The Canberra Symphony Orchestra’s 2022 season will feature some of the most important and revered works in the Western classical music canon, drawing on the genre’s visionaries to inspire audiences.
“I really wanted to create a season full of possibilities and I was inspired by really some of the greatest musical minds,” Orchestra Artistic Director Jessica Cottis told Canberra Daily.
“I felt that coming out of such a difficult period of time, that now was the perfect moment really to be really inspired.”
It all started with one piece, in fact, one chord – the famous opening chord of Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde, Prelude.
“It influences everyone around and everyone who comes afterward, and that really was the very beginning of creating this season,” she said.
“It’s a chord of great expectation, we don’t know where it’s going, we kind of have no idea in which direction it will resolve, and Wagner uses that so brilliantly.”
From there Cottis looked to round out the CSO 2022 season with other influential works.
“For me it immediately led to quite an eclectic program, I guess you could say, an unexpected, imaginative program,” she said.
Works like Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 5 and Stravinsky’s Petrushka entered the fray, as did a nod to Wagner’s longstanding influence with works like Bernard Herrmann’s Film Suite from Vertigo.
“There are so many traces of that Wagner in a piece written 100 years later for a film in Hollywood … that really intellectually delighted me.”
‘Vision of the orchestra’ has developed
Cottis will lead the Orchestra in performances of Wagner, Herrmann, Mendelssohn, and Australian composer Margaret Sutherland at the epic Llewellyn One – Redemption in April.
Based in Europe, she plans to return to Canberra twice next year to conduct the Orchestra on four separate occasions: Australian Series One and Llewellyn One in April, then Llewellyn Four, and the CSO Summer Prom in November/December.
“I’m really looking forward to being back for so many programs next year because a lot of what we’re doing is so developmental,” she said.
“The vision of the orchestra has really developed as well as what we’ve been able to achieve musically.
“It’s really exciting times, and so to be back twice and to do a number of concerts each visit, this just feels really real and holistic.”
While acknowledging the masters, the Orchestra’s longstanding “zeal and passion” to program Australian music can also be seen throughout their 2022 schedule.
Twenty Australian works, including four premieres, will be performed across three Australian Series concerts and the 2022 program more widely.
“One of my main focuses with Canberra is this commitment to Australian music and our ability to write our own history in the arts and music,” Cottis said.
After such a disrupted 2021, she acknowledged the unwavering support of the Orchestra’s audience.
“The act of making music is a collaboration, and we can’t wait to share this extraordinary, mind-expanding music with you all,” Cottis said.
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