Fresh back from their international tour of Europe and China, the Australian Youth Orchestra (AYO) returned to the Concert Hall at the Sydney’s Opera House for their final concert and were greeted with rapturous applause as they entered the stage. The applause and cheers continued until every last musician was seated, the theatre seats clearly filled with an ample supply of friends, family and long term fans.
2019 marks the 40th Anniversary of the AYO being the first Australian Orchestra to visit China. This year is their 23rd International Tour offering the creme of the country’s under-25 year old musical talent an unsurpassed opportunity to visit the great international concert halls and to mix with overseas musicians.
The program began with a work by young Australian composer Holly Harrison. Titled “Frumious” the term was coined by Lewis Carroll, author of “Alice in Wonderland” and is a combination of the words furious and fuming. Harrison was inspired by the texts and imagery of Carroll in producing the work which is deliberately as transient and confusing as Wonderland. Just when the audience thinks they’ve found a rhythm to cling to, the narrative moves on again in a whirlwind of scenes.
In stark contrast, the remainder of the first half was the far more predictable Rachmaninov’s Piano concerto no 2. Soloist for the tour was the extraordinary young Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki who was signed to Deutsche Grammophon at the age of 15, ten years ago. A tall slim artist with legs barely fitting under the piano, it can easily be imagined he will have a hand span that would be the envy of many other pianists. To begin such a dramatic work, Lisiecki closed his eyes leaning forward as if in prayer bringing a hush over the audience. Then, already lost in the moment, he began with such intensity you could hear a pin drop in the Concert Hall.
As the orchestra joined him under the baton of Polish conductor Krzysztof Urbanski, the hairs stood up on the arms and they sailed into the first movement. With more than 80 performers on the stage they drowned the piano out a number of times but overall, a brilliant performance. Lisiecki was a treat and, after a standing ovation from the audience, provided the marvellous Rachmaninov Prelude in C sharp minor as an encore which he easily introduced to the 2600 strong crowd without a microphone. There was comment Lisiecki’s performance was even more enjoyable than Lang’s last month where the concert had been promoted with just his name and image, yet only offered on 30 minute concerto and 1 minute encore for a ticket price many times more.
The second half featured Shostakovich Symphony no 10. Conductor Urbanski gave an excellent musicology talk at the beginning using live musical inserts from each movement, sometimes isolating just a few sections of the orchestra to allow the audience to better hear what he was focusing on. Talks like these are so very precious in increasing audience appreciation of a long work. Knowing the context in which it was written in the Soviet world Shostakovich was struggling to deal with as well as the personal influences in his life made a great difference and encouraged the audience to really listen to each movement, tracking the motifs and emotional changes.
Urbanski is an interesting conductor with quirky ways of giving cues and adding occasional lyrical dance movements into the interpretation. Being the end of the tour, the orchestra were well in sync with him responding beautifully to his direction.
Another standing ovation concluded the performance with much raucous cheering as Urbanski gave credit to soloists and each section of the orchestra. It was a magnificent homecoming and left both audience and musicians grinning from ear to ear. I look forward to their next offering.
Artist website: https://www.ayo.com.au
