Latest news with #SydneySymphonyOrchestra
ABC News
14-07-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Sydney Symphony Orchestra: Christian Li performs Korngold
17-year-old Australian violin sensation Christian Li, teams up with charismatic Brazilian conductor Eduardo Strausser and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for this exciting concert of American music. Christian Li was the youngest-ever winner of the Menuhin Competition and brings lyrical brilliance and cinematic flair to Korngold's Violin Concerto, which draws its themes from the composer's Hollywood film scores. The evening opens with the world premiere of Australian composer Bree van Reyk's Fanfare for Solidarity, a joyful tribute to the orchestra's stand for marriage equality. Recorded live in concert at Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on 28 June 2025. Producer André Shrimski. Engineers Jack Prest, Virginia Read and Andrew Edgson. Program Bree van Reyk: Fanfare for Solidarity Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Violin Concerto in D, Op.35 Jules Massenet: Thaïs - Méditation George Gershwin: Cuban Overture - Rhumba Leonard Bernstein: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story Artists Timothy Constable (tambourine) Rebecca Lagos (tambourine) Joshua Hill (tambourine) Christian Li (violin) Sydney Symphony Orchestra Eduardo Strausser (conductor) Find out more Read the concert program
ABC News
09-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- ABC News
Symphony musician's move to the Hawkesbury River sparks new career
Central Coast resident Marnie Sebire, who captains an oyster boat during the day and performs with an orchestra at night, says she has "the best of both worlds". Ms Sebire is a French hornist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and drives her boat, The High Cs, to work each day from her home on the Hawkesbury River. In 2021 the 51-year-old relocated from the hustle and bustle of Sydney's North Shore to her Bar Point home, which is only accessible by water. The only catch was that she'd never driven a boat. "It was serendipity — a friend was selling the house and I had actually just sold my house in Sydney," Ms Sebire said. "COVID had shut everything down. I was thinking about what it meant to be an artist during that time and it provoked a reassessment of my priorities. "I bought the house and I haven't looked back." Beginning a life on the water was a steep learning curve that required rethinking the most basic aspects of life. "[You have] to be organised, you can't just pop down the street for a bottle of milk," Ms Sebire said. A simple task like grocery shopping can be "labour intensive". "You've got to get [the shopping] from the shop to the car, then into the boat, in an esky and eventually upstairs into the house," Ms Sebire said. "The biggest thing is how to handle a boat … without it, you couldn't live on a boat-access property." Ms Sebire wanted to feel totally independent on the water, so she enrolled in a maritime course at TAFE. "Out here you're really reliant upon yourself, " she said. "I knew that I needed to know a lot more about boating if I was going to be living here for a long time. "The focus of the course was getting familiar with what a boat is and how it operates … it was essential knowledge." Ms Sebire followed up with an additional course and qualified as a coxswain, which means she can command and operate a vessel up to 12 metres in length. It's a skill that has opened up opportunities she would never have previously imagined, but she needed access to a bigger boat in order to undertake the training. "I had to find someone who was willing to let me work on their vessel and I bumped into a fifth generation oyster farmer … and it went from there," Ms Sebire said. Ms Sebire started playing the French horn in her early teens. Over the years she has toured with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Australian World Orchestra and Silverchair during the 2008 Big Day Out festival. Nowadays Ms Sebire's office is the Sydney Opera House. "Generally we do four performances a week — there's a lot of travel backwards and forwards," she said. But she is still touring as the captain of an oyster boat. "It's a bit of a balancing act, [but] to have this within an hour of Sydney blows my mind," Ms Sebire said. "Sharing this place with others is something I can see myself doing long into the future. "I've done a lot of travelling and I just didn't think there was anything like this, that I could balance my music and life on the water.
ABC News
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Musicians like Abel Selaocoe are broadening classical music to reflect our evolving stories
As a tradition spanning centuries, classical music has a rich history of composers, performers and music-lovers. But for most of us, classical music is typified by a small group of European male composers from the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven. "Classical music is not immune to politics, prejudices and world forces that have affected all kinds of art forms," says Jessica Cottis, the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. One of Cottis's main tasks is selecting music the orchestra rehearses and performs. This includes concert staples by beloved composers as well as newly commissioned music that reflects our ever-changing stories. And the audience, she says, are very excited to go on the journey with her. Cottis and other musicians discuss how classical music is a living, breathing art form. Australia's state symphony orchestras and institutions have a decades-long history of supporting Australian music. However, this support wasn't always as available for musicians from diverse and marginalised backgrounds, or who deviated from the sounds of the classical 'canon.' In the ABC's early years, trailblazing composer Margaret Sutherland frequently criticised the broadcaster for inopportune placement of Australian music. During the first live televised concert by the ABC in 1957, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra had only a handful of women in its ranks. There has been progress, albeit slow. Noongar man Aaron Wyatt became the first Indigenous person to conduct an Australian state orchestra as recently as 2022. In recent years, the sustained efforts of advocates in broadening music selection in Australia has accelerated, Cottis says. "We're now much more in a place where audiences can see [beloved classics] like Mahler alongside Australian composers and no one will blink twice," she says. This shift in attitude has opened up classical music's wealth of creative voices. "Australians have a very strong acoustic identity with land and landscape through our Indigenous connection," Cottis says. She relishes the challenge of presenting Australia's multiple histories and lifting up diverse sets of voices. "As a conductor and a programmer, it's fascinating to find ways to create programs that tell stories through music, whether that was written 100 years ago, 200 years ago or in 2025," Cottis says. When cellist Abel Selaocoe visited Australia in April, he proved how classical music can co-exist with African musical traditions. Selaocoe, who grew up in South Africa's Johannesburg, incorporates throat-singing and percussion as part of his performances. During his Australian debut with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Selaocoe asked orchestral members to learn each other's languages through singing and improvising with their voices. "The different thing that binds cultures together is the idea of the voice," he says. During his visit to ABC Classic's studios, Selaocoe demonstrated how he combines the Western classical music and African influences which are equally important to his identity. Music hasn't always simply been for pleasure for Selaocoe, who grew up in post-apartheid South Africa as a black person. "This is our survival tactic," he says. "I think living in the township [around Johannesburg], you are very aware that other children who maybe live in the suburbs or live in better conditions, have opportunities." Selaocoe's love for music took him to the African Cultural Organisation of South Africa, an outreach program for young South Africans in Soweto. Later, he pursued his studies to Manchester in England, where Selaocoe refined his unique musical style. Selaocoe's international collaborators include the London Symphony Orchestra and Chineke! Orchestra, an ensemble focused on diversity and inclusion in classical music. Melbourne-based guzheng virtuoso Mindy Meng Wang has been gracing Australian stages for a decade. The instrument has a venerable musical tradition going back 2,500 years. In Meng Wang's hands, the guzheng becomes a bridge between Chinese and Western classical music traditions. Meng Wang's practice includes experimenting with expanding the guzheng's musical capabilities, such as finding different tuning systems and working with composers on new repertoire. "The guzheng is traditionally tuned to a pentatonic scale, which makes a unique and singular sound world," Meng Wang explains. "For me, working with Western music is like learning to speak a different language on the same instrument." Meng Wang recently premiered the Concerto for Guzheng and Orchestra by Australian composer Jessica Wells, marking the first concerto for the instrument written outside China. The concerto was part of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's Metropolis Festival, designed to showcase music by Australian composers. Meng Wang describes the process of working with Wells as very collaborative, from finding children's tales which underpin the concerto to workshopping Meng Wang's role in the orchestra. "I played the role of a demon, which then transformed into a beautiful ghost girl," Meng Wang says. "In the concerto, I played two differently tuned guzheng, which represent the shifting of the story and my visual and musical transformations." Meng Wang's growing list of collaborators includes pianist Paul Grabowsky, composer and soprano Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, the Australian Art Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. She says her favourite aspect of collaboration is leveraging music's power to create "a space where we can share stories without language." Stream the Australian Chamber Orchestra's concert with cellist Abel Selaocoe on Front Row with Megan Burslem on ABC iview.
The Age
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
What it takes to master ‘the best job in the world'
Conductor Benjamin Northey is reflecting on more than two decades leading major orchestras here and overseas. 'There's nothing like it. It's got to be the best job in the world. You're in this privileged position where you get to connect with these amazing works of art all the time.' Now he is aiming to pass on that privilege – and all the complex skills needed to exercise it – to the next generation, having been appointed inaugural professor of conducting at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He adds that job to his current roles as principal conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and conductor in residence of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. 'It's a tremendous opportunity,' he says. 'It was unexpected in many ways but I was thrilled. 'This role offers me the chance to help shape the future of Australian music, ensuring the next generation understands and values music's essential role in our society.' Northey's appointment comes at a time of growing interest in the art of conducting, brought on in part by the high-profile success here and overseas of Sydney Symphony Orchestra chief conductor Simone Young as well as other young rising stars such as Sydneysider Sam Weller. Northey came to conducting by a circuitous route. Initially, he studied woodwinds, playing saxophone, flute and clarinet professionally in his 20s before enrolling in a conducting course at Melbourne Conservatorium. In 2001, he won the Symphony Australia young conductor of the year award and went on to study at Helsinki's Sibelius Academy, 'the global mecca of conductor training'.
Sydney Morning Herald
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
What it takes to master ‘the best job in the world'
Conductor Benjamin Northey is reflecting on more than two decades leading major orchestras here and overseas. 'There's nothing like it. It's got to be the best job in the world. You're in this privileged position where you get to connect with these amazing works of art all the time.' Now he is aiming to pass on that privilege – and all the complex skills needed to exercise it – to the next generation, having been appointed inaugural professor of conducting at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. He adds that job to his current roles as principal conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and conductor in residence of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. 'It's a tremendous opportunity,' he says. 'It was unexpected in many ways but I was thrilled. 'This role offers me the chance to help shape the future of Australian music, ensuring the next generation understands and values music's essential role in our society.' Northey's appointment comes at a time of growing interest in the art of conducting, brought on in part by the high-profile success here and overseas of Sydney Symphony Orchestra chief conductor Simone Young as well as other young rising stars such as Sydneysider Sam Weller. Northey came to conducting by a circuitous route. Initially, he studied woodwinds, playing saxophone, flute and clarinet professionally in his 20s before enrolling in a conducting course at Melbourne Conservatorium. In 2001, he won the Symphony Australia young conductor of the year award and went on to study at Helsinki's Sibelius Academy, 'the global mecca of conductor training'.
