Perth Concert Hall

Bring your best voice and party spirit as we raise the roof at Perth Concert Hall with WASO’s annual barnstorm of flag-waving favourites. Join conductor Dane Lam, the WASO Chorus and special guests as we whip up a spectacular musical feast, complete with a cavalcade of classical hits and patriotic anthems. As always, the concert comes to an unmissable end with the traditional ‘Last Night of the Proms’ sing-a-long including Jerusalem and Rule, Britannia.

Grab your flags and your friends

Don your finest Halloween costume and prepare for an evening of chills and thrills for one night only!

Perth Concert Hall’s 3000-pipe organ will be commanded by superstar organist Alessandro Pittorino (graduate of the famed Juilliard School in New York City), accompanying the first Dracula film ever released: cult classic Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, the silent 1922 German Expressionist horror film.

What makes this experience even more unique? Alessandro will be creating and improvising the live film score (music) to this cult horror as you watch; each moment more riveting and 'on the edge of your seat' than the last.

Don’t miss this chance to be enveloped in a world that you’ve never experienced before and may not ever be created again!
 

“Australia’s Wunderkind Organist”
– ABC TV

“Energetic and Powerful”
– West Australia 2021 (review of Pittorino’s last performance with WASO)

Finnish conductor Dalia Stasevska has rocketed to prominence in recent years, with her brilliant talent hailed worldwide. For her WASO debut, she conducts Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony, a work of unbridled orchestral ecstasy inspired by swans in flight and infused with lustrous images of the expansive Finnish landscape. Osvaldo Golijov’s Three Songs are also deeply emotional and poetic, filled with intimacy, intensity, and imagination. When performed by one of Australia’s finest singers, Sara Macliver, these sublime pieces will touch your soul.

Sergei PROKOFIEV Symphony No.1 Classical

Osvaldo GOLIJOV Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra

Jean SIBELIUS Symphony No.5

Dalia Stasevska conductor Sara Macliver soprano

In the winter of 1838-9 Frédéric Chopin – along with his lover, the brilliant and pioneering writer George Sand – hunkered down in a former monastery in Majorca, determined to complete the set of 24 Preludes he had picked away at since 1836. 

The story of the primitive local instrument on which Chopin completed this great monument of the Romantic piano literature is key to this unique collaboration between director Richard Pyros, a yet to be announced actor, and pianist Aura Go – a Musica Viva FutureMaker, equipped with an astonishing palette and imagination. Drawing on an inspiring cast of real-life characters set amongst a complete performance of the Preludes, these three artists trace the rich history and ultimate fate of the Majorcan piano, in a dramatic mix of words and music, adapted from Paul Kildea’s book Chopin’s Piano. Their performance underlines the sheer originality of the Preludes, the enduring power of Chopin, and the changing nature of his music over time.

Artists:

AURA GO PIANO
TBC ACTOR
RICHARD PYROS DIRECTOR AND CO-ADAPTOR

PROGRAM –

CHOPIN 24 Preludes, Op. 28  (1835-39)

The 19-year-old Chinese-Australian pianist Shuan Hern Lee has made waves ever since he was accepted as a tertiary music student at the University of Western Australia at just 14 years of age. The following years have only confirmed his star status, seeing him claim a number of international accolades that include placing first at the prestigious Chopin International Piano Competition.

 As well as this, Perth audiences will recall that both Paul Wright and Sophie Curtis appeared in concert for Musica Viva Australia earlier this year, playing with real panache.  That confidence will be on full display when the musicians unveil their interpretation of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 2, the first concerto the composer ever wrote; Haydn’s String Quartet in C Op 20 No 2 with its sunny disposition; and for the finale, a solo performance with a poetic touch by Lee of Chopin’s Ballade No 4.

Join conductor Guy Noble, the WASO Chorus and special guests as we whip up a spectacular musical feast, complete with a cavalcade of classical hits and patriotic anthems. As always the concert comes to an unmissable end with the traditional ‘Last Night of the Proms’ sing-a-long including Jerusalem and Rule, Britannia.

Henry WOOD Fantasy on British Sea Songs arr.

Malcolm SARGENT Rule,

Britannia Hubert PARRY Jerusalem

Edward ELGAR Pomp and Circumstance No.1

Guy Noble conductor WASO Chorus

Each day that Vivaldi walked the streets of traversed the canals of Venice, a key port and global trade centre, it brought him into contact with a flurry of sounds, smells, languages and thought that were like no other in Europe. From the Otomman Empire and the vast depths of Arabic intellectual and cultural life, through to North Africa and what would become India, Venice was a community where design, food religion and the arts didn't just mingle, they absorbed and integrated. Vivaldi's much-loved bastion of western music, The Four Seasons, could only have emerged from the melting pot.

If Haydn was acclaimed as ‘the father of the symphony’, it is surely his most illustrious student, Beethoven, who thrust the symphony into the popular consciousness. The famous opening four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth launches an epic symphonic journey from tension to exuberant triumph. Schumann composed his Konzertstuck in 1849, one of the most blazingly creative and happy years of his life, and a sense of joyous euphoria infuses this super virtuosic showpiece.Joseph HAYDN Symphony No.96 The Miracle

Robert SCHUMANN Konzertstuck for Four Horns and Orchestra

Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Symphony No.5

Asher Fisch conductor

David Evans horn

Julia Brooke horn

Robert Gladstones horn

Francesco Lo Surdo horn

We begin with Mozart’s much-loved Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola. Together WASO Assistant Concertmaster Semra Lee-Smith and Principal Viola Daniel Schmitt will reveal this magical work’s beauty, poetry and brilliance.Bruckner said that his first symphony came to him in a dream, played by an angel. A breathtaking memorial to his idol, Richard Wagner, the Seventh is an emotional odyssey that scales triumphant peaks and plummets to dark valleys of sorrow. In the hands of maestro Johannes Fritzsch, this symphony will astonish you with its richness and raw power.

For more than a generation they were the two biggest rock stars on the planet. Today, they remain two of the biggest recording stars in music history.

Elvis was King and Cliff Richard, England’s answer to Elvis, became the PRINCE and was duly knighted to become Sir Cliff.

Australian music legend Marty Rhone is a master when it comes to singing Cliff, and Mark has performed on every continent as Elvis. Together they bring you an unparalleled night of music magic

This is the first time these two legends and their music will be presented on the same stage.

Suspicious Minds, Viva Las Vegas, Jailhouse Rock, Devil Woman, Wired for Sound, Young Ones, oh, and a couple of bonus tracks called Denim & Lace and a Mean Pair of Jeans.

So, Lords, Ladies and Gentleman, get ready for the The King of Rock and the Prince of Pop.

From stolen child and teenage alcoholic to musical icon, social activist and First Nations leader, Archie Roach’s compelling story is an extraordinary odyssey through love and heartbreak, family and community, survival and renewal – and a testament to the healing power of music.

30 years after the release of his two-time ARIA Award winning album Charcoal Lane (1990), Tell Me Why is an intimate and moving musical journey through Roach’s life. The work features seminal songs from his back catalogue, influential music from his youth and three new autobiographical songs.

Roach will be joined onstage by his five-piece band, including award-winning jazz composer and improviser Paul Grabowsky and special guest Emma Donovan.

Don’t miss this spectacular concert celebrating Roach’s eponymous memoir and latest album. 

Beginning with the evocative overture, the work progresses through three parts similar to an opera, the Nativity, Crucifixion and Redemption. Exquisite arias such as I Know That My Redeemer Liveth and Rejoice! are contrasted with majestic arias of enduring splendour such as The Trumpet Shall Sound and Thus Saith the Lord. Acclaimed WA soloists will bring these movements to life with outstanding virtuosity and musicianship. The real genius of this work, however, is revealed in the great and exhilarating choruses sung to perfection by the Perth Symphonic Chorus. The sombre and hushed beauty of choruses like Since By Man Came Death are juxtaposed with the grandeur and impact of the climactic moments in the Hallelujah chorus and the final extended and thrilling Amen chorus. Without doubt one of the greatest oratorios ever written, the magnificence of Handel’s inspired writing is always uplifting and is a unique and wonderful gift for the Christmas Season 2021.

Conductor: Dr Margaret Pride OAM

Violin: Paul Wright

Perth Symphonic Chorus

Perth Baroque Orchestra

Rites, rituals & revolutions. Uniting movement and music in an empowering collaboration, and the first of its kind, the WA Youth Orchestra led by Benjamin Northey joins forces with celebrated Perth Choreographer Scott Elstermann in a symbiotic exploration of movement and sonority. A choreographed dance troupe will bring to life Stravinsky’s masterwork the The Rite of Spring and accomplished Western Australian composer Rebecca Erin Smith’s Foreigner or Foreigner. The concert will also feature Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha Overture, Op.30

There are few places in his fifty-one-year career that John Williamson hasn’t visited or performed in. He’s pulled up to have a yarn with farmers, miners, station owners and everyday folk who have stories to share. He’s as familiar sitting around a stock camp under the Milky Way as he is sitting on his well-travelled stool on stage.

With 500 songs, twenty-seven Golden Guitars and countless accolades under his belt, Williamson is not one to rest on his laurels. Audiences can expect to hear his greatest hits (plus some surprise tracks!) and to laugh and cry as he takes them on a journey around his beloved Australia. 

NOTE: THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED FROM MARCH TO DECEMBER 3 2020.

This time they come with a brand new album - their 10th - Hotel Last Resort, which resides among the band’s finest work, simultaneously refining and redefining their one-of-a-kind take on American music, mingling front porch folk, post punk, spiritual jazz, country blues, avant-garde minimalism and golden age rock ‘n’ roll into something still altogether their own.