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SIR ANDREW DAVIS | ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER MID-SEASON GALA 23 JUNE 2018 CONCERT PROGRAM

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Page 1: SIR ANDREW DAVIS | ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER MID …€¦ · Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto INTERVAL Williams Markings ... beauty, warmth, character and expression, Australian-Mauritian Soprano

SIR ANDREW DAVIS | ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTERMID-SEASON GALA

23 JUNE 2018

CONCERT PROGRAM

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Melbourne Symphony OrchestraSir Andrew Davis conductor

Anne-Sophie Mutter violin, Soloist in Residence*

Stacey Alleaume soprano

Jeremy Kleeman bass-baritone

Stravinsky The Fairy’s Kiss: Divertimento

Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto

INTERVAL

Williams Markings

Nielsen Symphony No.3 Sinfonia Espansiva

Running time: Two hours and 30 minutes, including a 20-minute interval

In consideration of your fellow patrons, the MSO thanks you for silencing and dimming the light on your phone.

The MSO acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we are performing. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present, and the Elders from other communities who may be in attendance.

mso.com.au (03) 9929 9600

* Supported by Mr Marc Besen AC and Mrs Eva Besen AO

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MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

SIR ANDREW DAVIS CONDUCTOR

Established in 1906, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is an arts leader and Australia’s longest-running professional orchestra. Chief Conductor Sir Andrew Davis has been at the helm of MSO since 2013. Engaging more than 4 million people each year, the MSO reaches diverse audiences through live performances, recordings, TV and radio broadcasts and live streaming.

The MSO works with Associate Conductor Benjamin Northey and Cybec Assistant Conductor Tianyi Lu, as well as with such eminent recent guest conductors as Tan Dun, John Adams, Jakub Hrůša and Jukka-Pekka Saraste. It also collaborates with non-classical musicians such as Elton John, Nick Cave and Flight Facilities.

Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis is also Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. He is Conductor Laureate of both the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony, where he has also been named interim Artistic Director until 2020.

In a career spanning more than 40 years he has conducted virtually all the world’s major orchestras and opera companies, and at the major festivals. Recent highlights have included Die Walküre in a new production at Chicago Lyric.

Sir Andrew’s many CDs include Messiah nominated for a 2018 GRAMMY® Award, Bliss’ The Beatitudes, and a recording with the Bergen Philharmonic of Vaughan Williams’ Job/Symphony No.9 nominated for a 2018 BBC Music Magazine Award. With the MSO he has just released a third recording in the ongoing Richard Strauss series, featuring the Alpine Symphony and Till Eulenspiegel.

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ANNE-SOPHIE MUTTER VIOLIN

STACEY ALLEAUME SOPRANO

Anne-Sophie Mutter is a four-time GRAMMY® Award winner. Contemporary composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Sofia Gubaidulina, Wolfgang Rihm and John Williams have all composed for her. She premiered Sir André Previn’s The Fifth Season at Carnegie Hall in March 2018. Future performances include a recital of Mozart, Brahms and Franck sonatas with Daniel Barenboim and performances of Beethoven, Unsuk Chin (a world premiere) and John Williams’ Markings at Berlin’s Philharmonie.

Anne-Sophie Mutter dedicates herself to numerous benefit projects and, since 2011, has regularly shared the stage with The Mutter Virtuosi, an ensemble formed from former and current scholarship-holders of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation. Her latest disc is a recording of Schubert’s Trout Quintet with Daniil Trifonov, Maximilian Hornung, Hwayoon Lee and Roman Patkoló.

The MSO is thrilled to host Anne-Sophie as 2018 Soloist in Residence.

Praised for her voice of remarkable beauty, warmth, character and expression, Australian-Mauritian Soprano Stacey Alleaume is embarking on a promising and exciting operatic career. In 2016, she received the Dame Joan Sutherland Scholarship for outstanding Australian operatic talent and became a member of the Moffatt Oxenbould Young Artist Program at Opera Australia. In her first season with the company, Alleaume performed as Micaëla in Carmen, Flower Maiden 1 in Parsifal and Violetta Valery in La Traviata. In the current season, Alleaume returns to Australia as Valencienne in The Merry Widow, Micaëla in Carmen, Fiorilla in Il Turco in Italia and Violetta. She will also cover the role of Gilda in Rigoletto.

Stacey Alleaume joined the Performance Program at The Opera Studio Melbourne in 2010. Since then, the soprano’s artistic development has been supported by numerous awards and accolades. In 2011, Alleaume received grants from the PPCA Performers’ Trust Foundation and Opus 50 Charitable Trust. She was awarded the Dame Nellie Melba Opera Trust Scholarship in 2010 and was honoured again in 2012 with the Melba Opera Trust’s Amelia Joscelyne Reserve Scholarship and the Ruskin Family Opera Award.

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JEREMY KLEEMAN BASS-BARITONE

A graduate of Victorian Opera’s Developing Artist Program and of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Jeremy Kleeman has also been a Melba Opera Trust Scholar, the recipient of the Dame Heather Begg Award and has received both Helpmann and Green Room Award nominations.

Jeremy has performed with Opera Australia (title role, The Marriage of Figaro), Victorian Opera (The Cunning Little Vixen), State Opera of South Australia (Cloudstreet), Sydney Chamber Opera (The Rape of Lucretia), Pinchgut Opera (The Coronation of Poppea), Brisbane Baroque (Faramondo), Musica Viva (Voyage to the Moon), Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society, Consort of Melbourne, Melbourne Bach Choir and the Canberra International Music Festival.

Jeremy’s 2018 engagements include Walter Furst in William Tell and Albert in The Magic Pudding (Victorian Opera), and Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia at Dark MoFo, Hobart, Nielson Symphony No.3 with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Opera by the Lakes and Second Elder (Susanna) for Handel In The Theatre, Canberra.

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Leonard Bernstein by Paul de Hueck, Courtesy of the Leonard Bernstein Office

mso.com.au/bernstein

Talks, films, concerts and more. All ages.Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall

Unfold the musical legacy of legendary American composer and conductor, Leonard Bernstein.

WEST SIDE STORY FILM WITH LIVE ORCHESTRA

27 JULY | 7.30pm SOLD OUT28 JULY | 1pm SELLING FASTBenjamin Northey conductor

BERNSTEIN CLASSICS15 AUGUST | 7.30pmBramwell Tovey conductor

BERNSTEIN ON BROADWAY18 AUGUST | 7.30pmBramwell Tovey conductor

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PROGRAM NOTES

IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971)

The Fairy’s Kiss: Divertimento

Sinfonia

Swiss Dances and Waltz

Scherzo

Pas de deux

Stravinsky first established his reputation in the West through his association with Sergei Diaghilev’s legendary Ballets Russes, for whom he composed the ballets which have remained his most popular works – The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913).

Towards the end of 1927, the dancer Ida Rubinstein, who was planning to establish a dance company of her own, approached Stravinsky’s publishers to enquire whether she might include his new ballet Apollon musagète in her repertoire. She was told that the European rights rested with Diaghilev, so she submitted to Stravinsky two ideas for new works, one of which he liked immediately. This was to compose a score inspired by the music of Tchaikovsky who had been a childhood idol.

Stravinsky cherished memories of Tchaikovsky, pointed out to him by his father Feodor at the Mariinsky Theatre during the 50th anniversary production of Ruslan and Ludmila in 1893, two weeks before Tchaikovsky died. But Stravinsky’s lifelong regard for Tchaikovsky was founded on a great love for his music. In 1921, when

Diaghilev was mounting his lavish production of The Sleeping Beauty at London’s Alhambra Theatre, Stravinsky declared, in a letter to the Times, that Sleeping Beauty was ‘the most convincing example of Tchaikovsky’s great creative power’. He arranged two numbers for the London production, and his affection for this music is still apparent in the 1963 rehearsal of the ‘Bluebird pas de deux’ included on CBS’s complete set of Stravinsky Conducts recordings. Rubinstein gave Stravinsky free rein to choose both the subject matter and scenario of the ballet. He fashioned a storyline from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The Ice Maiden, and decided to base his work on a selection of Tchaikovsky’s non-orchestral pieces – mostly piano and vocal works.

The scenario is intended to be taken as an allegory of Tchaikovsky’s creative life. A child, separated from his mother, is found and kissed by a Fairy, then taken away to be looked after by villagers. At a village fête some 18 years later, the young man is celebrating with his fiancée when the Fairy, disguised as a gypsy, enters and tells the young man his future, promising good fortune. The young man and his fiancée dance by a mill, but when the fiancée goes away to put on her bridal dress, the Fairy appears, and lures the young man away with her. She bestows her fatal kiss on the young man, and encloses him forever in the land of Eternal Dwelling.

Stravinsky chose about half of the complete ballet for inclusion in the four-movement Divertimento. In the Sinfonia, the Fairy kisses the child and

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disappears; Swiss Dances and Waltz is the village fair and the young man’s betrothal. The Fairy leads the young man to his fiancée, playing round games with her friends, in the Scherzo, and the young couple dance together in the Pas de deux.

It could be said that the scenario reveals some ambivalence towards Tchaikovsky’s art. The Fairy who bestows the kiss turns out to be malign. Lawrence Morton has suggested that, in Stravinsky’s mind, the fatal kiss planted on Tchaikovsky represented ‘the vulgarity of his symphonic climaxes and his boring sequences’. Morton further points out that the aspect of Tchaikovsky’s music most altered by Stravinsky is melody, the element most people would argue was Tchaikovsky’s real strength. But who could be confident in completely accepting the modernist Morton’s view of Stravinsky’s dissatisfaction with Tchaikovsky’s style?

This work is the product of a deep immersion in an earlier countryman’s art. Tchaikovsky’s voice may sound, from a rewrought version of his song Tant triste, tant douce to a cadential figure from the Fifth Symphony, to a mere whiff of None but the Lonely Heart, another of Tchaikovsky’s songs, but the chugging rhythms, the precise articulations, the orchestration, ‘the syntax, idiom, accent, craft’ – there is not a bar that is not pure Stravinsky.

It has been claimed that a certain spirit went out of Stravinsky’s music once he severed links finally with his homeland. The popular early ballets are imbued with the spirit of Russia, and Richard Taruskin has shown how deeply Stravinsky absorbed and transmuted

what may be called ‘aboriginal’ Russian and Ukrainian folk material in The Rite of Spring. In the 1920s, as Stravinsky began to pare down his style and subscribe to the values of Classicism, he also began to align himself with the more cosmopolitan strand of Russian culture, and he dedicated the short one-act opera Mavra (1921) to the ‘trinity’ of Glinka, Pushkin and Tchaikovsky. In The Fairy’s Kiss, Stravinsky’s expression of love for an honoured predecessor, there is a curious and moving warmth.

In one sense, however, The Fairy’s Kiss did signify a rupture. Diaghilev was furious that one of his protégés should have been associated with such an inferior undertaking as the Ida Rubinstein Company, and the first performance at the Paris Opera on 27 November 1928 could be considered the end of their relationship.

Gordon Kalton Williams Symphony Australia © 1998/2005

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed this work on 28 November 1961 during Stravinsky’s visit to Australia, under the direction of Robert Craft. The Orchestra most recently performed it on 15-17 November 2007 with Markus Stenz.

PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)

Violin Concerto in D, Op.35

Allegro moderato – Moderato assai

Canzonetta (Andante)

Finale (Allegro vivacissimo)

Anne-Sophie Mutter violin

It was the winter of 1877, and Tchaikovsky was in love. He wrote to his brother Modest about the ‘unimaginable force’ of the passion

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that had developed; its object was a young violinist and student at the Moscow Conservatorium, Josef Kotek. Kotek was a devoted and affectionate but platonic friend to Tchaikovsky, but soon became besotted with a fellow (female) student. The composer’s ardour cooled quickly, and within three weeks of discovering Kotek’s new relationship, Tchaikovsky had made his fateful proposal to Antonina Milyukova, a former Conservatorium student who had fallen in love with him. They married two months later, and as the depth of their cultural and personal differences quickly became clear, Tchaikovsky left his wife two months after that.

Kotek and Tchaikovsky remained friends, however, and the Violin Concerto seems to have grown out of a promise that the composer made to write a piece for one of Kotek’s upcoming concerts. While Kotek was not, ultimately, the dedicatee or first performer of the work, he was of enormous help to Tchaikovsky in playing through sections of the piece as the composer finished them.

After leaving his wife, Tchaikovsky, accompanied by one or other of his brothers (and at one point Kotek himself), travelled extensively in Western Europe. Tchaikovsky worked on the Violin Concerto in Switzerland in early 1878, not long after completing the Fourth Symphony and the opera Eugene Onegin. Commentators are generally agreed that both of those works reflect Tchaikovsky’s emotional reactions to the traumatic events of his marriage, though the composer himself was careful, in a letter to his

patron, Nadezhda von Meck, to point out that one could only depict such states in retrospect. In any event, it seems likely that, apart from honouring a promise to Kotek, Tchaikovsky found the conventions of the violin concerto offered a way of writing a large-scale work without the personal investment of the opera and symphony.

Like the great concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Sibelius, Tchaikovsky’s is in three substantial movements. The first develops two characteristic themes within a tracery of brilliant virtuoso writing for the violin, and like Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky places the solo cadenza before the recapitulation of the opening material. As in the slow movement of the Fourth Symphony, the central Canzonetta works its magic by the deceptively simple repetition of its material. The work concludes with a bravura, ‘Slavic’ Finale which is interrupted only by a motif for solo oboe which for one writer recalls, nostalgically, a moment in the ‘Letter Scene’ from Onegin (which itself parallels the relationship between Tchaikovsky and Antonina).

The work was initially dedicated to the virtuoso Leopold Auer, who thought it far too difficult and refused to play it. In 1881 Adolf Brodsky gave the premiere in Vienna, where that city’s most feared critic, Eduard Hanslick, tore the piece to shreds:

The violin is no longer played; it is pulled, torn, drubbed…We see plainly the savage vulgar faces, we hear curses, we smell vodka…Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear.

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Hanslick, like many a music critic, made a bad call; Tchaikovsky had written one of the best-loved works of the concerto repertoire.

Gordon Kerry © 2003

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra first performed this concerto on 21 May 1938 with conductor George Szell and soloist Lionel Lawson. The Orchestra’s most recent performance was on 28 February 2017, with Benjamin Northey and Maxim Vengerov.

JOHN WILLIAMS (Born 1932)

Markings for solo violin, strings and harp

Anne-Sophie Mutter violin

It may seem strange to begin a program note by pointing out that John Williams is the most Oscar®-nominated living person (his score to Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi being the most recent nomination). But Williams is also arguably the the world’s most famous composer for orchestra – reaching all age groups. Last September I saw the Hollywood Bowl (capacity 17,500) packed with young people waiting with their lightsabers to hear the music of an 85-year-old man. As a film composer, Williams ranges from banjo/harmonica music for Arthur Penn’s movie The Missouri Breaks to the ‘bebop’ of Catch Me If You Can, directed by Steven Spielberg. But Williams has also, during his career, created concert works, including, in 1976, a violin concerto recorded by Gil Shaham. (Incidentally, there are many musicians who enjoy Williams’ film music as music, without reference to the films.)

Anne-Sophie Mutter has commissioned leading composers such as Sofia Gubaidulina, Wolfgang Rihm, and Sir André Previn (who, according to New Music USA, remembers Williams from their days playing for a ballroom dance school ‘on La Brea Avenue’). Mutter wanted Williams to write a piece for her because, as she said in a 2017 Boston Globe interview: ‘He just understands how to write for instruments…how to put instruments into the best possible position to soar…’ Markings was premiered on 16 July 2017 at Tanglewood, Massachusetts, summer home of the Boston Symphony, whose Pops orchestra Williams has conducted for nearly 40 years. Mutter was soloist; conductor, Andris Nelsons.

Williams has written many tuneful violin solos in his films, but Markings is atonal. David Robertson, chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, has commented on the way Williams ‘puts an atmosphere in place…we begin wondering about what kind of story will be told.’ He adds, ‘What really impresses me in the piece is the way that small intervals, notes that are very close together, evoke a kind of intimacy that is then constantly being pulled apart. It almost feels like something very personal comes under wide public scrutiny…’

Markings begins ‘hushed but warmly’. The violin sound is sonorous (but ‘reflective’), emphasising the g-string, before ranging more widely. The soloist expounds song-like music over a slow tread before the music enters a dance-like phase (harp now joining), which is then pulled back for a cadenza before a short coda (the lyrical song again,

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ascending into the violin’s highest range). What is this music about? Does Markings refer to the detailed attention to attack and declamation? Never mind, the music speaks to us directly and leaves us curious for more.

Gordon Kalton Williams © 2018

This is the first performance of Markings by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

CARL NIELSEN (1865-1931)

Symphony No.3, Op.27, Sinfonia espansiva (1910-11)

Allegro espansivo

Andante pastorale

Allegretto un poco

Finale (Allegro)

Stacey Alleaume soprano

Jeremy Kleeman bass-baritone

Nielsen was born and schooled in a small rural town on the central Danish island of Funen, and after a brief unhappy stint as a grocer’s apprentice, in 1879 aged 14, enlisted as a brass player in a military band in the region’s nearby capital, Odense. In 1884, he won a place in Niels Gade’s conservatory in Copenhagen, where for the three years his chief studies were violin and music theory, and in 1888 he returned briefly to Odense to conduct the premiere of his official ‘opus 1’, a suite for strings. He joined the Royal Theatre orchestra in 1889, serving as rank-and-file second violinist for 16 years under Johan Svendsen, whom he ultimately succeeded as second conductor in 1908. From 1901, in addition to his

modest salary, he also received a small state pension, buying time out from private teaching to devote instead to composition. In 1902 he conducted the premieres of his first opera, Saul and David, and his Second Symphony (‘The four temperaments’). The comic opera Maskarade (1906) was his first popular success. A tone poem Saga-Dream (1908), drawing on Icelandic folklore, was a notable musical precursor to the Third Symphony, completed early in 1911, and the Violin Concerto, written later that same year. Nielsen conducted the Copenhagen premieres of both symphony and concerto early in 1912, and a subsequent Amsterdam performance of the symphony with the Concertgebouw Orchestra earned a warm reception that contributed to it becoming his first real European success.

What Nielsen once described as ‘unison jerks’, the symphony’s stuttering first chords set off an ‘expansive’ Allegro ‘meant as a gust of energy and life-affirmation blown out into the wide world’. The main melodic thread of the first movement – indeed, much of the entire symphony – seems to exist in a perpetual modal hinterland teetering uneasily between major and minor, lending the music both its internal energy, and an audible instability, against which it constantly strives for some sort of resolution. The themes themselves are caught up in a process of ongoing transformation. The arching, waltz-like main tune (which came to Nielsen while he was riding on a Copenhagen tram) can reappear so altered in shape that, by rights, it should be virtually unrecognisable, and yet somehow remains indelibly itself. In the opening part, one searing tutti

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succeeds another in hyper-energised succession, more than once avoiding resolution by merely fading away. Contrasting quieter episodes offer a more closely focused interplay of orchestral colours and fugue-like counterpoints. An audible landmark, just past the movement’s halfway mark, is a big, brassy reworking of the theme as a sort of circus calliope tune. Into the home stretch, the toe-tapping waltz rhythm becomes irresistible. Yet the ending is curiously off-centre, the final chord more a colon than a full-stop, sidestepping any anticipated resolution.

Nielsen intended the first movement’s expression of ‘strong tension (espansiva)’ to be ‘completely eliminated in the second by idyllic calm’. A sense of ‘peace in nature’ pervades, despite what he described as the ‘ambivalent mood between major and minor’ in which the movement begins and ends, and the more elegiac mood of the central episode. When male and female human voices enter with a wordless vocalise ‘it is only to underscore the mood one could imagine in paradise before the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve’. Representing one of the most sublime moments in his creative life, this movement was played at Nielsen’s funeral in 1931.

Having put the final touches to this idyllic vision in July 1910, Nielsen was plunged back into harsh reality by one of his frequent bouts of depression and creative inertia, and it wasn’t until autumn that he was able to press ahead with the third movement. Perhaps reflecting his lingering malaise at the time, he later described it as music

in which ‘both evil and good are manifested without any real settling of the issue’. Its beginning and ending are deceptively demure, and its core, characterised by a combination of skittish energy subverted by a restless rhythmic undertow, remains too conflicted, and insufficiently carefree, to keep up much pretence to being a conventional scherzo. Its mood of partially thwarted dynamism anyway throws into even greater relief the ensuing finale – Nielsen called it a ‘hymn to work’ – that not only reveals the composer himself restored to full health and resolve, but once again also alive to the ‘activity and ability manifested on all sides around us’. The unassuming march-like theme (he described it as ‘healthy-popular’) probably reminded many of the work’s early Danish audiences of Nielsen’s best known song setting Jens vejmand (Jens the roadbuilder), and, even as invested later with a certain unavoidable grandeur, the tune persists, to its very last reprise, speaking the simple, straightforward language of the folk.

© Graeme Skinner, 2018

The first Australian performance of this work was given by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on 28 September 1985 under conductor Hiroyuki Iwaki, with vocal soloists Felicity Lott and Roger Lemke. The MSO most recently performed it in July 1994 with Hugh Wolff and soloists Amanda Colliver and Roger Howell.

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Beethoven and Brahms

20 – 21 JULY | 7:30pm23 JULY | 6.30pm

Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall

Joshua Weilerstein conductorJayson Gillham piano

Beethoven’s extraordinary Piano Concerto No.3 with Jayson Gillham, plus the magni� cent

orchestration of Brahms’ Piano Quartet.

Book nowmso.com.au(03) 9929 9600

Jayson Gillham piano

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Sir Andrew Davis Chief Conductor

Benjamin Northey Associate Conductor Anthony Pratt#

Tianyi Lu Cybec Assistant Conductor

Hiroyuki Iwaki Conductor Laureate (1974–2006)

FIRST VIOLINS

Dale Barltrop Concertmaster

Sophie Rowell Concertmaster The Ullmer Family Foundation#

Peter Edwards Assistant Principal John McKay and Lois McKay#

Kirsty BremnerSarah Curro Michael Aquilina#

Peter FellinDeborah GoodallLorraine HookAnne-Marie JohnsonKirstin KennyJi Won KimEleanor ManciniMark Mogilevski Michelle RuffoloKathryn Taylor Michael Aquilina#

Amy Brookman*Madeleine Jevons*Michael Loftus-Hills*Susannah Ng*Oksana Thompson*Nicholas Waters*

SECOND VIOLINS

Matthew Tomkins Principal The Gross Foundation#

Robert Macindoe Associate Principal

Monica Curro Assistant Principal Danny Gorog and Lindy Susskind#

Mary AllisonIsin CakmakciogluFreya Franzen Anonymous#

Zoe FreisbergCong GuAndrew Hall Andrew and Judy Rogers#

Isy WassermanPhilippa WestPatrick WongRoger YoungJacqueline Edwards*

VIOLAS

Christopher Moore Principal Di Jameson#

Fiona Sargeant Associate Principal

Lauren Brigden Mr Tam Vu and Dr Cherilyn Tillman#

Katharine BrockmanChristopher Cartlidge Michael Aquilina#

Anthony Chataway Dr Elizabeth E Lewis AM#

Gabrielle HalloranTrevor Jones Cindy WatkinElizabeth WoolnoughCaleb WrightLisa Grosman*Helen Ireland*Sophie Kesoglidis*

CELLOS

David Berlin Principal MS Newman Family#

Rachael Tobin Associate Principal

Nicholas Bochner Assistant Principal

Miranda Brockman Geelong Friends of the MSO#

Rohan de Korte Andrew Dudgeon#

Keith JohnsonSarah MorseAngela SargeantMichelle Wood Andrew and Theresa Dyer#

Rachel Atkinson*

DOUBLE BASSES

Steve Reeves Principal

Andrew Moon Associate Principal

Sylvia Hosking Assistant Principal

Damien EckersleyBenjamin HanlonSuzanne LeeStephen Newton Sophie Galaise and Clarence Fraser#

Robert Nairn*Vivian Siyuan Qu*

FLUTES

Prudence Davis Principal Anonymous#

Wendy Clarke Associate Principal

Sarah Beggs

PICCOLO

Andrew Macleod Principal

MELBOURNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

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MSO BOARD

ChairmanMichael Ullmer

Managing DirectorSophie Galaise

Board MembersAndrew DyerDanny GorogMargaret Jackson ACDavid KrasnosteinDavid LiHyon-Ju NewmanHelen Silver AO

Company SecretaryOliver Carton

OBOES

Jeffrey Crellin Principal

Thomas Hutchinson Associate Principal

Ann Blackburn The Rosemary Norman Foundation#

COR ANGLAIS

Michael Pisani Principal

Rachel Curkpatrick*

CLARINETS

David Thomas Principal

Philip Arkinstall Associate Principal

Craig Hill

BASS CLARINET

Jon Craven Principal

BASSOONS

Jack Schiller Principal

Elise Millman Associate Principal

Natasha Thomas

CONTRABASSOON

Brock Imison Principal

Colin Forbes-Abrams*

HORNS

Ben Jacks*† Guest Principal

Saul Lewis Principal Third

Ian Wildsmith* Guest Principal Third

Abbey Edlin Nereda Hanlon and Michael Hanlon AM#

Trinette McClimont

Alexander Morton*Rachel Shaw*‡

TRUMPETS

Geoffrey Payne* Guest Principal

Shane Hooton Associate Principal

William EvansRosie Turner

TROMBONES

Brett Kelly Principal

Richard Shirley Tim and Lyn Edward#

Mike Szabo Principal Bass Trombone

TUBA

Timothy Buzbee Principal

David J. Saltzman*

TIMPANI**

Christopher Lane

PERCUSSION

Robert Clarke Principal

John Arcaro Tim and Lyn Edward#

Robert Cossom

HARP

Yinuo Mu Principal

# Position supported by

* Guest Musician

† Courtesy of Sydney Symphony Orchestra

‡ Courtesy of Orchestra Victoria

** Timpani Chair position supported by Lady Potter AC CMRI

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MSO PATRON The Honourable Linda Dessau AC, Governor of Victoria

CHAIRMAN’S CIRCLEMarc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO The Gross Foundation Harold Mitchell FoundationDavid and Angela LiHarold Mitchell ACMS Newman Family FoundationLady Potter AC CMRIJoy Selby SmithThe Cybec FoundationThe Pratt FoundationThe Ullmer Family FoundationAnonymous (1)

ARTIST CHAIR BENEFACTORSAssociate Conductor Chair Benjamin Northey Anthony Pratt

Orchestral Leadership Joy Selby Smith

Cybec Assistant Conductor Chair Tianyi Lu The Cybec Foundation

Associate Concertmaster Chair Sophie Rowell The Ullmer Family Foundation

2018 Soloist in Residence Chair Anne-Sophie Mutter Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO

Young Composer in Residence Ade Vincent The Cybec Foundation

PROGRAM BENEFACTORS Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers Program The Cybec Foundation

East Meets West Supported by the Li Family Trust

Meet The Orchestra Made possible by The Ullmer Family Foundation

MSO Audience Access Crown Resorts Foundation, Packer Family Foundation

MSO Building Capacity Gandel Philanthropy (Director of Philanthropy)

MSO Education Supported by Mrs Margaret Ross AM and Dr Ian Ross

MSO International Touring Supported by Harold Mitchell AC

MSO Regional Touring Creative Victoria, Freemasons Foundation Victoria, The Robert Salzer Foundation, Anonymous

The Pizzicato Effect (Anonymous), Collier Charitable Fund, The Marian and E.H. Flack Trust, Scobie and Claire Mackinnon Trust, Supported by the Hume City Council’s Community Grants Program

Sidney Myer Free Concerts Supported by the Myer Foundation and the University of Melbourne

PLATINUM PATRONS $100,000+Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO John Gandel AC and Pauline Gandel The Gross Foundation David and Angela LiMS Newman Family Foundation Anthony Pratt The Pratt FoundationLady Potter AC CMRIJoy Selby SmithUllmer Family Foundation Anonymous (1)

VIRTUOSO PATRONS $50,000+ Di Jameson David Krasnostein and Pat StragalinosHarold Mitchell ACKim Williams AM

Supporters

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IMPRESARIO PATRONS $20,000+ Michael Aquilina The John and Jennifer Brukner FoundationMary and Frederick Davidson AMMargaret Jackson ACAndrew JohnstonMimie MacLarenJohn and Lois McKay Maria Solà

MAESTRO PATRONS $10,000+ Kaye and David BirksMitchell ChipmanTim and Lyn EdwardDanny Gorog and Lindy Susskind Robert & Jan GreenHilary Hall, in memory of Wilma CollieThe Hogan Family Foundation International Music and Arts FoundationSuzanne KirkhamThe Cuming BequestGordan Moffat AMIan and Jeannie PatersonElizabeth Proust AOXijian Ren and Qian LiGlenn SedgwickHelen Silver AO and Harrison YoungGai and David TaylorJuliet TootellAlice VaughanHarry and Michelle WongJason Yeap OAM

PRINCIPAL PATRONS $5,000+ Christine and Mark ArmourJohn and Mary BarlowBarbara Bell, in memory of Elsa BellStephen and Caroline BrainProf Ian BrighthopeDavid and Emma CapponiMay and James ChenWendy Dimmick

Andrew Dudgeon AM Andrew and Theresa Dyer Mr Bill FlemingJohn and Diana FrewSusan Fry and Don Fry AOSophie Galaise and Clarence Fraser Geelong Friends of the MSO R Goldberg and FamilyJennifer GorogHMA FoundationLouis Hamon OAMNereda Hanlon and Michael Hanlon AMHans and Petra HenkellHartmut and Ruth HofmannDoug HooleyJenny and Peter HordernDr Alastair JacksonRosemary and James JacobyDr Elizabeth A Lewis AMNorman Lewis, in memory of Dr Phyllis LewisPeter LovellLesley McMullin FoundationMr Douglas and Mrs Rosemary MeagherMarie Morton FRSADr Paul Nisselle AMThe Rosemary Norman Foundation Ken Ong, in memory of Lin OngBruce Parncutt AO Jim and Fran PfeifferPzena Investment Charitable FundAndrew and Judy Rogers Rae RothfieldMax and Jill SchultzJeffrey Sher QC and Diana Sher OAMProfs. G & G Stephenson, in honour of the great Romanian musicians George Enescu and Dinu LipattiTasco PetroleumMr Tam Vu and Dr Cherilyn Tillman The Hon. Michael Watt QC and Cecilie HallLyn Williams AMAnonymous (2)

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ASSOCIATE PATRONS $2,500+ Dandolo PartnersWill and Dorothy Bailey BequestDavid Blackwell OAMAnne BowdenJulia and Jim BreenLynne BurgessOliver CartonJohn and Lyn CoppockAnn Darby, in memory of Leslie J. DarbyNatasha Davies, for the Trikojus Education FundMerrowyn DeaconSandra DentPeter and Leila DoyleDuxton VineyardsLisa Dwyer and Dr Ian DicksonJane Edmanson OAMJaan EndenDr Helen M FergusonMr Peter Gallagher and Dr Karen MorleyDina and Ron GoldschlagerLeon GoldmanColin Golvan AM QC and Dr Deborah GolvanLouise Gourlay OAMSusan and Gary HearstColin Heggen, in memory of Marjorie Drysdale HeggenJenkins Family FoundationJohn JonesGeorge and Grace KassIrene Kearsey and M J RidleyThe Ilma Kelson Music FoundationBryan LawrenceJohn and Margaret MasonH E McKenzieAllan and Evelyn McLarenSue and Barry PeakeMrs W PeartGraham and Christine PeirsonJulie and Ian ReidPeter and Carolyn RenditS M Richards AM and M R RichardsTom and Elizabeth RomanowskiDiana and Brian Snape AMPeter J StirlingAnonymous (8)

PLAYER PATRONS $1,000+ David and Cindy AbbeyChrista AbdallahDr Sally AdamsMary ArmourDr Rosemary Ayton and Dr Sam RicketsonMarlyn and Peter Bancroft OAMAdrienne BasserJanice Bate and the Late Prof Weston BateJanet BellMichael F BoytPatricia BrockmanDr John BrookesStuart BrownSuzie Brown OAM and Harvey BrownRoger and Col BuckleJill and Christopher BuckleyShane BuggleJohn CarrollAndrew and Pamela CrockettPanch Das and Laurel Yound-DasBeryl DeanRick and Sue DeeringDominic and Natalie DirupoJohn and Anne DuncanValerie Falconer and the Rayner Family in memory of Keith FalconerGrant Fisher and Helen BirdBarry Fradkin OAM and Dr Pam FradkinApplebay Pty LtdDavid Frenkiel and Esther Frenkiel OAMDavid Gibbs and Susie O’NeillMerwyn and Greta GoldblattGeorge Golvan QC and Naomi GolvanDr Marged GoodeProf Denise Grocke AOMax GulbinDr Sandra Hacker AO and Mr Ian Kennedy AMJean HadgesMichael and Susie HamsonPaula Hansky OAMMerv Keehn & Sue HarlowTilda and Brian HaughneyAnna and John HoldsworthPenelope HughesBasil and Rita JenkinsDorothy KarpinBrett Kelly and Cindy WatkinDr Anne KennedyJulie and Simon KesselKerry Landman

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Diedrie LazarusWilliam and Magdalena LeadstonGaelle LindreaDr Susan LintonAndrew LockwoodElizabeth H LoftusChris and Anna LongThe Hon Ian Macphee AO and Mrs Julie MacpheeEleanor & Phillip ManciniIn memory of Leigh MaselRuth MaxwellDon and Anne MeadowsIan Morrey and Geoffrey Minternew U MilduraPatricia NilssonLaurence O’Keefe and Christopher JamesAlan and Dorothy PattisonKerryn PratchettPeter PriestTreena QuarinEli RaskinRaspin Family TrustJoan P RobinsonCathy and Peter RogersMartin and Susan ShirleyPenny ShoreDr Sam Smorgon AO and Mrs Minnie SmorgonDr Norman and Dr Sue SonenbergDr Michael SoonLady Southey ACGeoff and Judy SteinickeJennifer SteinickeDr Peter StricklandPamela SwanssonJenny TatchellFrank Tisher OAM and Dr Miriam TisherDavid ValentineMary ValentineThe Hon. Rosemary VartyLeon and Sandra VelikDavid and Yazni VennerSue Walker AMElaine Walters OAM and Gregory WaltersEdward and Paddy WhiteNic and Ann WillcockMarian and Terry Wills CookeLorraine WoolleyRichard YeAnonymous (21)

THE MAHLER SYNDICATE David and Kaye BirksMary and Frederick Davidson AMTim and Lyn EdwardJohn and Diana FrewFrancis and Robyn HofmannThe Hon Dr Barry Jones ACDr Paul Nisselle AMMaria Solà The Hon Michael Watt QC and Cecilie Hall

TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS Collier Charitable FundCrown Resorts Foundation and the Packer Family FoundationThe Cybec FoundationThe Marian and E.H. Flack TrustFreemasons Foundation VictoriaGandel PhilanthropyThe International Music and Arts FoundationThe Scobie and Claire Mackinnon TrustThe Harold Mitchell FoundationThe Sidney Myer MSO Trust FundThe Pratt FoundationThe Robert Salzer FoundationTelematics Trust

Anonymous

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CONDUCTOR’S CIRCLE Current Conductor’s Circle MembersJenny AndersonDavid AngelovichG C Bawden and L de KievitLesley BawdenJoyce BownMrs Jenny Brukner and the late Mr John BruknerKen BullenPeter A CaldwellLuci and Ron ChambersBeryl DeanSandra DentLyn EdwardAlan Egan JPGunta EgliteMr Derek GranthamMarguerite Garnon-WilliamsDrs Clem Gruen and Rhyl WadeLouis Hamon OAMCarol HayTony HoweLaurence O’Keefe and Christopher JamesAudrey M JenkinsJohn JonesGeorge and Grace KassMrs Sylvia LavellePauline and David LawtonCameron MowatRosia PasteurElizabeth Proust AOPenny RawlinsJoan P RobinsonNeil RoussacAnne Roussac-HoyneSuzette SherazeeMichael Ryan and Wendy MeadAnne Kieni-Serpell and Andrew SerpellJennifer ShepherdProfs. Gabriela and George StephensonPamela SwanssonLillian TarryDr Cherilyn TillmanMr and Mrs R P TrebilcockMichael UllmerIla VanrenenThe Hon. Rosemary VartyMr Tam VuMarian and Terry Wills CookeMark YoungAnonymous (26)

The MSO gratefully acknowledges the support of the following Estates:Angela Beagley

Neilma Gantner

The Hon Dr Alan Goldberg AO QC

Gwen Hunt

Audrey Jenkins

Joan Jones

Pauline Marie Johnston

Joan Jones

C P Kemp

Peter Forbes MacLaren

Joan Winsome Maslen

Lorraine Maxine Meldrum

Prof Andrew McCredie

Miss Sheila Scotter AM MBE

Marion A I H M Spence

Molly Stephens

Jennifer May Teague

Jean Tweedie

Herta and Fred B Vogel

Dorothy Wood

The MSO relies on your ongoing philanthropic support to sustain our artists, and support access, education, community engagement and more. We invite our suporters to get close to the MSO through a range of special events.

The MSO welcomes your support at any level. Donations of $2 and over are tax deductible, and supporters are recognised as follows:

$1,000+ (Player)

$2,500+ (Associate)

$5,000+ (Principal)

$10,000+ (Maestro)

$20,000+ (Impresario)

$50,000+ (Virtuoso)

$100,000+ (Platinum)

The MSO Conductor’s Circle is our bequest program for members who have notified of a planned gift in their Will.

Enquiries P (03) 8646 1551 E [email protected]

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Marc Besen AC and Eva Besen AO Life Members

Sir Elton John CBE Life Member

Lady Potter AC CMRI Life Member

Geoffrey Rush AC Ambassador

Honorary Appointments

Honouring Mr Marc Besen AC and Mrs Eva Besen AO, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Life MembersSixty-nine years ago, Marc Besen finally found the perfect moment to propose to girlfriend Eva – after a wonderful ABC Symphony Orchestra concert, as the MSO was known back then. It worked and Marc and Eva have been happily married – and attending MSO performances ever since.

While known across Melbourne for their retail businesses, including shopping centres and the women’s fashion store Sussan, today Marc and Eva are recognised primarily for their philanthropy. In 1996 they established the Besen Family Foundation, through which they support a number of organisations in the areas of arts and culture, health and welfare and Jewish causes. In 2003 they also confirmed their commitment to the visual arts by building the TarraWarra Art Museum, the first privately funded public art gallery in Australia – a gift to the people of this nation.

Tonight we honour their extraordinary support of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra over the years by recognising them as our newest MSO Life Members. Not only have they been instrumental in the MSO’s international touring plans as major supporters of our 2014 European Tour, but they are also help bring the stars of the classical world to Melbourne.

Through their funding of the International Artist Chair, Mr Besen said they hope to bring a younger audience to the concert hall to experience the excitement of music performed by the best. Thanks to the Besens, the MSO can perform with artists of such calibre as Anne-Sophie Mutter, Maxim Vengerov and Christian Tetzlaff at concerts like this evening’s Mid-Season Gala.

Thank you, Marc and Eva, for your truly outstanding contribution to Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and to music in Melbourne.

THE MSO HONOURS THE MEMORY OF

John Brockman OAM Life Member

The Honourable Alan Goldberg AO QC Life Member

Ila Vanrenen Life Member

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Come dream with us by adopting your own MSO musician!Support the music and the orchestra you love while getting to know your favourite player. Honour their talent, artistry and life-long commitment to music, and become part of the MSO family.

Adopt Principal Harp, Yinuo Mu, or any of our wonderful musicians today.

– Arthur O’Shaughnessy

‘ We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.'

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PRINCIPAL PARTNER

GOVERNMENT PARTNERS

PREMIER PARTNERS VENUE PARTNER

MAJOR PARTNERS EDUCATION PARTNERS

SUPPORTING PARTNERS

The CEO InstituteQuest Southbank Bows for StringsErnst & Young

TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS

MEDIA AND BROADCAST PARTNERS

The Scobie and Claire Mackinnon Trust, Sidney Myer MSO Trust Fund

The Gross Foundation, Li Family Trust, MS Newman Family Foundation, The Ullmer Family Foundation

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