The signpost for the Cybec Foundation is “Giving Opportunity to Others”. Its charitable fund has gifted an extraordinary sum of more than $10 million to support education, social welfare, health, science and the environment, and here, to the performing arts. Since 2003, more than 80 young Australian composers have had works commissioned and performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and this most welcomed annual concert of premier performances is a treasured event. Proudly, it is the first concert given by the MSO each year, with premier public performances of orchestral music by “living” composers. What an opportunity to have a personal mentor, rehearsal time with the MSO, a highly popular public concert, and the chance to be chosen as a future MSO composer-in-residence. Cybec’s program also extends to funding the MSO assistant conductor and presenter, today Leonard Weiss, an award-winning conductor, educator and champion of contemporary works.
With nearly a full house and an excited atmosphere in the Iwaki Auditorium, the MSO musicians were nicely spaced but with a reduced number of 9 strings. Cybec participants are encouraged to include a wide range of tonal resources, so it was pleasing to see a centrally positioned harp and a full backdrop of brass and woodwind including the tuba, shining and colourful, even though there was a sense that the strings would be overpowered by the brass.
Weiss welcomed the composer Zinia Chan, inviting her to describe her experience and inspiration for her work Our Worlds Unfolding, described by Weiss as a bold and exhilarating concert opener. Chan described her piece as “taking a leap of faith, expressing momentum”, and hoping that the audience would feel “comfort in uncertainty”. From its fanfare-like introduction to solo pleasantries of harp and piccolo linking sections, there was an evolving rhythmic development as patterns shifted around sections of the orchestra, with exciting staccato phrases and crescendos proving Chan’s fine sense of balance and refined orchestration.
Works by composer Andrew Aronowicz have already been performed in concerts and festivals by Australian orchestras and established ensembles, and his work Komorebi was introduced by Weiss as being “simply gorgeous”. Aronowicz spoke of his inspiration for this work coming from Wim Wenders’ film A Perfect Day, with the Japanese title approximately describing the magical experience of taking time to watch and feel sunlight filtering and spreading through the branches of a tree. The composer’s aim was to express this inner experience (komorebi) through sound, and to stretch out musical ideas for as long as possible. Exotic colours came from harp introduction, woodblock, and wire brushes and bowed effects on mounted cymbals, with long sustained orchestral blends supporting a regularly repeated and evolving gentle 4 -note motif.
Weiss has a wonderfully charismatic audience appeal, and he shows much charm and skill in communicating with orchestral members, audience and composers. Asking Rachel Meyers to describe how young composers turn their ideas into music opened her description of her significant connection with water and the importance of the influences of ecological and powerful natural environments. Asked about her work’s fascinating title – Submergence/y – Meyers spoke of submergence (re-imergence) and emergency, ascent, descent and “a merging with the fluid world”. Opening sounds came with the sombre, dark reaches of the double bass and lowest brass tones, deeper atonal chords developing to a re-emergence of hope through ascending harp and muted trumpet statements. Surging orchestral scale patterns led to longer sustained notes, some exploration of high pitches, themes moving with fluidity towards rising and falling waves and gentle glissandos punctuated by occasional terrestrial tom-toms.
As contemporary composers look for inspiration and meaning from ecology, nature and our expanding sense of the cosmic universe, so too did Robert McIntyre respond musically to these themes presented in three richly thoughtful texts by Savanna Wegman – Tidal Drawings: A Javelin into light, Unfolding as afterglows, Beyond this breath, falling. When asked by Weiss about the structure of the narrative in his composition, McIntyre spoke of how the poetry inspired the tone colours he wanted to emulate. Strings were now featured in the opening scene, exploring, winding and weaving with solo tones from cello and vibes leading to silence followed by gently glowing muted brass. Solo instruments featured, in particular expressive bass clarinet melodies and a final build-up driven by low brass crescendos and full orchestral texture.
Always this is an inspiring occasion, a celebration of the connection of our best orchestral musicians with young living composers in an atmosphere of excitement, and support for the talented and hard-working teams promoting new Australian music. While only one composer will be selected to be in residence with the MSO in 2026, tonight everyone was a “winner”.
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Julie McErlain reviewed CYBEC 21st Century Composers Showcase, presented by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Iwaki Auditorium on January 25, 2025.
