he stressed the importance of commissioning new works of music, a strong feature of the 2024 program.

Music in our lives, he said, was “a blessing.”

CSO’s 2024 mainstage Llewellyn Series, themed “Earth and Sky”, will include Mahler’s Fourth Symphony, Sibelius’ Second Symphony, Nigel Westlake’s “Toward Takayna”, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Miriama Young’s Daughters of Elysium.

As well, there would be special performances of Handel’s Messiah and Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons,” paired with Astor Piazzolla’s “Four Seasons of Buenos Aires”.

Appearing by video from Stockholm CSO’s chief conductor and artistic director, Jessica Cottis, said: “I wanted to explore a musical view of the world from a very human perspective.”

Cottis, quoting from Gustav Mahler, she asked: “When facing nature, who is not overwhelmed?”

In choosing the theme she said, she had created an evocative program that reached “north, south, and high above”.

Throughout the year, during which she will personally be conducting many of the concerts, there would be distinguished international conductors and soloists whom she expected Canberra audiences would flock to hear.

Best of all, there would be Aussie music in all-Llewellyn series programs, including four new commissions.

The Australian season, which Cottis picked up from its founder Matthew Hindson and further developed, would continue to highlight new works by Australian composers.

And what was it that connects the earth to the sky? Cottis asked rhetorically.

Perhaps, she suggested, it was the air an excuse to introduce a woodwind quintet from the CSO to play three short pieces by composer Jacques Ibert