MENDELSSOHN’S ELIJAH: OPEN REHEARSAL WITH SIMONE YOUNG

Above image: Simone Young, courtesy of the SSO…

In August 2026, I attended what was described as an “open rehearsal” in the concert hall of the SOH, where the conductor Nicholas Ellis spent an hour rehearsing certain sections of Shostakovich’s Symphony No 1 with the SSO. This was the first time that I’d been afforded such an experience. To a fledgling student of classical music, such as I, this provided a fascinating insight into the way a leading conductor handled the orchestra, particularly in the area of phrasing.

I was very close to the stage but felt it unfortunate that I wasn’t able to hear clearly what Ellis was saying, as he frequently stopped the orchestra in mid-flight with certain instructions to which we were not privy. My overwhelming feeling was that this event would have made much better sense had the conductor been miked, so that what he said to the orchestra could be shared with the audience. I felt that this would have given listeners more insight into Ellis’s interpretation of Shostakovich’s brilliant symphony. It would have brought us a little closer to the action. Because I had studied the symphony in some detail, however, I had a fighting chance of making sense of the excerpts which Ellis had chosen to rehearse.

On October 28, 2026, a friend and I attended a similar open rehearsal in the concert hall of the SOH, when Simone Young, the SSO’s chief conductor, ran the orchestra and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs (SPC) through excerpts from Mendelssohn’s ambitious oratorio Elijah.

The first thing to say is something elementary: that it was gratifying as always to be able to hear the SSO playing, an orchestra with such a great sound, that one never tires of hearing it. The rehearsal of course involved the SPC, and its artistic and music director Brett Weymark was present, sitting in the front stalls. The choir was amassed behind the SSO, and sounded truly magnificent, given the splendid acoustics of the concert hall. It was a reminder of the performance I heard in November, 2025, of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, another successful collaboration between Weymark and Young. It was also a reminder of something that’s sometimes forgotten, that arguably the finest musical instrument is in fact the human voice.

Regrettably, however, at the Oct 28 event, I was left with a similar feeling of disappointment that I’d experienced at the previous Ellis rehearsal. In fact more so, as this time I was unable to listen in advance to the Mendelssohn work, and was not familiar with it. In the first 20 minutes or so, I wondered where in the work these excerpts were situated. Also, as Young spoke frequently to the orchestra and the choir at length, it was natural to wonder what she was telling them. At one stage Young spoke, and everyone laughed. It would have been nice for us in the audience to be privy to the joke.

As the event proceeded I wondered more why it was necessary for the audience to be left out of what Young was telling the musicians and choristers who could hear her. I understood that the point of such a rehearsal was to work on getting things right; if we had been able to hear what Young was saying, perhaps we would have had a fighting chance of subsequently identifying what parts of the music were potentially difficult enough to require repetition in the rehearsal.

In the past, the SSO management has shown an interest in strategies to bring potential audiences closer to the music. As I’m a newcomer to the SSO, despite being a subscriber many years ago when I was a young man, I have welcomed the current “Listen To This” series whereby the conductor Benjamin Northey from time to time analyses a major orchestral work, patiently explaining the intentions of composers such as Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, and asking the SSO to play excerpts which illustrate his theories on the music. This successfully brings members of the audience much closer to the music than simply hearing an orchestral work straight through in performance. In the light of such successful initiatives, would it not be fruitful for the “open rehearsal” events to emulate the same inclusive spirit?

The other thing I found puzzling is that none of the singers who were sitting or standing next to the conductor at the front of the stage were introduced. We simply had to guess who they were. The outstanding bass-baritone who sang initially was apparently the Welsh singer Bryn Terfel, but this only became obvious to my friend and I as his name was on the cover of the program provided. Terfel’s name was however mentioned by Young when he left the stage, and applause was called for. But there were other soloists at the front of the stage who sang beautifully, but who remained anonymous. They may or may not have been the sopranos Samantha Clarke and Eleanour Lyons, or the contralto Noa Beinart, or the tenor Shanul Sharma. But we only know those names as they’re mentioned in the program booklet, and we can merely suppose they were part of the rehearsal.

With the sort of amplification technologies available today, I imagine it would be possible to have a small microphone attached to Simone Young’s head so that whatever she says could be heard by the audience. This sort of microphone is in common use in the television industry, and I for one would welcome it being used in a so-called “open rehearsal”. In fact the latter description is, in my view, something of a misnomer. Given the way that the audience was merely eavesdropping on the rehearsal rather than being included in it, perhaps the event could be better described as a “closed rehearsal”.

As a matter of interest I see in the SSO’s 2027 season booklet there are two open rehearsals scheduled for 2027: the conductor Donald Runnicles will do one on Wed May 12 at 7 pm; and on Tue Aug 10 at 7 pm, the American conductor and violinist Joshua Weilerstein will do another one. I’m not at this stage aware of which orchestral works will be rehearsed but I hope that I can be there to witness these interesting events and, courtesy of an analysis presented by these conductors, be brought closer to an appreciation of how a composer puts together the music to be played by the SSO. These are certainly events to look forward to next year.