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Sydney Youth Orchestra La Mer
March 26, 2023 @ 2:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Water. Earth. Fire. Air. The Sydney Youth Orchestra masters all four elements to bring you this exciting program. It’s the first concert of SYO’s 50th year in which they will welcome SYO Alumni Toby Thatcher back to Australia to conduct this program, entitled La Mer.
The concert is an incredible opportunity to witness Sydney’s most talented young musicians come together to perform a selection of pieces inspired by the sea. With Toby Thatcher at the helm, the program begins with Fiona Hill’s Śūnyatā (pronounced “shoonyata”), a textural and microtonal experience that toys with the Buddhist concepts of emptiness and our grounding connection to the earth.
In a change of scene, the orchestra moves to Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from his opera Peter Grimes, to take the audience on a brooding seaside journey featuring crashing cymbal waves, thunderous timpani and turbulent winds.
Inspired by Vija Celmins’ photorealistic drawings of natural environments, Lisa Illean’s Land’s End is next on the elemental line-up with its subtle changes in dynamics, timbre and tonality before the program concludes with Debussy’s La Mer.
The program: HILL Śūnyatā/ BRITTEN Four Sea Interludes/ ILLEAN Land’s End/ DEBUSSY La Mer
Read our review of SYO’s 2021 concert Celebration of Stravinsky.