Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

As winter eases into spring are you feeling sluggish? Come out of hibernation and recharge to the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra's Spring season concerts on September 14 and 21. Featuring outstanding Australian and Queensland artists, Recharge will have you bopping in your seat and send you out humming. In this often-challenging program you may notice players’ fixed concentration in tricky passages, bars and sections. They sit on the edge of their chairs, flying at times by the heat of their fingers. The Maestro may display a driven stance and facials. This was even more evident in rehearsals, trying to cover all hotspots in the available time.

A Queensland première of the John Adams Saxophone Concerto will feature the outstanding Diana Tolmie http://www.griffith.edu.au/music/queensland-conservatorium/staff/ms-diana-tolmie on alto saxophone. Diana’s expertise on saxophone, clarinet and flute makes her one of the most sought after woodwind doublers in Queensland.

Hear John Adams speak about his composition and excerpts on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChiynCzpuYQ

Then we take off into gypsy rhythms, as André Bonetti is the cimbalom soloist in the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No 3. There is time for reflection in the pensive second movement of Mathis der Maler by Hindemith. Porgy and Bess Symphonic Portrait by George Gershwin, one America’s greatest composers, is orchestrated by one of America’s greatest: Robert Russell Bennett. Hits like “Summertime”, “I Got Plenty of Nothin’” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So”. Gershwin wrote gorgeous melodies but he battled insecurity and he was a trendsetter to write an opera about black Africans. Recharged from his overseas trip, conductor Antoni Bonetti attacks the cross rhythms with gusto.

The concert in St Peter's Lutheran College new auditorium is the scene of Toni's 20+ years teaching there as Director of Strings and Orchestral Studies. During the frustrating years of waiting for this Promised Land Auditorium he often voiced in plaintive tones “Am I like John the Baptist preaching for something that will not happen in my lifetime?” So it's fitting that now – very much alive, having moved on– he will return to conduct Powerhouse, by Australian composer Graeme Koehne, which the St Peters Orchestra played in the late 90s. Powerhouse is a toe-tapping perpetuum mobile rumba for orchestra. It pays tribute to the great movie composers of the American film industry. After which Maestro Antoni deserves to charge and recharge his glass to wind down after all the adrenaline that he and the orchestra have pumped. It will be an exhilarating ride. Join Brisbane Symphony Orchestra to kick off the Spring season.

Featured non-Australian music: John Adams, Saxophone Concerto = Queensland premiere. Hindemith Mathis der Maler. Gershwin Porgy & Bess. Liszt Rhapsody #3 featuring André Bonetti on Cimbalom.

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website

Featured Australian Works

Featured artists

• Performer Brisbane Symphony Orchestra