ENIGMA VARIATIONS

Elgar's most loved masterpiece...

Join us at Llewellyn Hall for a moving celebration of human connection to open our flagship 2026 Llewellyn Series.

Enigma Variations is a musical gallery of Edward Elgar's inner circle. Across fourteen variations, he sketches affectionate portraits, capturing the quirks, warmth, and secret histories of his closest friends. The music shifts from playful and tender to moments of breathtaking orchestral grandeur - this is music at its most powerful when experienced live in the concert hall.

Uplifting, heartfelt and deeply human, Enigma Variations remains a favourite with audiences around the world.

Also featured in this program is a love letter to train journeys in Through Changing Landscape by Australian composer Alice Chance, transforming movement into sound, setting the tone for a program shaped by connection, movement and human experience.

At the centre of the program is Sergei Prokofiev’s sweeping Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra, written for the composer’s close friend Mstislav Rostropovich. Demanding both virtuosity and imagination, it is performed here by James Morley, hailed by Limelight as “Australia’s most exciting young cellist”.

Now based in Europe, Morley’s career is gathering rapid international momentum. This performance marks his Canberra Symphony Orchestra debut and a return home, in a concerto he knows intimately - bringing both physical power and dreamlike lyricism to Prokofiev’s expansive score.

PROGRAM

Alice Chance
Through Changing Landscape

Sergei Prokofiev
Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra

Edward Elgar
Enigma Variations
 

ARTISTS

Jessica Cottis conductor

James Morley cello

Canberra Symphony Orchestra

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