Sydney Youth Orchestras Chamber Music Festival

Sydney Youth Orchestras will be presenting a day-long series of chamber-sized concerts in an imaginative response to dealing with COVID-19 restrictions applying to both player and audience numbers. Five short-form concerts will be staged at roughly two-hour intervals through the day in a festival format. Audience movement will be managed safely and at leisure.

Due to the social distancing and the reduced audience numbers, this concert is limited to valued families. However, the whole day will be livestreamed via SYO’s Facebook page. The five short concerts with smaller groups playing Ibert, Arnold, Cage, Dvorak, Golijov, Copland, Piazzola, Reich and others, will replace the previously planned bigger works by Brahms and Tchaikovsky.

SYO Artistic Director Christopher Lawrence says ‘We can break ourselves down from symphony orchestra to chamber music groups without diluting our training remit. In fact, there are huge benefits for our players. We can challenge them with a broader range of repertoire and offer more individual face-to-face exposure with their Chief Conductor. The accent through our Term 3 tuition changes subtly from rank-and-file ensemble playing to a drill-down of individual technique. We’ll become a collective of soloists.”

In preparation for the concert, each section of the 0rchestra will work with leading specialist tutors. The string section will rehearse a Boccherini cello concerto and Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik with Sydney Symphony Orchestra Principal Cello Umberto Clerici, who’ll also run workshops on classical sonata form and ornamentation. Andrew Haveron (SSO Concertmaster) will rehearse and perform the Concerto for Two Violins by Malcolm Arnold, with SYO Concertmaster Marcus Michelsen.

SYO’s wind section will play Gounod and Mozart with Bridget Bolliger; the brass section performs Piazzola and Mendelssohn with Scott Kinmont; (both from Sydney Symphony Ochestra) and the percussionists stretch their soloistic skills in a thrilling contemporary music concert of Cage, Reich and First Nations composer Brenda Gifford, rehearsed with Claire Edwardes (AD of Ensemble Offspring and SYO alumna).

Alexander Briger AO will conduct the mixed ensemble groups in Ibert’s Divertissement, Dvorak’s Wind Serenade, and the show-stopping Last Round by Osvaldo Golijov.

CONCERT ONE, 11.30AM: STRINGS/ UMBERTO CLERICI tutor, director, soloist/ Mozart, Boccherini, Rota
CONCERT TWO, 2.00PM: MIXED ENSEMBLE I/ ALEXANDER BRIGER AO, conductor/ Golijov, Dvorak
CONCERT THREE, 3.30PM: MIXED ENSEMBLE II/ALEXANDER BRIGER AO, conductor/ ANDREW HAVERON tutor soloist/ MARCUS        MICHELSEN – SYO Concert Master, soloist/ Arnold, Ibert
CONCERT FOUR, 5.30PM: BRASS AND PERCUSSION/ SCOTT KINMONT & CLAIRE EDWARDES tutors/ Copland, Cage, Piazzola,             Brenda Gifford, Mendelssohn, Reich
CONCERT FIVE, 7.30PM: WIND AND STRINGS/ BRIDGET BOLLIGER, tutor/ Gounod, Mozart