Very accurate weather forecasts did announce that serious raindrops would be falling on our heads and the summer temperature would drop as southerly winds picked up, but this did not deter a few thousand friends, families and supporters of the Australian Youth Orchestra from attending this very fine concert.
Assembling 80 musicians in this celebrated venue takes huge and intensive planning, with the musical neighbourhood of ABC Classic and, most significantly, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra advancing this great project. Being featured in the Annual Free Concerts at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl would have been a great honour for the young AYO musicians, aged from 14 to 25, chosen as the future generation of Australia’s best orchestral players, to travel across Australia to study with MSO members, rehearse intensively for a week before the main event, and take a place in history.
To warm us up, pre-concert entertainment was given by the Victorian State Youth Brass Band, located above our heads on a side balcony, visually warm, golden and bright, playing familiar and popular songs well appreciated by an all age audience in this family atmosphere. With this concert being broadcast on ABC Classic, and streamed on the MSO YouTube channel, radio presenter Megan Burslem was a most popular host and compere this evening, her enthusiastic presentation adding lots of warmth and cheer to the bubbly atmosphere both on and off stage. Conductor Christian Reif also had great appeal for both musicians and audience with his dashing and youthful appearance, energy and detailed expression, his extensive international experience guaranteeing a successful performance, rain, hail or shine.
To the main event: the music. Our tradition of opening with Deborah Cheetham Fraillon’s “Welcome to Country” showed two leaders from each string section confidently producing a gently affirmative texture for this now familiar acknowledgement. What followed was an exciting delivery of contemporary orchestral repertoire, music inspired by fantasy from story, imagery, film, stage and video games.
Steampunk Blizzard (2016) by Daniel Nelson took our eyes straight to the widely spread ranks of forcefully played lower brass and strings, and our visual imaginations to some gigantic being or army of fierce and overpowering sonic presence, in a theme recurring relentlessly between contrasting speedy and quirky strings and woodwinds scurrying through a frenetic yet lighter texture atmosphere. Contemporary, persistent bass riffs dominated this stimulating work, with heavily accented bass drum dominating a mechanically driving rhythmic frame.
In excellent on-line program notes, composer Anna Clyne described her piece This Midnight Hour (2015) also as cinematic, designed to evoke visual imagery. It also opened with driving low brass and strings in a story that unfolded with lyrical ebbs and flows of short, folk-like melodic phrases, a surprising sweet French nationalistic waltz, lyrical and sad, new characters and imagery from French poet Baudelaire that had inspired her. Pictorial sections were always connected, with fine individual woodwind solos, sections of exciting chases and angry storms felt in rising and falling powerful waves of sound, and always with that punishing bass drum being a true menace with a most explosive strike to end on.
With the explosion and popularity of video games, youth are highly immersed in the composition and the musical journeys accompanying them. The composer Nobuo Uematsu drew on many styles and influences for his soundtrack for the Final Fantasy IX Suite, opening with most romantic and sensuous beauty with a harp solo that drew some appreciative sighs from the audience. Arranged by Swedish composer Ankarblom, his music most successfully tells the story. Once upon a time… beginning in a magical misty world of Medieval castles and forests, where many scenes often abruptly follow: a colourful circus-like scene with quirky glissandos on strings, characters escaping in an airship with precise war-like snare drum and military brass motifs, musical changes of “scenery” and genre. Essential sound reinforcement and most colourful stage lighting was excellent – well balanced, understated, just the bare necessities for reinforcing harp, oboe, clarinet and notably, violin solos from Concertmaster, Lily Song. Driving percussion brought visual imagery and nostalgia with the music of the long-running Final Fantasy series – all exciting for young musicians, relevant to a young audience, and ideal repertoire for this open-air concert.
After interval, Megan Burslem shared text messages forwarded on-line to the ABC during the performance, personally addressing the individual AYO orchestra members and sharing messages from mums and dads! That created a light-hearted moment of nervousness for some young performers! Burslem also delighted musicians and audience members bringing principal cellist James Monro to the stage for an entertaining interview, creating a very welcoming and connecting atmosphere for all present.
AYO members had said that Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite (1945) was their favourite work, its exciting fairytale of magic, betrayal and redemption popularised through ballet and animation, its challenging orchestral music giving unique and colourful solos particularly to bassoon, clarinet, oboe and brass. Reif’s disciplined and detailed conducting beautifully held this large ensemble in a steady and well-disciplined framework. Musicians and audience loved the fertile crescendos in this exotic work, which concluded this splendid “Fire and Fantasy” program. Melbourne’s weather gods did not stop AYO from achieving a brilliant and successful event for us all.
Photo credit: Mark Gambino
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Julie McErlain reviewed “Fire and Fantasy”, performed by the Australian Youth Orchestra, as part of the Free Concerts series presented by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, on February 11, 2026.
