Sydney Youth Orchestras Gala: Dark, Splendour and Dawn

First published on 18 Aug 2010. Updated on 5 Apr 2011.

"Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they're looking for ideas." So said PJ O'Rourke, the American satirist, author of Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence and a Bad Haircut. The musicians in the Sydney Youth Orchestra's flagship orchestra are hardly kids - their ages range from 16 to 25 - but many of them are considering careers as orchestral players. And some make it theirs: this year ex-SYO double bassist Ben Ward became a permanent member of the Sydney Symphony, currently its youngest at 22. Others have gone as far as the Berlin Philharmonic, or reached international eminence here: the Australian Chamber Orchestra's Richard Tognetti is a former concertmaster of the SYO.

"Technically, they've got everything a professional musician's got; what they want is experience," says Antony Ernst, SYO's CEO. "It's a question of learning to work with each other, listen to each other, and put it all together."

Ernst returned to Sydney this year after directing for Opera Australia, working and studying in Germany and abroad, most recently as manager of artistic planning for the Auckland Philharmonic. "Whereas the SSO might take five calls to put together a programme, we take several weeks over it, not because they can't play it, but because they need longer to attune to one another and to work as an ensemble. The tradeoff is you get a sense of excitement of discovery, of horizons opening, which is tremendously exciting. You can sense the thrill coming off them, and for an audience that's something really, really special. It's not like a recording, and it's different to a mature symphony orchestra - which has other wonderful things to offer."

The SYO's next concert, Dark, Splendour and Dawn, also offers many wonderful things, including Sally-Anne Russell, mezzo-soprano soloist with Opera Australia, singing a rarely performed song cycle by Berlioz, Les nuits d'été, setting poems by the Symbolist Théophile Gautier. "She has a wonderful affinity for this kind of music," says Ernst. "It's nocturne music: nostalgic, wistful, evocative, very delicate."

Conducting is Brett Kelly, also principal trombone of the Melbourne Symphony. "He's a really great conductor," says Ernst. "Because he's a practicing musician himself he really understands musicians; he's not one of those conductors who gave up their instrument years and years ago and is at a distance. Young musicians look up to him as someone who's in the position that they aim for, and see someone who understands them."

Another attraction is the chance to hear a concert in the recently refurbished Sydney Town Hall. "I prefer it to the Opera House, actually," says Ernst. "It has a great acoustic; it's a great civic institution and a part of Sydney's identity." And so is the SYO, which helps develop local composers as well as performers. In 2000 the SYO commissioned and premiered a violin concerto from the Sydney Con's Matthew Hindson; it has since been recorded by the internationally popular Canadian Laura St John. "Our musicians need to grow up with new music being an integral part of their repertoire, because that's what you do when you're young: it's the time to try things out."

Ernst says that the Gala concert he programmed "aims to show off what a youth orchestra does best, playing music with real vitality." It begins with Weber's Invitation to the Dance, originally written for piano, but orchestrated by Berlioz. "It's full of colour, rhythm, elegance and beauty," he says. The colour of the programme darkens with Khachaturian's Masquerade Suite, incidental music he wrote in 1941 for a play by Lermontov. It formed the soundtrack for a grotesque and murderous ball. "It's very catchy, but very, very twisted," says Ernst.

The finale is Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, commissioned by the Russian dancer Diaghilev. "Firebird has sense of going through the darkness into rebirth," says Ernst. "It's wonderful for young people." And for the audience, many of whom may find themselves dreaming of being reincarnated as symphony musicians.

The SYO play Stravinsky, Weber, Berlioz and Khachaturian, conducted by Brett Kelly. Guest soloist is Opera Australia soloist Sally-Anne Russell. Jason Catlett