Simone Young Unveils Sydney Symphony Orchestra 2025
Unveiling the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s 2025 program, Chief Conductor Simone Young affirms that “Music is all about connection.” Entering her fourth year at the helm of the orchestra, Young is in Sydney between conducting Ring Cycles at the Bayreuth Festival Opera House, the first Australian and woman to do so. She is excited about forging new connections whilst maintaining established ones and inviting a deep engagement with the upcoming program adding “We reconnect with great works and great artists and make new connections with rising stars and less familiar masterpieces.”
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s 2024 program has contained an embarrassment of riches with Young conducting Mahler’s Symphony No 3 in the season opener, followed by other highlights conducting Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, Mozart, Schumann and a concert production of Wagner’s Die Walküre. Stellar solo artists included Víkingur Ólafsson playing the Goldberg Variations, Notre Dame’s titular organist Olivier Latry, violinist Augustin Hadelich and cellist Matthew Barley. Principal Guest Conductor Donald Runnicles is a major presence, Osmo Vänskä conducted Sibelius and Vassily Petrenko will conduct Stravinsky in November. There was also Baroque repertoire, chamber music, contemporary, Indigenous and children’s fare.
The 2025 season is no less engaging. Its 44 concert programs will include Australian and international artists from around the world, 11 Sydney Symphony debuts and seven world premieres. This fourth season with the orchestra is the first year of a two-year extension of Young’s tenure. “I’m having a great time with the orchestra and they seem to be a great time with me. So long may it last” she quips at an informal presentation of the season.
The trend of opening the year with a Mahler symphony will continue with the third symphony as the curtain raiser in February. On that bill is a familiar name from the 2023 concert version of Das Rheingold. Says Young, “You will remember a tall, beautiful, statuesque woman who appeared about ten minutes before the end as Erda and walked through the orchestra, came to the front and just astonished everybody with the beauty of her singing. Well, that’s Noa Beinart.” As well as performing under Young in Mahler’s Symphony No.3, Beinert will return in November 2025 to sing in Siegfried with Young. So impressed with Beinert is Young that she asked the contralto to audition for Bayreuth where she will be singing in Young’s Ring Cycle there in 2024.
The third of Wagner’s Ring Cycle operas, Siegfried, a concertante production sees the return of soprano Samantha Clarke and baritone Wolfgang Koch from Das Rheingold in 2023 with other Antipodean stars Warwick Fyfe, Simon O’Neill and Teddy Tahu Rhodes. The production will introduce soprano Anje Kampe and tenor Gerhard Siegel to Sydney audiences. This ensemble encapsulates what Young believes about her casting in creating continuity and building relationships with performers. She explains, “I feel very strongly that the audience wants to create relationships with its orchestra and the orchestra’s soloists and the guest artists who come to the city, not just the Chief Conductor and the Principal Guest Conductor. I want to pick two or three of the best (soloists) and create a relationship with them and with the audience.”
Hard to believe, but Young has never conducted a performance of Beethoven‘s Symphony No. 9 in Australia. Redressing this breach, she will conduct a quartet of Antipodeans comprising Clarke, mezzo-soprano Deborah Humble, O’Neill and bass Samuel Dundas in her November Australian debut of this masterwork.
The year also presents the opportunity to hear young stars like violinist Christian Li and pianist Eva Gevorgyan, legends like Sir Stephen Hough, Lang Lang, Daniil Trifonov and Marc-André Hamelin, cellists Daniel Müller-Schott and Li-Wei Qin and violinist James Ehnes. Sir Donald Runnicles continues in his role as Principal Guest Conductor and Benjamin Northey will be Conductor in Residence for 2025 and 2026, supporting the Schools, Emerging Artists and Regional Touring Progams along with conductor development.
The SSO boasts numerous ensemble players who are soloists in their own right. Celebrating his 50th birthday, Concertmaster Andrew Haveron, who previously led the BBC Symphony Orchestra, will perform Elgar’s Violin Concerto, Associate Concertmaster Harry Bennetts will play Beethoven’s Violin Concerto conducted by Umberto Clerici and trumpeter Dave Elton will feature in Janáček’s Sinfonietta conducted by Young, alongside Dvořák’s Cello Concerto featuring Kian Soltani, described by Young as a “magnificent soloist resident in Vienna, who came to the fore through his relationship with Daniel Barenboim and Daniel’s son Mischa with whom he played in a trio for a while. Originally from Daniel’s East West Divan Orchestra, Daniel’s orchestra that brings Palestinian and Israeli musicians together (which is) more important than ever now, Kian is one of the most exciting cellists in the world today. I’ve worked with him twice and it’s been a joy both times. He’s quite extraordinary and I fully expect Sydney to totally fall in love with him.”
There will be music for smaller forces with chamber and solo recitals in the Utzon Room and the City Recital Hall. Australian composers will be showcased in ten programs including the last stages of the 50 Fanfares Commission which will give a platform to music by Carl Vine, Ian Grandage, Bree Van Reyk and Kate Moore amongst others. Music by Brenda Gifford, Christopher Sainsbury, Nardi Simpson and Aaron Wyatt will be showcased in The Sounds of Australia as William Barton creates a new commission to accompany Beethoven’s Symphony 9, a challenging task as, says Young, “Beethoven’s ninth symphony is such an item for itself that anything you put before it feels unnecessary unless it’s going to make a strong statement and who better to give us that than Will. He’s already listening to it while he goes on long walks. Not that he’s going to try and create something like it, but he wants to create his own response to this music and something that speaks to a contemporary audience about this music. I think that’s pretty exciting.” There will be special collaborations with the regional Signature Choir in Mana Moana conducted by Jessica Gethin and singer songwriter Kutcha Edwards in Ngarli-Wangu.
Young’s concept of ‘connection’ is a potent starting point for the 2025 SSO program which then bursts into a flow chart of elite performances from familiar artists and new and repertoire that will please, challenge and develop the art of symphonic music in its many facets.
It’s not only Bayreuth where Young has graced the podium recently. She has wielded her baton conducting Vaughan Williams with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and soon she will conduct the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the New York Philharmonic. Young brings her invaluable first-hand knowledge of artists, repertoire and development to the SSO along with her championing of Australian music and musicians. Long indeed may it continue.
More at https://www.sydneysymphony.com/
Shamistha de Soysa for SoundsLikeSydney©
Read our review of the SSO’s The Protecting Veil.
