Wednesday 26 / Thursday 27 April 2023
Llewellyn Hall, ANU School of Music, 7.30pm
Jessica Cottis Conductor
Sine Winther Piano
Canberra Symphony Orchestra
Miriama Young
KINDS OF BLUE
World premiere, new CSO commission
Alexander Scriabin
Piano Concerto in F-sharp minor, op. 20
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Scheherazade, op. 35
Tickets
$60–109 Adults
$53–96 Concession (means-tested pensions)
$35 Under 35
$17 Student rush
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Ubiquitous and ever-present, blue encompasses the skies above and the oceans below. This program takes inspiration from Derek Jarman’s film Blue and highlights personal responses to this universal, all-permeating colour.
We open with a new work from Miriama Young, a New Zealand-born, Australian-based composer and sound artist. Bathed in blue, Young’s commission will explore and reflect colour through sonority.
In Scriabin’s colour system, blue was the key of F-sharp. While it’s doubtful he experienced neurological synesthesia – the simultaneous perception of sound and colour – Scriabin was a flamboyant and eccentric character, captivated by colour and steeped in a broader cultural fascination with its effects. His blue piano concerto is an utterly beautiful, tuneful, soul-cleansing balm of a piece.
The unmatched master of orchestration, Rimsky-Korsakov’s instrumental colours are as the brush strokes of an artist. One of the greatest hits of classical music, his Scheherazade is inspired by scenes from One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales. A genuine synesthete, Rimsky-Korsakov experienced E major as a dark blue, which infuses the many sea-inspired tableaus and reflects his lifelong fascination with the ocean.
