Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

This program opens with a new CSO commission by Leah Curtis, a Los Angeles-based composer with Canberra roots. Curtis is best known for her original film scores and soundtracks, collaborations she describes as ‘work of the head, the heart and the gut; work of instinct, of intellect and of curiosity…to create a memorable emotional journey.’ Then, we return to the seemingly infinite imagination of Igor Stravinsky. Following hot on the heels of the Firebird Suite, Petrushka narrates the escapades of three puppets (Petrushka the rascally ringleader), set in a traditional Shrovetide fairground. This is one of the composer’s most colourful, inventive and wide-ranging scores, steeped in the Russian folk tradition and yet suggestive of the emerging film medium in its musical ‘jump cuts’ and scene changes. Like Stravinsky, Jean Sibelius draws extensively on folk traditions, his Violin Concerto described by the American critic Olin Downes as ‘bardic songs heard against a background of torches…in some wild Northern night.’ It’s a work of striking contrasts: hypnotic, darkened hues electrified by blinding lights. The opening stillness reflects the calm of a Finnish lake; time stands still in the ambiguous harmony, both major and minor. There’s something inherently organic in Sibelius: he responds with an exceptional intensity to the natural world, even by Nordic standards, as though its changing moods and seasons inspire not only the content of his music but also its form.

Featured non-Australian music: Jean Sibelius – Violin Concerto in D minor, op. 47; Igor Stravinsky – Petrushka (1947 version)

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by phone on 0262 479 191 or by email to tickets@cso.org.au

Featured artists

• New work by Leah Curtis