Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

The Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra is delighted to join with celebrated soprano Taryn Fiebig in a performance of Richard Strauss's supremely beautiful Four Last Songs. Settings of poems by Joseph Eichendorff and Herman Hesse, with their rich contrapuntal colours, rapturous melodies and radiant orchestration, these songs are consummate examples of Strauss's gift for expressing words through music.

Taryn Fiebig is a principal artist with Opera Australia, recently appearing as Musetta in La Bohème and Gudrun in Götterdämmerung. She is also well known to Sydney audiences for her performances with Pinchgut Opera and the Sydney Philharmonia.

In contrast to the Strauss, Stravinsky's thrilling Firebird Suite captures the initial success of a young composer destined to shape music history in the space of just a few years with three extraordinary ballet scores. Commissioned for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, The Firebird received a highly successful premiere in Paris in 1910, paving the way for Petrushka (1911) and Rite of Spring (1913). Less radical than its successors, The Firebird sits more clearly within the tradition established by Stravinsky's teacher Rimsky-Korsakov and his contemporaries, and yet intimations of the later works are not difficult to find.

Complementing the Stravinsky in our program is White Ghost Dancing by distinguished Australian composer Ross Edwards. This work is paired with Emerald Crossing—a calmer work but still dance-like, described by the composer as having the characteristics of a barcarolle.

Setting the scene for the Four Last Songs is Richard Wagner's dignified and atmospheric Prelude to Act 1 of Lohengrin.

Featured non-Australian music: Wagner Lohengrin Prelude, Strauss Four Last Songs, Stravinsky Firebird Suite

Featured Australian Works

	Emerald crossing : for piano & string orchestra (2002) by Ross Edwards — performed by Paul Terracini and Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra
	White ghost dancing : for orchestra (1999) by Ross Edwards — performed by Paul Terracini and Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra

Featured artists

• Performer Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra
• Conductor Paul Terracini