Concert Program
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BERNSTEIN CELEBRATION concert program BERNSTEIN CLASSICS 15 AUGUST | 7.30pm BERNSTEIN ON BROADWAY 18 AUGUST | 7.30pm 1 Sir Andrew Davis Davis Andrew Sir Chief Conductor Chief featuring SIR ANDREW DAVIS • LANG LANG • BRIAN COX VERDI’S REQUIEM • HANSEL AND GRETEL • BOLÉRO • and more SUBSCRIBE AT MSO.COM.AU THE MSO CELEBRATES LEONARD BERNSTEIN Vincent Plush In August 1974, the New York Side Story re-defined the American Philharmonic Orchestra gave three theatre. Rarely is the spirit of the concerts in the Melbourne Town Hall. theatre absent, even in works like the Their conductor was Leonard Bernstein. Chichester Psalms and the Jeremiah Symphony, which burn as eternal Conductor, composer, pianist, testimony to his Jewish faith. educator, philosopher, humanitarian, political activist and social irritant, the Few composers have created music so man known as Lenny was everywhere. memorable that it percolates in your From the Broadway stage to the head as you leave the concert hall. synagogue, from the loftiest concert Actually, it remains in our lives forever, halls of Europe to the war-ravaged exhilarating and enriching us, refreshing hills of Israel, from the Camelot of universal truths and, like Candide JFK to the Watergate tapes, Lenny himself, offering prospects for “the best was the Everyman of American music, of all possible worlds”. universally known and (mostly) admired Thanks, Lenny, and Happy Birthday. for his capacity to distil the American experience into his music. For nearly 20 years, the Australian composer and These MSO’s concerts celebrate the writer Vincent Plush lived and worked in North range of his boundless talents. With America. An expert in and advocate for 20th century Australian and American music, he has its explosive Puerto Rican street recently completed a PhD in Adelaide and will rhythms and heart-wrenching love shortly take up a position at the University of songs inspired by his principal mentor- Melbourne. models, Copland and Mahler, West MELBOURNE Bernstein Celebration SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Artists 2 Established in 1906, the Bernstein Classics Melbourne Symphony Program notes 6 Orchestra (MSO) is an arts Texts 9 leader and Australia’s oldest professional orchestra. Chief Orchestra 14 Conductor Sir Andrew Davis Chorus 15 has been at the helm of MSO since 2013. Engaging more Bernstein on Broadway than 4 million people each Program notes 16 year, the MSO reaches diverse audiences through live performances, recordings, TV Orchestra 19 and radio broadcasts and live streaming. Its international Supporters 20 audiences include China, where MSO has performed in 2012, 2016 and most recently in May 2018, Europe (2014) and Indonesia, where in 2017 it performed at the UNESCO These concerts will be recorded for video broadcast World Heritage Site, Prambanan Temple. on Foxtel Arts. The MSO performs a variety of concerts ranging from symphonic performances at its home, Hamer Hall at In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks Arts Centre Melbourne, to its annual free concerts at you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone. Melbourne’s largest outdoor venue, the Sidney Myer The MSO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Music Bowl. The MSO also delivers innovative and land on which it is performing. MSO pays its respects to engaging programs and digital tools to audiences of their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from other all ages through its Education and Outreach initiatives. communities who may be in attendance. Cover: Leonard Bernstein by Paul de Hueck, Courtesy of the Leonard Bernstein Office mso.com.au | (03) 9929 9600 3 BRAMWELL TOVEY SARAH FOX CONDUCTOR SOPRANO Bramwell Tovey becomes Sarah Fox is equally at home the Vancouver Symphony in opera, folksong and musical Orchestra’s Music Director theatre. Her roles at Covent Emeritus in its centenary season Garden have included Micaëla (2018-19). With the VSO he (Carmen), Asteria (Tamerlano), has conducted major cycles of Zerlina (Don Giovanni) and Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler, Woglinde (Wagner’s Ring). instituted a contemporary music Her roles at Glyndebourne festival, and helped establish have included Mozart’s Zerlina the VSO School of Music. He and Susanna. Elsewhere she has also been Music Director has appeared at the Salzburg of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre and Aix-en-Provence Festivals, Royal Danish Opera, De Philharmonique du Luxembourg. Tovey is a GRAMMY¤ Vlaamse Opera and Opera North, among others. She has and Juno award-winning conductor and recently received worked with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Betty Webster Award from Orchestras Canada. Hong Kong Philharmonic, and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and performed with Rufus Wainwright Bramwell Tovey is a composer and pianist as well as and with John Wilson and his Orchestra. Recordings conductor. He was the last-minute substitute conductor range from Arminta (Mozart’s Il re pastore) to Cole Porter at the opening night of the London Symphony Orchestra’s in Hollywood. Recent concerts have included Bruckner’s Leonard Bernstein Festival in the presence of Bernstein Te Deum and Mendelssohn’s ‘Lobgesang’ at Britain’s himself, and was invited by Bernstein to Tanglewood in Three Choirs Festival. the summer of 1986. NICHOLAS TOLPUTT LIANE KEEGAN COUNTER¥TENOR ALTO Nicholas graduated from the Liane received the Opera Melbourne Conservatorium of Foundation Australia Shell Music in 2014 and was a 2016 Royal Covent Garden Young Artist for Pacific Opera. Scholarship, which enabled An established artist with the her to study at the National Brisbane Baroque Festival, Opera Studio London. She Nicholas has performed in each attended the AIMS Summer festival to date with highlights School in Graz Austria on the including singing in Purcell’s Opera Australia Foundation King Arthur (2016) and covering Scholarship, and in 1997, won the role of Medoro in Handel’s a Bayreuth Bursary from the Orlando (2014). Wagner Society of Great Britain. In 2017 Nicholas performed the role of Ottone in Lyric Liane came to the attention of both critics and public alike Opera’s The Coronation of Poppea. Recent oratorio with roles including Azucena (Il Trovatore) for Opera of and cantata performances include the alto solos Bach’s South Australia, Ulrica (Un Ballo in Maschera) for Opera Christmas Oratorio and Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater. In 2018, Australia, and Offred’s Mother (The Handmaid’s Tale). Nicholas made his international debut as the alto soloist Concert appearances have included Mozart’s Requiem in The New Zealand Dance Company’s OrphEus: A with Sir Neville Mariner and the Czech Philharmonic Dance Opera. Upcoming engagements include the role Orchestra, Barbara in Korngold’s Violanta at the 1997 of David in Saul (Sydney Philharmonia) and the alto solo BBC Proms conducted by Paul Daniel, and Waltraute in Handel’s Messiah (MSO). in Die Walküre with Antonio Pappano at the Edinburgh Festival. 4 BRENTON SPITERI BRETT POLEGATO TENOR BARITONE In 2012, Brenton Spiteri won Brett Polegato has appeared first prize in the Herald Sun at venues such as the Aria, which allowed him Lincoln Center, La Scala, to pursue overseas study Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, in singing and languages. the Opéra National de Paris, Subsequently, he was a Glyndebourne, Lyric Opera resident young artist at Opéra of Chicago, Kennedy Center Lyon for two seasons, where his and Carnegie Hall. He has roles included Maréchal Trac in collaborated with conductors Le Roi Carotte, and Mercurio in such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, l’Incoronazione di Poppea. Daniele Gatti, Andris Nelsons, Bernard Haitink, Seiji Ozawa, Jeffrey Tate, Marc Australian performance highlights include Tamino, Minkowski, and Martyn Brabbins. The Magic Flute (State Opera South Australia); Schoolmaster/Mosquito, Cunning Little Vixen (Victorian Recent roles include the Celebrant in Bernstein’s Mass Opera); Nadir, The Pearlfishers (Melbourne Opera); with the Orchestre National de Lille and Balstrode in Clotarco, Armida (Pinchgut Opera). In 2018, he will Britten’s Peter Grimes with the Vancouver Symphony perform Sam Sawnoff in The Magic Pudding for Victorian Orchestra. In the 2016-17 season he created the role Opera and Mathan in Athalia for Pinchgut Opera. For of Father Thomas Nangle in John Estacio’s new opera, Sydney Chamber Opera, he created the role of Ashley Ours. Recordings include Elgar’s Sea Symphony, a solo Crowther in the Helpmann Award Nominated Fly Away disc To A Poet with pianist Iain Burnside, Bach’s Coffee Peter, receiving critical acclaim for his “charismatic Cantata and Kálmán’s The Duchess of Chicago. warmth and vocal agility”. MELBOURNE WARREN SYMPHONY TREVELYANJONES ORCHESTRA CHORUS CHORUS MASTER For more than 50 years Warren Trevelyan-Jones the Melbourne Symphony is the Head of Music at St Orchestra Chorus has been James’, King Street in Sydney the unstinting voice of the and is regarded as one of the Orchestra’s choral repertoire. leading choral conductors The MSO Chorus sings with and choir trainers in Australia. the finest conductors including Warren has had an extensive Sir Andrew Davis, Edward singing career as a soloist and Gardner, Mark Wigglesworth, ensemble singer in Europe, Bernard Labadie, Vladimir including nine years in the Ashkenazy and Manfred Honeck, and is committed Choir of Westminster Abbey, and regular work with to developing and performing new Australian and the Gabrieli Consort, Collegium Vocale (Ghent), the international choral repertoire. Taverner Consort, The Kings Consort, Dunedin Consort, The Sixteen and the Tallis Scholars. Commissions include Brett Dean’s Katz und Spatz, Ross Edwards’ Mountain Chant, and Paul Stanhope’s Exile Warren is also Director of the Parsons Affayre, Founder Lamentations. Recordings by the MSO Chorus have and Co-Director of The Consort of Melbourne and, in received critical acclaim. It has performed across Brazil 2001 with Dr Michael Noone, founded the Gramophone and at the Cultura Inglese Festival in Sao Paolo, with award-winning group Ensemble Plus Ultra. Warren is also The Australian Ballet, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, at a qualified music therapist.