DISCOVER DEBUSSY. DEBUSSY Prélude a l après-midi d un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) DEBUSSY Clair de lune (Moonlight) HARRIS Motet

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1 SEASON 2007 DISCOVERY PROGRAM PRESENTED BY TENIX DISCOVER DEBUSSY Tuesday 12 June 6.30pm City Recital Hall Angel Place Richard Gill conductor Sydney Sinfonia DEBUSSY Prélude a l après-midi d un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) First performed 22 December 1894 This concert will be recorded for later broadcast in the summer on ABC Radio National. DEBUSSY Clair de lune (Moonlight) Composed as a piano work in 1890; this version orchestrated by Arthur Luck. The ABC Classics DVD of the Discovery Program is now available. Buy online at sydneysymphony.com/shop HARRIS Motet Orchestral version first performed in 2004 PRESENTING PARTNER

2 ABOUT THE CONDUCTOR RICHARD GILL conductor SANDRA & PAUL SALTERI CHAIR OF ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, EDUCATION Richard Gill is the Artistic Director of the Sydney Symphony s Education Program. He was recently appointed Music Director of the newly formed Victorian Opera Company. He has also been Artistic Director of OzOpera, Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, and Advisor for the Musica Viva in Schools Program. He regularly conducts for Opera Australia and OzOpera, and in recent seasons he has conducted Meet the Music concerts with the Sydney Symphony, and Discovery concerts with the Sydney Sinfonia; concerts with the Canberra Symphony and the Queensland Orchestra; choral masterclasses and The World s Biggest Singing Lesson at the UWA Perth International Arts Festival; Sing Your Own Opera at the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts; The Marriage of Figaro for Opera Queensland; and Messiah for Sydney Philharmonia. His repertoire includes Orpheus in the Underworld, Faust, The Gondoliers, Moya Henderson s Lindy, The Eighth Wonder by Alan John and Dennis Watkins, Macbeth, Rigoletto, Lucia di Lammermoor, Il trovatore, Roméo et Juliette, La Périchole, The Merry Widow, Fidelio, Turandot, The Pearl Fishers, The Force of Destiny, Dido and Aeneas, Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and The Love for Three Oranges. Recently he conducted Handel s Julius Caesar for Opera Australia s Melbourne season. For OzOpera he has conducted Carmen, The Magic Flute, La bohème and The Barber of Seville. His music theatre repertoire includes Jonathan Mills The Ghost Wife, of which he conducted the premiere in Melbourne, and performances in Adelaide, Sydney and London. Richard Gill has received numerous accolades, including an Order of Australia Medal, the Bernard Heinze Award, an Honorary Doctorate from the Edith Cowan University of Western Australia, the Australian Music Centre s award for Most Distinguished Contribution to the Presentation of Australian Composition by an individual, and the Australia Council s prestigious Don Banks Award in 2006.

3 ABOUT THE MUSIC CLAUDE DEBUSSY (born St Germain-en-Laye, France, 1862; died Paris, 1918) Parallels have always been drawn between Debussy s delicately sensuous wash of sounds and the play of light and water in the paintings of the Impressionists. However, his music is more accurately compared to the Symbolist poets and painters who also flourished in France in the closing decades of the 19th century. The Symbolists envied music s freedom from concrete ideas and images; they strived to capture its ability to express the inexpressible, to allude to meaning without stating it openly. The three leading poets named in a Symbolist manifesto were Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine; Debussy set the poetry of all three to music and even wrote his own poetry in a similar style. Clair de lune (Moonlight), is drawn from Debussy s Suite bergamasque for piano. It alludes to a Verlaine poem of the same name, of which Debussy was clearly fond since he also set it as a song twice. While the poem conjures images of old-fashioned masqueraders, Debussy s impression seems to capture Verlaine s calm moonlight, sad and lovely, that makes the birds dream in the trees and the fountains sob with ecstasy The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun refers to Mallarmé s most famous poem ( L Après-midi d un faune ), a dreamlike account of a faun remembering an amorous encounter with two wood-nymphs. Debussy s languorous daubs of sound evoke Mallarmé s sultry atmosphere; the flowing lines demonstrate the arabesque style related both to Moorish architecture and the tendrils of curling hair seen on the women of the Art Nouveau. One of the foremost concerns of French composers in the late 19th century was the establishment of a palpably French musical style, an alternative to the Austro-Germanic traditions that had dominated European composition for several hundred years. Debussy s contribution to this was not always recognised at the time, particularly by the older, more Pierre Boulez once said that modern music awoke with the premiere of Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. On 22 December 1894, in the Salle d Harcourt, Paris, the faun s flute ushered in a new world of structure, rhythm, harmonic relations and colour, and perhaps, more than any other single work, reoriented the development of music in the succeeding century. Those nymphs, I want to perpetuate them. So bright, Their light rosy flesh, that it flutters in the air Drowsy with tangled slumbers. Did I love a dream? My doubt, hoard of ancient night, draws to a close In many a subtle branch, which, themselves remaining true wood, prove, alas! that all alone I offered Myself as a triumph the perfect sin of roses. Extract from Mallarmé s Afternoon of a Faun translated by Alan Edwards

4 conservative generation of French musicians. One critic commented that the Debussyan mist was every bit as bad as the Wagnerian fog. The composer Camille Saint-Saëns said that the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun had a pretty sound but was no more a piece of music than the palette on which a painter has been working is a picture. More recently, Debussy s composition has been described by many (including Pierre Boulez) as the birth of modern music, and the epitome of French compositional style. SEBASTIAN HARRIS (born Tasmania, 1981) About the Composer Sebastian Harris studied bassoon at the University of Melbourne, and composition at the Victorian College of the Arts. His work Colonial Dreaming (2002) was composed as part of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra s Young Composers Program. He worked as composer, musical director, and performer for Chaology (2004), a collaborative audio-visual publication funded by the City of Melbourne. He has also had works performed as part of An Evening with Leunig at the Astor Theatre, and The Conservative Preference: An Electoral Recital, an experimental performance of new chamber music at the VCA s Grant Street Theatre. About the Music Many of Harris works are named for the form they are in or the purpose they serve, often with a degree of historical allusion. Harris writes that he composes with the intention of using the practices of the past to realise the necessary expressions of the future. The Motet draws its title from perhaps the most significant form of vocal polyphony between the 13th and 18th centuries. While Harris s work has neither text nor voices, the composer believes that they are connected as spiritual expressions. Harris s Motet meditates on the cycle of life and death; the work is born out of silence and returns to stillness, with the sometimes frantic musical lines growing organically out of each other along the way. The work s own structure is not cyclic but semi-palindromic, a single arc that seems to remind us that from dust we are created, and to dust we must return. The Motet was originally composed for trombone quintet in and orchestrated in its present form in NOTES BY ANGHARAD DAVIS AYO MUSIC PRESENTATION FELLOW

5 THE SYDNEY SINFONIA GOVERNMENT SUPPORT The Sydney Symphony is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council and by the NSW Ministry for the Arts. The Sydney Sinfonia is a specialist ensemble combining the experience of Sydney Symphony musicians and Australia s most accomplished tertiary music students. The Sydney Sinfonia performs through New South Wales and provides music students with the chance to be mentored by Sydney Symphony musicians. The Sydney Sinfonia is part of the Sydney Symphony s Education Program and is supported by Leighton Holdings and the NSW Ministry for the Arts. FIRST VIOLINS Kirsten Williams* Léone Ziegler* Thomas Dethlefs# Christina Morris Alexander Norton Manu Berkeljon SECOND VIOLINS Susan Dobbie* Stan Kornel* Victoria Jacono# Daniel Kowalik Reafen Liu Sonja Schebeck VIOLAS Sandro Costantino* Charlotte Burbrook de Vere Caroline Fairgrieve Joanna Tobin# Yi Lin Zhu CELLOS Adrian Wallis* Mathisha Panagoda Martin Penicka# Christopher Pidcock Patrick Suthers DOUBLE BASSES David Murray* Elizabeth Hawryluk Jessica Holmes HARPS Louise Johnson* Owen Torr (casual) PIANO Josephine Allan* FLUTES Rosamund Plummer* Kiri Birtles Kate Lawson OBOES Alexandre Oguey* David Papp Jonathan Ryan CLARINETS Frank Celata* Guy Spielman BASSOONS Roger Brooke* Chloe Turner HORNS Ben Jacks* Katy Hermann Frankie Lo Surdo Alexander Love FLUGELHORNS John Foster* Simon Hilberding TROMBONE Neill Ryan * Sydney Symphony Musician # Sydney Symphony Fellow BASS TROMBONE Colin Burrows TUBA Antonio Neilley Menendez de Llano LOW BRASS MENTOR Scott Kinmont* TIMPANI Chiron Meller PERCUSSION Philip South# Murray Parker During the 2007 season Sydney Symphony program covers will feature photos that celebrate the Orchestra s history over the past 75 years. The photographs on the covers will change approximately once a month, and if you subscribe to one of our concert series you will be able to collect a set over the course of the year. COVER PHOTOGRAPHS (clockwise from top left): Couple looking at an SSO Youth Concerts brochure, 1960s; Gianluigi Gelmetti; Edo de Waart s farewell gala concert, November 2003; Proms audience playing penny whistles in McCabe s Mini Concerto for organ, orchestra and 485 penny whistles (17 February 1968); Cliff Goodchild, former Principal Tuba, early 1960s; 75 Years of Inspiring Music; Dene Olding, Co- Concertmaster; Diana Doherty, Principal Oboe

6 THE PARTNER SALUTE Leighton Holdings Limited is delighted to join the Sydney Symphony as Presenting Partner of the Sydney Sinfonia. Sydney Sinfonia s unique structure and format drive a dynamic culture of professional development and innovative performance, not only benefiting the young musicians involved, but also contributing to a greater understanding of classical music within the community regardless of age. As part of our ongoing commitment to the communities we work within, Leighton is proud to support the current and future generations of talented orchestral musicians as they entertain, educate and inspire us. Geoff Ashton Chairman, Leighton Holdings PLAYING YOUR PART Richard Gill, the Sydney Symphony s acclaimed educator and musician, has worked with Australia s leading musicians and music teachers to create our innovative and world-renowned Education Program. We bridge the gap between classroom and concert hall by producing high quality resources and offering development programs to assist teachers, giving inspiring concerts to school children and awarding fellowships to postgraduate musicians. To support our activities and help enrich our community with the wonder of music, please contribute by making a donation. Call Caroline Mark (02) , caroline.mark@sydneysymphony.com or write to Sydney Symphony, GPO Box 4972, Sydney NSW 2001 EDUCATION PROGRAM The Sydney Symphony Education Program Our range of programs encourages people to respond to music in a number of ways. They include: School Concerts for all ages, with supporting educational materials and teacher seminars; Playerlink and Regional Tours, bringing the orchestra to children in regional areas; Sydney Sinfonia, tonight s ensemble, providing a career pathway and mentoring for emerging professional musicians; Sydney Symphony Sinfonietta, an elite ensemble drawn from the Sinfonia to perform contemporary repertoire; Sydney Symphony Fellowship Program, providing opportunities for young professional musicians to work closely with the Orchestra; James Fairfax Young Artist Program, enhancing the experience of Fellowship holders through work on chamber music repertoire; and Discovery, a concert series for adults that examines how orchestral music works. Presenting Partner Sydney Symphony Education Program Presenting Partner Sydney Sinfonia Sandra & Paul Salteri Principal Patrons of Richard Gill OAM, Artistic Director Geoff & Vicki Ainsworth Patrons, Sydney Symphony Sinfonietta James Fairfax AO Principal Patron, James Fairfax Young Artist Program Elizabeth Albert and Robert O. Albert AO Supporting Patrons, James Fairfax Young Artist Program The Clitheroe Foundation Patron, Sydney Symphony Violin Fellowship 2007 Penny Edwards Patron, Sydney Symphony Violin Fellowship 2007 The Paramor Family Patron, Sydney Symphony Viola Fellowship 2007 Mrs Warwick Stening Patron, Sydney Sinfonia Viola & Cello Chair & Sydney Symphony Cello Fellowship 2007 Sandra and Neil Burns Patrons, Sydney Symphony Wind Fellowship 2007 Dr Bruno and Mrs Rhonda Giuffre Fellowship Extension Project 2007 Mr and Mrs E.J. Merewether Bruce and Joy Reid Foundation Supporting Patrons, Fellowship 2007 Mrs Patricia M. Dixson Patron, Regional Touring Dr John Roarty, in memory of June Roarty Patron, Sydney Sinfonia Violin Chair Rosemary Pryor Patron, Sydney Sinfonia Flute Chair Allegro Program Major Patrons Brian Abel and the late Ben Gannon AO Jan Bowen Ian Burton Ian Dickson and Reg Holloway Helen Lynch AM Tonight s wines are generously supplied by Bimbadgen Estate Wines.

7 PRESENTING PARTNER MESSAGE Tenix warmly welcomes you to the 2007 Discovery Program of concerts. We are confident you will find them musically exciting, and that they will open up for you a new understanding of the featured artists and works. For three years, now, Tenix has sponsored Sydney Symphony s Education Program. As a company with a major commitment to technology and innovation, we strongly support education and training across a range of fields, and we are proud to support not only the Discovery series, but also Sydney Symphony s extensive Schools program, which brings the world of classical music to primary schools across the State. Sydney Symphony s Discovery Program is a wonderfully innovative and exciting experience. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoy our Education partnership with the orchestra. Greg Hayes Tenix Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer General Manager Bronwyn Edinger Deputy General Manager Lisa Robertson Angel Place, Sydney, Australia GPO Box 3339, Sydney, NSW 2001 Administration: Box Office: Facsimile: CITY RECITAL HALL ANGEL PLACE A City of Sydney Venue Lord Mayor Clover Moore Managed by PEGASUS VENUE MANAGEMENT (AP) PTY LTD Christopher Rix Founder This is a / SHOWBILL publication. PUBLISHER Playbill Proprietary Limited / Showbill Proprietary Limited ACN ABN Pacific Highway, Pymble Telephone: (02) Fax: (02) admin@playbill.com.au Website: Executive Chairman and Advertisement Director Brian Nebenzahl OAM, RFD Managing Director Michael Nebenzahl Editorial Director Jocelyn Nebenzahl / Director Production Chris Breeze / D S44