Simone Young

Chief Conductor

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It’s been hiding in plain sight. The Sydney Town Hall organ is the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the most spectacular instruments you'll ever hear, and you can hear all of its awesome power and beauty in this concert of music for organ and orchestra.

Australian composer Joe Twist uses all the colours of the orchestra to paint Bach’s Toccata & Fugue on a larger canvas. Félix-Alexandre Guilmant’s Symphony No.1 is a dazzling showcase, with crashing chords and lightning-quick virtuosity.

Respighi’s Church Windows features his characteristic colours, high drama and beautiful melodies, and the finale from Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony brings the concert to a joyous conclusion.

You’ve probably walked past the Town Hall a hundred times, but you’ve never heard it like this.

Program

JS BACH arr. TWIST

Toccata & Fugue, BWV565

GUILMANT

Symphony No.1, Op.42

RESPIGHI

Church Windows

SAINT-SAËNS

Symphony No.3 (finale)

Artists

Carlo Antonioli

Carlo Antonioli

Conductor

Vanessa Hughes

Presenter

Vanessa Hughes is a broadcaster, presenting Classic Drive and the Classic Choir Hour on ABC Classic. She was raised on the music of the Czech masters, thanks to her grandmother’s excellent record collection and fell in love with choral music after a visit to the local library resulted in her borrowing a rather exotic-looking disc of Palestrina masses. She has been a choir nerd ever since. Having acquired a law degree, Vanessa decided it was useless and went into radio instead, where she has advocated for ethnic and gender diverse composers and a better funded Australian arts industry. Before moving to ABC Classic, Vanessa worked at ABC Radio Sydney.  In her spare time, Vanessa helps run Inner West Voices, a strictly non-auditioned community choir based in Sydney and volunteers for the Radio Reading Network.

Vanessa Hughes
Sydney Town Hall

Presented at

Sydney Town Hall

483 George Street, Sydney, New South Wales, 2000

Venue Info