The West Australian Symphony Orchestra is continuing its 90th birthday celebrations with a tour taking in Kalgoorlie and Geraldton. It’ll be the first time the full orchestra has traveled to the Mid-West and the Goldfields since the early 2000’s.
WASO’s CHief Executive Craig Whitehead said the team were excited to be heading out to two regions. THe Geraldton show will be at the Queen’s Park Theatre on Thursday 1st November, while the orchestra will perform at the Goldfields Art Centre in Kalgoorlie oon Saturday 3rd November.
“WASO has a proud history of touring in Western Australia with its inaugural regional concert taking place in July 1949 in Kalgoorlie. We are once again so pleased to be able to fulfil our mission ‘to touch souls and enrich lives through music’ in the regions in this our 90th year”, Whitehead said.
In an eye-wateringly complex coordination of musicians, support crew, instruments and equipment, WASO will fly 58 musicians plus conductor and support staff to each location on the day of the concert, accommodate them overnight and get them home the next day while all the musical instruments, music stands and other equipment travel by road. It’s a huge undertaking and has been years in the planning.
The program for the 90th Anniversary Tour includes a selection of highlights from across WASO’s 2018 Season. The popular classical program has something for everyone, with works by two of the giants of the classical repertoire, Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
WASO will provide a free pre-concert talk for audiences, with schools in both Geraldton and Kalgoorlie having an opportunity to attend a special free Open Rehearsal.
The concert will commence with Mozart’s Don Giovanni: Overture. The story goes that Mozart only started work on the Overture to his opera Don Giovanni the night before the premiere performance was scheduled and was kept awake by his wife reciting poetry to him while he composed the work. Within those few hours, Mozart managed to complete the Overture which has been acclaimed as a work of genius ever since.
The first half of the program concludes with Violin Concerto No.3, also by Mozart. The composer was only nineteen years of age when he completed this work. Acclaimed WASO Concertmaster, Laurence Jackson, is a bit older than that; but he and his 1850 J. B. Vuillaume violin are ideally placed to bring this most admired of Mozart’s violin concertos to life.
Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 is probably the most popular and recognisable classical music composition in the world. Even those who might claim never to have experienced an orchestral work would have been exposed to “the Fifth” – especially the opening four-note motif.
It constantly reappears in contemporary popular music, you can find it the Electric Light Orchestra’s adaptation of the Chuck Berry hit Roll Over Beethoven, in the films Saturday Night Fever and Fantasia 2000), on television in the theme tune for Judge Judy, and recently in the opening sequence of the Doctor Who episode Before the Flood, and it’s even video games like Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp.
Perth-born conductor, Christopher Dragon, will lead the WASO in this enthralling concert. Christopher was appointed to the position of Associate Conductor with the Colorado Symphony in 2015 following a three-year engagement as Assistant Conductor with WASO. He regularly returns to his home State to collaborate with WASO.
Bookings for the Kalgoorlie performance are via www.goldfieldsartscentre.com.au, whiole those in Geraldton should head to www.qpt.cgg.wa.gov.au
OIP Staff
