I keep on raving about Armidale's strong musical life but the stunning events keep on coming. Yesterday afternoon was the next in a long line of occasions, and this time the performers were the Armidale Orchestra and the works performed where grouped under the spectacular umbrella of "in a galaxy far, far away'!! So the concert was all about space music.
One other thing blew me and Dot away. This was the size of the orchestra. It had over 60 excellent performers and remember that our population is only 25,000. On a pro-rata basis, Sydney could recruit an orchestra 12,000 members strong! String players totalled 25 (in 5 categories from violin to double bass), wind 29 (12 categories from flute to tuba), percussion 5, plus performers on harp and piano. And the conductor was brilliant. He was Russell Bauer, recently appointed CEO of our New England Conservatorium of Music (NECOM), and a composer in his own right.
SO what's 'space music'. Well, the first part before the interval comprised two works ... a selection of planets from Holst's 'Planets Suite'. We heard Mars (the bringer of war), Mercury (winged messenger), Jupiter (bringer of jollity), and Uranus (the magician). And the second work was by Russell Bauer himself and called 'A New Frontier'. Its themes evolved around (a) the crash of Skylab into Western Australia in 1979, (b) a tribute to 7 astronauts killed in an explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986, and (c) an anthemic tribute to Australia's new Space Agency.
By the way, heading to this concert our car began to play 'Mars' somewhat prophetically. And what stunned me was that the Armidale Orchestra's rendition was every bit as good as the CD!
The second part of the concert was not exactly 'classical music'. Rather it contained 3 pieces by John Williams, who writes film scores - many extremely well known. Russell, by the way, re-scored them for a symphony orchestra and they came across brilliantly. The films in question are exceptionally well-known: Star Wars; and Steven Spielberg's ET The Extra Terrestrial. From Star Wars we listened to two components - the hugely well-known opening fanfare and Rey's theme. And from ET we heard the bike chase and the departure. Of course, the rendition of this music helps explain the amazing number of young kids in the audience! Many were under the age of 10! Good luck to them.
And another surprising part of the performance was the visuals provided. For each of the planets we had a huge screen portray the planet as through a large telescope ... and details about the planets' masses, spin rate, time taken for one orbit of the sun (by the way Uranus has not had one full orbit in my entire life-time), surface temperatures, and number of orbiting moons. However, those images were minor compared to the final item, ET. Here the screen actually showed the sections of the film dealing with the bike chase and departure. The chase allows ET to escape detention by police and security agencies helped by ET's friend - a young boy. And the tear-jerking Departure shows the space-ship returning to collect ET and the sadness of the young kid and his family who had looked after ET. The orchestra's renditions were perfectly timed with the images on the screen ... I don't know how. But the audience was blown away and gave the conductor and his orchestra a standing ovation at the end. It was a wonderful afternoon out.
My photography of the event was terrible for the simple reason that I was trying to enlarge images and take them fast as my hand shook. However, I append some anyway. Here's the orchestra and the screen showing data on Mars.
And here's the space-ship arriving to collect ET, the being it accidentally left behind followed by a poor image of ET, whom you can just make out!
AS
One other thing blew me and Dot away. This was the size of the orchestra. It had over 60 excellent performers and remember that our population is only 25,000. On a pro-rata basis, Sydney could recruit an orchestra 12,000 members strong! String players totalled 25 (in 5 categories from violin to double bass), wind 29 (12 categories from flute to tuba), percussion 5, plus performers on harp and piano. And the conductor was brilliant. He was Russell Bauer, recently appointed CEO of our New England Conservatorium of Music (NECOM), and a composer in his own right.
SO what's 'space music'. Well, the first part before the interval comprised two works ... a selection of planets from Holst's 'Planets Suite'. We heard Mars (the bringer of war), Mercury (winged messenger), Jupiter (bringer of jollity), and Uranus (the magician). And the second work was by Russell Bauer himself and called 'A New Frontier'. Its themes evolved around (a) the crash of Skylab into Western Australia in 1979, (b) a tribute to 7 astronauts killed in an explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986, and (c) an anthemic tribute to Australia's new Space Agency.
By the way, heading to this concert our car began to play 'Mars' somewhat prophetically. And what stunned me was that the Armidale Orchestra's rendition was every bit as good as the CD!
The second part of the concert was not exactly 'classical music'. Rather it contained 3 pieces by John Williams, who writes film scores - many extremely well known. Russell, by the way, re-scored them for a symphony orchestra and they came across brilliantly. The films in question are exceptionally well-known: Star Wars; and Steven Spielberg's ET The Extra Terrestrial. From Star Wars we listened to two components - the hugely well-known opening fanfare and Rey's theme. And from ET we heard the bike chase and the departure. Of course, the rendition of this music helps explain the amazing number of young kids in the audience! Many were under the age of 10! Good luck to them.
And another surprising part of the performance was the visuals provided. For each of the planets we had a huge screen portray the planet as through a large telescope ... and details about the planets' masses, spin rate, time taken for one orbit of the sun (by the way Uranus has not had one full orbit in my entire life-time), surface temperatures, and number of orbiting moons. However, those images were minor compared to the final item, ET. Here the screen actually showed the sections of the film dealing with the bike chase and departure. The chase allows ET to escape detention by police and security agencies helped by ET's friend - a young boy. And the tear-jerking Departure shows the space-ship returning to collect ET and the sadness of the young kid and his family who had looked after ET. The orchestra's renditions were perfectly timed with the images on the screen ... I don't know how. But the audience was blown away and gave the conductor and his orchestra a standing ovation at the end. It was a wonderful afternoon out.
My photography of the event was terrible for the simple reason that I was trying to enlarge images and take them fast as my hand shook. However, I append some anyway. Here's the orchestra and the screen showing data on Mars.
And here's the space-ship arriving to collect ET, the being it accidentally left behind followed by a poor image of ET, whom you can just make out!
AS
