Tea & Symphony

There’s only one thing more delightful than the sight of the Sydney Opera House sparkling in the morning sunshine, and that’s the sound of the Sydney Symphony performing under its sails.

Four A-Concert PackageORFour B-Concert PackageOREight-Concert Package

When you join us on a Friday morning you can enjoy an hour of wonderful music and the chance to catch up with friends over a cup of tea beforehand. And there’s never been a better time to sign up for the complete Tea & Symphony experience: this year we’re indulging the glories of Tchaikovsky with some of his best-loved masterpieces, and Vladimir Ashkenazy conducts not one but two concerts!

Choose eight concerts or a pack of four – either way the prices are unbeatable.

FOUR OR EIGHT MORNING CONCERTS IN THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE CONCERT HALL FRIDAY | 11AM

Biscuits for Tea & Symphony concerts kindly supplied by Kambly.

Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto

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Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto is the Romantic jewel at the centre of an intoxicating concert.

Thomas Adès’ Asyla is huge, and it calls for a huge orchestra. We meet the challenge by joining forces with the youthful talents of our exceptional mentoring orchestra, the Sydney
Sinfonia, in our very first “Side-by-Side” concert. With old hands and fresh faces we’ll form a super orchestra to play this madhouse of a piece with its thrilling contrasts and pop culture influences – The Rite of Spring meets club music.

Maxwell Foster is another youthful talent, and he’ll be performing the concerto that won him the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year award in 2008 when he was 16. This concerto isn’t a chart topper for nothing: Tchaikovsky marries virtuoso power to his famous soaring melodies for the perfect blend of brilliance and poetry. Lucid orchestral colours and dancing rhythms frame an intoxicating concert.

P STANHOPE Fantasia on a Theme by Vaughan Williams
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No.1
ADÈS Asyla*
TCHAIKOVSKY Nutcracker: Suite*

Richard Gill conductor
Thomas Adès conductor*
Maxwell Foster piano
Sydney Sinfonia(Side-by-Side with
the Sydney Symphony)*

Pre-concert talk by composer Paul Stanhope in the Northern Foyer at 5.45pm (20 and 21 October only)

TEA & SYMPHONY - 22 OCT
Short program: Stanhope and Tchaikovsky concerto

Tchaikovsky Spectacular

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When it comes to heartfelt emotion, no one can match the genius Tchaikovsky. Join us for his soaring violin concerto and music from the Sleeping Beauty ballet.

LISTEN TO SAMPLES

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There should be every reason to think of Tchaikovsky as out of touch – he was an aloof personality, full of insecurities – and yet his music cuts to the core with the irresistible impulse of honest emotion.

You can’t help but feel his astonishing gift for melody and great dramatic instincts. In this concert we celebrate his genius with the soaring themes and infectious virtuosity of the Violin Concerto and music from his ballet masterpiece, Sleeping Beauty.

Following the 2008 Elgar festival, Vladimir Ashkenazy has invited Canadian James Ehnes, “a tremendous violinist”, to return to play another great Romantic concerto.

SIBELIUS Finlandia
TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto
TCHAIKOVSKY Sleeping Beauty: Suite

Vladimir Ashkenazy conductor
James Ehnes violin

Pre-concert talk by Robert Murray at 7.15pm in the Northern Foyer (9 and 11 December only).

TEA & SYMPHONY – 10 DECEMBER
Short program: Violin Concerto and Sleeping Beauty Suite.

AUDIO PLAYER LISTING

Track 1 – TCHAIKOVSKY Sleeping Beauty: Waltz
L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Ernest Ansermet
DECCA 480 0560
Tracks 2 and 3 TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto
Boris Belkin, violin, with the New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy
DECCA 467 604-2
Track 4 – SIBELIUS Finlandia
Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy
DECCA 466 6872

Audio kindly supplied by Universal Music

Currently available for purchase: Finlandia

Sibelius 5

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Celestial vision and heavenly inspiration in a concert that begins with Beethoven and ends with Sibelius’s magnificent Fifth Symphony.

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In space, if you listen, you can hear the stars sing. Georges Lentz, with his profound musical vision and love of the night sky, brings that sound into the concert hall – pure and serene.

We premiered Guyuhmgan in 2001, and for its return Lentz has added solos for two of our woodwind principals. The music’s soft tones find affinity in the delicate austerity of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments, and Beethoven’s heroic tone-poem in miniature balances Sibelius’s most memorable symphony.

Sibelius also claimed heavenly inspiration. Writing his Fifth Symphony, he said it was if God had thrown down mosaic pieces from heaven and asked him to put them back as they were – for Sibelius composing was like a celestial jigsaw puzzle, an aching mystery that even he didn’t fully understand. We may not understand the process either, but we recognise the result – invigorating and life-affirming.

HARMONY FROM HEAVEN
BEETHOVEN Leonore Overture No.3
LENTZ Guyuhmgan
STRAVINSKY Symphonies of Wind Instruments
SIBELIUS Symphony No.5

Matthew Coorey conductor
Diana Doherty oboe
Alexandre Oguey cor anglais

TEA & SYMPHONY - 14 MAY
Short program: Beethoven, Lentz and Sibelius.

PRE-CONCERT TALKS

Free pre-concert talk by David Garrett in the Northern Foyer, 45 minutes before the concerts on 12, 13, and 17 May. (Not talk before Tea & Symphony.)

AUDIO PLAYER LISTING

Track 1 – BEETHOVEN Leonore Overture No.3
Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karajan
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 445 112-2
Track 2 – LENTZ Guyumhgan
Sydney Symphony conducted by Edo de Waart
ABC CLASSICS 472 397-2
Track 3 – STRAVINSKY Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920 version)
Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Pierre Boulez
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 457 616-2
Track 4 – SIBELIUS Symphony No.5: 3rd movement (Allegro molto)
London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Anthony Collins
DECCA 442 9493

Audio kindly supplied by Universal Music.

Currently available from iTunes: Beethoven