Above: Monica Buckland, conductor for this Woollahra Philharmonia concert. Featured image: Conductor Monica Buckland with WPO’s cello section.
To ensure rapturous applause and event success, a great orchestral concert programme needs to to tick a few traditional boxes.
Firstly it needs to get off to a cracking start. Next it needs to show the orchestra excel in accompanying a dynamic soloist. It is also rewarding for the programme to introduce a brand new or lesser-known work for the featured band to present effectively.
Rapturous, WPO’s penultimate concert event for 2024, definitely ticks this trio of boxes in bold, expressive red.
Guest conductor Monica Buckland led with enviable clarity the reverberant, responsive and resilient group across the three varied works on this well-structured programme.
These intelligent interpretations from Buckland’s firm experience led WPO with seamless stamina and great attention to detail.
Her tracing of these disparate works that worked so beautifully in triptych here were well paced as they unfolded. Buckland’s brand of storytelling drew a formidable Romantic and Post-Romantic sound from the small but resonant band.
The roof was raised more than once as this collaboration’s synergy and organic growth as guided by this conductor resulted in some very rewarding expression.
This concert’s necessary ‘cracking start’ as mentioned earlier came in the form of Manuel Da Falla’s El Amor Brujo: Ritual Del Fuego. This slow-burn swoop was nicely curated and reached out to us with colour and a welcoming hand.
Above: Madeleine Easton joined WPO as violin soloist for the Bruch Violin Concerto. Photo credit: Jessica Hromas.
A collaboration of superstar calibre level followed as guest soloist Madeleine Easton joined this concert’s nicely established Woollahra Philharmonic Orchestra expressivity.
An absolute crowd favourite resulted as Easton elegantly outlined the beloved Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1.
It was a thrill to witness WPO support the soloist so well in this work. It was also a major thrill to hear Madeleine Easton switch from her banlieue of Bach (she is the busy Artistic Director of Bach Akademie Australia) to present this Bruch work so brilliantly.
The Romantic scope and design was beautifully realised by this Bach specialist. This violinist’s voice blended excellently with WPO’s elegant undercurrents.
Easton traced the lines of filigree with superb direction, fullness of singing tone and a Bach specialist’s skill at bringing compositional architecture and harmonic shape and momentum to life.
This work was a fine moment in the concert, followed by a stunning switchback encore of unaccompanied Bach.
The final, lesser-known work in ‘Rapturous’ was Poulenc’s Sinfonietta. Given thorough introduction and support by President of WPO Martin Cohen plus the conductor and with useful, detailed programme notes, the work unfolded with exciting colourisation, characterisation and shape.
Articulation from the orchestra was en pointe and showed considerable interpretive skill. The was once more enviable stamina and successful speech was presented in inimitable Poulenc accent as a group instrumental voice.
The superbly shaped swathes of gesture and humour were well directed by this conductor and the work brought an entertaining afternoon to a substantial and worthwhile close.
