Susie Park Returns To The Balmain Sinfonia

The Balmain Sinfonia concludes its 2014 season with a concert of classics that features a reunion with violinist Susie Park. 

In 1995, Sydney teenager Susie Park won the Balmain Sinfonia Concerto Competition and the Richard Goldner Award, with her performance of Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2. She went on to play that concerto with the Sinfonia in a full, major concert program in a brilliant and mature interpretation. Since then her career has blossomed overseas , performing at some of the world’s iconic concert halls in Vienna, New York, Boston, Copenhagen and many more. 

Susie Park is now based in New York. She has appeared as soloist with the Vienna Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Memphis Symphony, Orchestra of St. Luke’s and major Australian orchestras. As well, she has worked with conductors Simon Rattle, Hans Vonk and Yehudi Menuhin. Her numerous awards and honours include the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, Wieniawski Competition (Poland) and the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition (France), resulting in performances and re-engagements throughout the US and Europe. 

Now, Susie Park returns to Sydney to headline the Sinfonia’s final concert for 2014 featuring in Brahms’ sublime Violin Concerto. The program also includes Mendelssohn’s Ruy Blas Overture and Dvořák’s Symphony No. 6. 

Founder and musical director/conductor of the Balmain Sinfonia, Gary Stavrou, said he was proud and thrilled to see the blossoming international career one the Sinfonia’s own concerto competition winners. He said Brahms’ only violin concerto is one of those pieces that can only be fully realised by a world-class musician. “The raw and rugged sound of the outer movements is contrasted with an Adagio of exquisite, silky beauty; it has an intimacy that very few composers have truly been able to create.”  Full of spontaneous, sweeping melodies, Ruy Blas is one of Mendelssohn’s most popular works and Dvorak’s 6th Symphony includes the rich colours and textures of the Czech folk music of Dvořák’s childhood.

The Programme:

Mendelssohn: Ruy Blas Overture

Brahms: Violin Concerto

Dvořák: Symphony No. 6

The Balmain Sinfonia, conducted by Gary Stavrou

Tickets $25 / $20 concession at the door or book www.balmainsinfonia.com or 9181 3929 .