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Home , ABC Classics, ABC Radio Hobart, Lisa McCune, Logie Awards, Morning Mood, Peer Gynt (Grieg)

Saturday 17 March 2.30pm Federation Concert Hall YOUR NEWS,

EVERY DAY. MATINEE 1 Marko Letonja conductor GRIEG June Tyzack chorusmaster Peer Gynt, abridged Sue-Ellen Paulsen cello Act 1, Prelude Antony Ernst director Halling Ryk Goddard Peer Gynt, Narrator Ingrid’s Lament Lisa McCune Åse, Woman in Green, Peer Gynt and the Woman in Green Solveig In the Hall of the Mountain King John Xintavelonis Narrator, Troll King, Dance Bøyg, Button-moulder, The Lean One Peer Gynt chased by Trolls TSO Chorus Peer Gynt and the Bøyg Åse’s Death GULDA Concerto for Cello and Wind Orchestra Arabian Dance Ouverture – Solveig’s Song Idylle – Peer Gynt’s Homecoming Cadenza – Night Scene Menuett – Song of the Churchgoers Finale alla marcia Solveig’s Lullaby and Finale Duration 30 mins Duration 60 mins

INTERVAL This concert will end at approximately 4.30 pm. Duration 20 mins

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra concerts are broadcast and streamed throughout Australia and around the world by ABC Classic FM. We would appreciate your cooperation NIGHTLY AT 6PM (CC) in keeping coughing to a minimum. Please ensure that your mobile phone is switched off. 18 19 Marko Letonja is Chief Conductor and June Tyzack became Chorusmaster of the Sue-Ellen Paulsen studied at the Currently artistic director of the Royal Danish Artistic Director of the Tasmanian Symphony TSO Chorus in 2001 following a career in Conservatorium of Music where she had Orchestra in Copenhagen, Antony Ernst Orchestra, Music Director of the Orchestre with and the Opera lessons with Richard Dedecius. As an started as a dramaturg and assistant director Philharmonique de Strasbourg and Music Studio of the Sydney Conservatorium. undergraduate she appeared as soloist with Opera Australia, where he worked with Director of the Bremen Philharmonic Under her direction, the TSO Chorus has with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Neil Armfield, Barrie Kosky, Jim Sharman, Graeme Murphy, and Baz Luhrmann, Orchestra from the start of the 2018-19 given performances in Hobart and regional Queensland Conservatorium Orchestra among others. His career took him to the season. Born in Slovenia, he studied at the , and through her initiative, and Queensland Youth Orchestra. In 1980 Semperoper Dresden and Deutsche Oper Academy of Music in Ljubljana and the collaboration with interstate choirs has she won the ABC Concerto Competition am Rhein in Düsseldorf, working with such Vienna Academy of Music. He was Music resulted in performances with Sydney (now the Young Performers Award) and Director of the Slovenian Philharmonic directors as Willi Decker, Marco Arturo Philharmonia Choirs, Victorian Opera, was awarded a scholarship enabling her to Orchestra from 1991 to 2003 and Music Adelaide Festival Chorus, West Australian Marelli, Christof Loy, Stein Winge and Adolf pursue postgraduate study in Vienna with Dresen. Returning to Australia, he completed Director and Chief Conductor of both the Symphony Orchestra Chorus, and in André Navarra. Her professional career a doctorate on the operas of Janácˇek, and Symphony Orchestra and the Opera in Basel Hong Kong with the WASO Chorus and began in Armidale with the New England directed a production of Salome for Opera from 2003 to 2006. He was Principal Guest Hong Kong Philharmonic. She has been String Quartet. She assumed her current Australia before moving into orchestra artistic Conductor of Orchestra in 2008 and chorusmaster of the Australian International position with the Tasmanian Symphony management. In 2005 he was appointed made his debut with the TSO the following Symphony Orchestra Institute and the Orchestra in 1986. Since then she has been artistic planning manager of the Auckland year. He took up the post of Chief Conductor Australian Intervarsity Choral Festival and in guest principal with the Sydney Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra in New Zealand, and Artistic Director of the TSO at the start of 2014 was assistant to the conductor for the Adelaide Symphony and Australian Chamber where he was responsible for the New 2012. He has worked with many orchestras in production of Handel’s Orlando for Hobart Orchestra. An experienced soloist, she Zealand premières of several major works Europe including the Munich Philharmonic, Baroque. More recently, she has devised has performed concertos by Shostakovich, including Strauss’ Elektra. In 2011 he was Vienna Symphony, Berlin Radio Orchestra, and directed cutting-edge TSO Chorus named artistic planning manager of the Walton, Mills and Ligeti among many others Mozarteum Orchestra and the Orchestra programs for a number of festivals, including Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg and is featured as soloist on several of the Filarmonica della Scala, Milan. He has also in the Speigeltent for Ten Days on the Island, in France, one of the French national TSO’s Australian Composer Series CDs. worked in many renowned opera houses Mona Foma, Dark Mofo, Synaesthesia and orchestras. A highlight of this period was A strong advocate for contemporary music, such as the Vienna State Opera, Berlin Synaesthesia+. In 2016 she was Director the production of the recent award-winning she has commissioned and premièred many State Opera, La Scala Milan, Semper Oper for Bach’s St Matthew Passion and last recording of Berlioz’ Les Troyens. He has new Australian works including one written Dresden and the Grand Théâtre de Genève. year facilitated a group of TSO choristers also worked as dramaturg and director with Recent engagements include Der Ring des to perform in the Mitsingkonzert in the especially for her by Andrew Ford. She has Bell Shakespeare, Oper Frankfurt, Teatro Nibelungen for the Royal Swedish Opera, Berlin Philharmonie. In January for Mofo, recently recorded the Schumann piano Maestranza Seville; and is much in demand Boris Godunov for the Bavarian State Opera she directed TRUCE, an a cappella choral trios with the Kingfisher Trio (ABC Classics). as a writer, translator, cultural tour leader and and Le nozze di Figaro for the Grand Théâtre program that roamed the Museum of Old She is lecturer in cello at the Tasmanian lecturer, including a series of very successful de Genève. and New Art (Mona). Conservatorium of Music. seminars for the Wagner Society in NSW.

20 21 Ryk Goddard presents the highest rated and Lisa McCune is best known for her role as John Xintavelonis has enjoyed an extensive The TSO Chorus is an auditioned group of most listened to breakfast show in Tasmania ‘Maggie Doyle’ in the police drama Blue career in corporate entertainment, stage, over 80 voices that was founded in 1992 for ABC Radio Hobart. He has also presented Heelers which made her a household name radio and television for over 20 years. He is to present concert performances of opera. for Classic FM, ABC Radio and and delivered her four Gold for currently playing the Lion in the Australian Since then, the repertoire has broadened to embrace masses, requiems and symphonies Sydney. His radio career began with a 20-part Most Popular Personality. Lisa most recently touring production of The Wizard of Oz, and for chorus and orchestra, as well as a diverse comedy series Blogdaddy, commissioned for appeared in the ABC series Ex PM and The has previously appeared as Stewpot in Opera array of sacred and secular a cappella works. ABC . Ryk has presented with Warriors. Her other screen credits include, Australia’s , Dick Woollnough/ The TSO Chorus recently returned to its It’s a Date where she starred opposite TSO for RACT Symphony under the Stars Dee Anthony in The Boy From Oz for The opera roots with the Helpmann Award- and earned herself an AACTA and narrated many Family Classics concerts Production Co, Mitch in The Threepenny winning performance of Wagner’s Tristan Award Nomination for Best Performance in including a very special performance of Opera for Malthouse and the Sydney Theatre and Isolde (2016), Bizet’s Carmen (2017) and, a Television Comedy, the ABC miniseries Peter and the Wolf at Risdon Prison. He Company, Spider/Lord Savage in Jeckyll this year, Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. In The Divorce, Network Ten’s Reef Doctors, has collaborated with Virtuosi Tasmania & Hyde for TML in Korea, Mr Braithwaite addition to concerts with the TSO, highlights which she produced alongside Jonathan to present an acclaimed statewide tour of in Billy Elliot: The Musical for Universal/ in recent years include performances with M Shiff, the UK/Australian co-production the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, West Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale and worked Working Title, and Pumbaa in The Lion King Tripping Over, the telemovie Hell has Australian Symphony Orchestra, Adelaide with cellist Jane Tallon to create Brahms’ Life, for Disney Theatrical Productions in , Harbour Views, the ABC series Rake, Sea Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria and Love Letters which was recorded for Classic Melbourne and Shanghai. His television Patrol, Blood Brothers, The Little Death, Little the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. With FM. Ryk is a sought-after actor and writer credits include The Kettering Incident Fish, Two Twisted, MDA and The Potato a reputation for innovative performances working mainly in television. Acting credits (Foxtel), Winners and Losers (7 network), Factory. Her stage credits include Machu under the direction of Chorusmaster June Tricky Business (), Dance include Rosehaven, The Kettering Incident Picchu for the Sydney Theatre Company Tyzack, the TSO Chorus commenced the year Academy (ABC), City Homicide (7 network) and the lead role in The First Fagin, which and the State Theatre Company of South with two performances in Mofo, maintaining and ’s Race Relations (ABC). His its distinctive presence at Mona (previous premièred at the Melbourne International Australia, the Opera Australia and Gordon performances include Mofo, Dark Mofo Film Festival in 2012. He has two TV series Frost Organisation production of The King film credits include A Journey Through Time and Synaesthesia). Concerts with the TSO in development with Aquarius Films and and I, Shane Warne: The Musical, Melbourne with Anthony, Macbeth 1040 AD, The Sound in 2018 will be Peer Gynt, A Midsummer Matchbox entertainment. He is also creating Theatre Company’s The 25th Annual Putnam Of One Hand Clapping and Back From The Night’s Dream, Fauré’s Requiem, Gounod’s a death metal musical for Dark Mofo with Spelling Bee, Dead Man’s Cell Phone and Dead. In 2006 he was nominated for a Mo Roméo et Juliette and Messiah. The year will composer Dean Stevenson. The Ambassador Theatre Group’s Sydney Award for his role as Pumbaa in The Lion be capped off with a tour to Campbell Town King. He is an Australia Day Ambassador, a and Melbourne seasons of , and Cygnet. The TSO Chorus welcomes South Pacific, , in the Gordon Frost finalist in Tasmanian Australian of the Year new members. Interested choristers should production of , which 2015, co-founder and Chairman of Hobart’s contact the Chorus Coordinator on 03 6232 she followed with her Green Room Award- Blue Cow Theatre Inc, and a broadcaster on 4421 or visit tsochorus.com.au for more winning performance in . ABC local radio. information.

22 23 Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000)

Concerto for Cello and Wind Orchestra such as Gegenwart, with like-minded Your support Ouverture – musicians, by involving himself with Idylle – jazz and improvised music festivals, Cadenza – and by treating the ‘classical’ world Menuett – with increasing contempt, famously is instrumental Finale alla marcia handing back the prestigious ‘Beethoven Ring’ when awarded it by the Viennese When pianist and composer Friedrich Academy of Music. And appearing naked Gulda pranked the musical world early to perform on television. in 1999 by faxing a press release – from Zurich airport – announcing his own In the 1960s and 70s his interests death, he ostensibly wanted to see included rock, heard in his Variationen what would appear in his obituaries. He über ‘Light My Fire’ (von Jim Morrison) feared the worst, saying that ‘people and other such works. And the traffic have thrown so much muck at me while went the other way: Emerson, Lake and I am alive, I do not want them to chuck Palmer recorded a version of Gulda’s it into my grave as well’. In the event, he Prelude and Fugue, and Chick Corea was spotted alive and well at the airport joined him on one occasion in Mozart’s so the ruse failed, but he did sell out a Concerto for Two Pianos. ‘Resurrection Party’ concert in Salzburg His Cello Concerto was written for soon after. He died, a year later, by the Heinrich Schiff, who premièred it in 1981. Attersee in upper Austria – a favourite Its five movements draw together several Mahler haunt. contrasting threads in Gulda’s music, Why the real or imagined hostility? Gulda giving the work a somewhat Mahlerian had been born in Vienna in 1930, so feel. The opening Ouverture jump-cuts the early recognition of his musical gifts between jazzy big-band energy and took place against the backdrop of the gentle ‘Alpine’ folk material. The simple Anschluss, or annexation of Austria by chords of the Idylle suggest moments Nazi Germany, and, of course, World in Mendelssohn and more Alpine folk War II. Within a very few years of the music. The Cadenza is classic ‘celloese’, war’s end, he was touring throughout nodding in several stylistic directions Europe and the Americas. He made and requiring spectacular virtuosity in its some landmark recordings, notably of the partially improvised material, extended complete Beethoven sonatas and Bach’s techniques and sustained harmonic ‘48’ Preludes and Fugues. He taught writing. luminaries such as Claudio Abbado and There is complete contrast in the Martha Argerich. minuet, sung like a serenade to guitar We invite you to join the Conductor’s Circle with a gift of $1,000 or more, and become part of an extraordinary community of He progressively alienated, or was accompaniment before the self- alienated from, the mainstream classical consciously ‘antique’ response of the supporters who share a special relationship with the orchestra and music world as his interest in jazz grew ensemble. This in turn brings forth the make a vital contribution to enabling the excellence for which the from the early 1950s on (he took up, and rambunctious Finale, whose march TSO is renowned. performed on, the baritone saxophone). rhythms are accompanied by rapid cello Seeking to introduce the freedom of passage work and interpolations of Join the community of loyal TSO supporters by becoming jazz into concert music he became simple lyricism. a Conductor’s Circle member today. notorious for wholesale last-minute changes to advertised programs, and © Gordon Kerry 2018 for interpolating improvisations into his concerts. He responded to criticism by This is the first performance of this work by the working on free improvisation projects, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.

24 TSO.COM.AU/SUPPORT | [email protected] | 03 6232 4430 25 (1843-1907)

Peer Gynt – Incidental Music, Op 23 character, added a new adventurousness palace as the Trolls set on Peer to slay He has an encounter with a button (abridged) to his harmonic and rhythmic language, him. The King restrains his followers moulder who wants to melt him down Act 1, Prelude by comparison with his early music, and bargains with Peer for the hand of and recast him, because he has never Halling which had been formed largely by his his daughter. Peer agrees to fall in with lived according to his true self. Searching Ingrid’s Lament orientation towards Danish culture. While the Trolls’ ways, including wearing a tail, for one more chance to redeem himself, Peer Gynt and the Woman in Green remaining accessibly based in the world then has to witness the grotesque Dance Peer finds Solveig, now old and blind. In the Hall of the Mountain King of Romantic musical nationalism, Grieg of the Mountain King’s Daughter. Peer She has waited for his return, and affirms Dance baptised Norwegian folksong and dance comments sarcastically on the dance, that Peer has indeed lived as himself, in Peer Gynt chased by Trolls as ‘art music’, paving the way for later and eventually rejects marrying her. For her faith, hope and love. At the end, she Peer Gynt and the Bøyg composers (including Australia’s Percy this the King orders him smashed to cradles him in her arms and sings him to Åse’s Death Grainger) to take on the idiom. smithereens. Peer escapes only when the rest. About Solveig’s Lullaby Grieg wrote, Morning Mood ‘…My idea is that during the introductory The play’s central character, Peer, is sound of church bells puts the pursuers Arabian Dance bars Peer Gynt is lying in Solveig’s arms, reckless, irresponsible, boastful, and a to flight (Peer Gynt chased by Trolls). Solveig’s Song as if hidden, while the horizon heralds the storyteller full of imagination. Norwegian- The Bøyg, a huge but invisible Troll-like Peer Gynt’s Homecoming rise of the morning sun…where the sun Australian dramaturg May-Brit Akerholt creature whose utterances come with Night Scene breaks through completely, the sound of comments that everything in the play is bird-like voices, bars Peer’s way but Song of the Churchgoers the orchestra must gradually increase… truthful, living and breathing: imagery, shrinks away at the sound of the bells Solveig’s Lullaby and Finale The curtain must fall very slowly, as symbols, history, fairy tales, written (Peer Gynt and the Bøyg). Hiding in a hut in the wood, Peer is found by the gentle Solveig is bent over Peer Gynt.’ Everyone knows Grieg’s Peer Gynt with exuberance. The play is a blast of energetic action, colourful tableaux Solveig, who loves him. But he cannot music, even if they don’t realise it. Few stay with her until he has cast off the load Australians have seen the play by Ibsen and spectacular events. It is also serious © David Garrett and political in its dramatisation of a of his past. Peer goes to his mother, who for which it was written (it is notoriously is dying, and ‘rides her into heaven’, to difficult to stage). But the success of life wasted pursuing dreams, fleeing The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra has responsibility and seeking power the sound of muted strings (Åse’s Death). performed music from Peer Gynt on many Ibsen’s play with its early audiences was occasions, but this concert is the first performance greatly helped by Grieg’s music, and instead of love. ‘If Peer Gynt had not Then Peer Gynt is off again, to of the bulk of Grieg’s incidental music. the two familiar orchestral suites have been Norwegian, he might have been adventures in America, Morocco and taken the music into concert halls, into Australian. We rather warm to a similar Egypt, lasting a quarter of a century. elevators, everywhere. The suites made kind of hero here: a combination of the Morning Mood is intended to evoke by Grieg for the concert hall give only Aussie battler and storyteller with an sun breaking, not on Norwegian fjords a third of the music he composed, and imagination bigger than reality.’ and mountains, but on the Sahara put the pieces in an order quite different As the drama begins, Peer is living desert. Grieg wrote, ‘This piece should from their place in the drama. The with his aged mother Åse. The musical be regarded as pure music.’ In the tent adaptation heard here restores much of Prelude depicts the young Peer. He of a Bedouin sheik Peer, mistaken for a the music, in the same dramatic contexts arrives unannounced at a wedding. prophet, is entertained by singing and and order as in Ibsen’s play. The Halling is a kicking dance for the dancing girls (Arabian Dance). He tries male wedding guests, to the sound to seduce Anitra, the most beautiful of ‘THE PLAY’S CENTRAL CHARACTER, of a folk fiddle. Peer elopes with the them, and she robs him of his riches. PEER, IS RECKLESS, IRRESPONSIBLE, bride, Ingrid, because Solveig spurns Back in Norway, Solveig, now middle- BOASTFUL, AND A STORYTELLER FULL him. The following morning he deserts aged, still lives in the hut Peer built for OF IMAGINATION.’ Ingrid (Ingrid’s Lament). As an outlaw her. As she spins she sings of her resolve in the mountains he meets the Woman to await Peer’s return (Solveig’s Song). It was Ibsen himself, the Norwegian in Green, who turns out to be the On Peer Gynt’s Homecoming, a storm dramatist, who asked Grieg in 1874 to daughter of the Troll King. They ride to drives his ship on the rocks. Older, write the music to be played and sung his underground palace on a pig. There wasted, but no wiser nor more truthful, during a revised and staged version of is grotesquery and power In the Hall of he still firmly believes he has lived with his poetical drama Peer Gynt. Grieg’s the Mountain King, a ruler surrounded truth to himself. On a fire-blackened discovery of Norwegian folklore, which by Troll courtiers and witches. The chorus heath Peer is mocked by the voices of gives Peer Gynt so much of its distinctive adds to the uproar in the underground nature for his misspent life (Night Scene).

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