Spring Concert 2019:
Australian Journey – Percy Grainger to John Farnham
Sunday 8th September @ 2pm
The Springwood Theatre & Community Hub
Blue Mountains Orchestra, in partnership with Blaxland High singers, will take you on a musical journey spanning 100 years, 1900 to 2000, in a program of varied musical styles.
Percy Grainger was the first Australian composer to achieve wide recognition throughout the world, principally as a highly individual and virtuosic concert pianist, but his compositions and folk song settings quickly became well known and performed, especially in Britain and USA. Grainger, and his contemporary, Arthur Benjamin, composer of “Jamaican Rumba,” will feature in the first part of the program.
Peter Sculthorpe was the 20th Century composer who, with great success, developed a uniquely Australian sound, drawing extensively upon Aboriginal music and themes in his compositions. He also vividly depicted the Australian landscape and climate, perhaps best represented in his Sun Music series. Our Sculthorpe segment will include his popular “Small Town,” with its echoes of Anzac Day in a country town.
Songs from the bush will be represented by an Australiana Medley arranged by Tommy Tycho, and there will be the opportunity for the audience to join in some old favourites.
We will also celebrate a unique voice of the last century in the ageless John Farnham, as the wonderfully talented singers of Blaxland High join the orchestra in “Age of Reason,” Please Don’t Ask Me” and “The Voice.”
Blaxland High are to be congratulated for their recent first place in the Under 19 Choral section of the City of Sydney Eisteddford.