Classical Delights

Mendelssohn’s Hebrides overture evocatively captures the mystery of Fingal’s Cave in the Hebrides off  Northern Scotland. Haydn’s popular and virtuosic trumpet concerto was the first written for the newfangled keyed trumpet, and exploits its possibilities to the full. The program concludes with Beethoven’s light-hearted and tuneful 8th Symphony.

Soloist:  Michael Olsen, Trumpet

Michael grew up in rural Western Australia, where he started learning piano and violin, before picking up the trumpet at age ten. He began his Bachelor of Music at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, studying with Peter Miller, before transferring to the Queensland Conservatorium, where he studied with Sarah Butler and Richard Madden. Michael recently finished at the Australian National Academy of Music where he studied for three years with Tristram Williams and David Elton.

Michael has performed with Orchestra Victoria, as well as the Melbourne, Sydney, Tasmanian, and West Australian Symphony Orchestras. He has performed as a soloist for Josh Groban’s Melbourne Stages tour, and has also been a regular member of Australia’s youth orchestras, including the Australian Youth Orchestra, Queensland Youth Orchestra, and the Australian International Symphony Orchestra Institute. In 2016, Michael’s ensemble performing Stravinsky’s Octet was awarded First Prize in the ANAM Chamber Competition.

Internationally, Michael has performed in the International Trumpet Guild Conference in Columbus, Ohio where he was awarded the Anatoly Selianin Memorial Scholarship. He also attended the Internationale Trompetentage Kürnbach (2015) with Reinhold Friedrich and the Norddeutsche Trompetentage (2014). In April this year Michael is commencing his Masters studies in Germany with Reinhold Friedrich.

Conductor : Willem van der Vis

Something Old, Something New

A new commission by the Maroondah Symphony Orchestra by well-known local composer David Keeffe opens this concert. Mozart wrote his last four violin concertos in the same year when he was 19. His sparkling final violin concerto features some vaguely oriental rhythms (actually Hungarian!) in the last movement that gave it its nickname. Brahms’ brooding 4th symphony provides a stark contrast with its sense of yearning for something unattainable.

Soloist:  Harry Ward, Violin

Harry has always been extremely passionate about music and the violin in particular, and is currently training at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) with Robin Wilson. He was most recently studying at Robert McDuffie Center for Strings under the tutelage of Amy Schwartz-Moretti, David Halen and Robert McDuffie in America.

Before this time, Harry studied in Vienna, Austria with Professor Boris Kuschnir as part of a course for young ‘Highly Gifted Students’ at the Graz Kunst-Universität, and was afforded the opportunity to consume and perform music with some of the world’s finest musicians.

As a violinist, Harry has been fortunate enough to win many prestigious awards and prizes, including the Australian National Youth Concerto Competition, and finalist in the ABC Young Performers Awards. Most importantly, the competitions have afforded some great opportunities to get to know other musicians who have become lifelong friends and mentors.

Harry has been invited to attend great festivals, schools and Summer schools. In 2016 and 2017 he attended the Aspen Music Festival under the fellowship program. He successfully auditioned for the prestigious Lac Leman Music Masterclasses in Switzerland in 2014, working with Boris Kuschnir and Mihaela Martin, Daniel Austrich, Nobuko Imai and Frans Helmerson of the Michelangelo String Quartet. In 2011 and 2012 he received full scholarships to the Meadowmount School of Music in New York. He was part of the Rising Stars Program at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music from 12 to 17 years under Professors Peter Zhang and Alice Waten. He has had ongoing mentoring and masterclasses with numerous luminaries such as Professor Boris Kuschnir, Joseph Silverstein (late), Donald Weilerstein, Berent Korfker, Professor Alice Waten, Professor Peter Zhang, Cho-Liang Lin, Walter Schwede, Charmian Gadd, Patricia McCarty, Gerard Willems and James Ehnes whom he worked with in Vienna and America.

Since the age of ten Harry has frequently been asked to perform as a soloist, concertmaster and chamber musician; with performances in Australia, America, China, Mexico, Singapore and Europe. He has performed as soloist with the Nanjing, Nanning, Hunan, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Willoughby, Beecroft, Ku-ring-gai, and The Arts Unit Symphony Orchestras, and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Michoacán in Mexico. Harry has collaborated with many different conductors such as Fu Renchang of the Berlin Symphonie, Eduardo Sanchez-Zuber, Manuel Alberto and Ward Stare. From 2009-2013, Harry lead the Porcelian Quartet and many other chamber groups in various music festivals around the world.

Harry performs on a beautiful 1780 Pietro Antonio Landolfi violin on loan from anonymous but very generous benefactors.

Conductor : Willem van der Vis