The WWSO 2010 concert series is designed to build on the success of the orchestra’s very well received 2009 program at IPAC, again featuring four events showcasing the varied world of symphonic music at its most rewarding.

2009 saw the WIN Wollongong Symphony Orchestra move back to the city for a successful series of concert programs in IPAC. 2010 will build on the momentum begun in 2009 with a new series featuring music you know and love, music to remember, music to become acquainted with, along with international guests, soloists from the orchestra and guests from other art forms. The WWSO is committed to bringing highest quality classical music, accessible, entertaining, educational and uplifting to Illawarra audiences.

THE BATON AND
THE BALLET

Many of us know the music from famous ballets without ever having seen the ballet itself because much of the world’s most popular ballet music now has a life of its own. Its strong pulse and rich emotional range engage the listener’s imagination without the visual of the dancers enacting the music.
 
The WWSO under the baton of principal conductor, Carlos Alvarado, will bring to life some of the most beautiful music ever written for ballet. Music from Tchaikovsky, with highlights from Swan Lake could not be overlooked in any program of ballet classics. Professional dancers, Simonne Smiles and Brad Moffitt will bring us some cameo performances in Swan Lake. Sleeping Beauty is another classic known to us through film, advertising and of course the wonderful music. Soloists from the Beverley Rowles School of Dance will join us in the performance of the Sleeping Beauty. The grand processional music of Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev also stands proudly among the ballet favourites.
 
Stravinsky wrote the Firebird Suite for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1910. It is fitting then that the WWSO celebrates the centenary of this great work in our 2010 series. It has remained a favourite in the repertoire of ballet companies around the world as well as on the concert program of symphony orchestras.
 
The featured works of this program will be a tribute to the magic of music from the ballet when it comes under the baton of Maestro Alvarado.

Sunday 7th March
1.00pm and 5.00pm

Rehearsing for the Performance – Dancers and Orchestra

THE RACH
THREE

The Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor, Op.30 by Sergei Rachmaninov (colloquially known as the “Rach 3”) is famous for its technical and musical demands on the performer. It has the reputation of being one of the most difficult concertos in the standard piano repertoire. It is a concerto that is respected and even feared by most pianists and yet not by our special guest, Konstantin Shamray. Konstantin came known to Australian audiences in 2008 when he won the Sydney International Piano Competition. He won both the prestigious judges and people’s choice awards along with six other major awards. Glowing reviews greet him wherever he performs. “A touch of real genius” said the Adelaide arts review, “First impression, his touch - that indescribable but immediately recog- nisable, quietly thrilling quality that demands attention. . . . . Add to all of the [finesse in performance] a gift for painting pictures and telling stories in sound.”

The 2009 Dusseldorf – Ruhr Festival asked the question “ Will Konstantin Shamray be a star in the future? This question is YES – as accepted by many of the audience at the end of his concert in the Schumann Hall in Dusseldorf. “With dynamite on his fingertips... He plays with strong hands to achieve a big tone without roughness or forcing of the sound. He mixes strength and energy without attacking the piano. He controls the contrasts in dynamics in the music with precision.”

Sounds like a perfect combination of technique and artistry for the Rach 3. Bizet’s haunting L’Arlesienne Suite and Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony completee this extraordinary program.

Konstantin Shamray is performing in collaboration with the Sydney International Piano Competition of Australia.

Konstantin Shamray’s travel to Australia was supported by Ron, Lynn and Marcus Ogden

Sunday 23rd May
1.00pm and 5.00pm

GRAND
VISIONS

Flying over the Grand Canyon takes one’s breath away with its beauty and its expansive vistas. However, there is life down there that has been accessing this impregnable terrain for centuries and continues in its traditional ways while modern man soars above it. Ferde Grofe captures some of the grandeur along with the routine of the donkey trail in daily life in his famous Grand Canyon Suite. Grofe was intrigued with the American landscape writing suites describing the Mississippi, Niagara Falls and Broadway at Night. It is the Grand Canyon Suite however, that has become part of the repertoire of orchestras across the globe.

In 2008, the WWSO premiered the Piano Concerto No 2 by Ann Carr-Boyd. In 2010, we are delighted that Father Arthur Bridge of Ars Musica has commissioned Ann to write a work for Violin and Orchestra for the WWSO concertmaster, Alexandra Loukianova. Alexandra has demonstrated her versatility playing Massenet to Piazzolla and impressed audiences with her mastery of the violin.

The program will begin with the classic Bernstein’s Candide Overture.

Sunday 5th September
1.00pm and 5.00pm

FANTASTICAL
CLASSICAL

There is so much popular music from the classics that the Artistic Committee of the WIN Wollongong Symphony Orchestra has had difficulty limiting itself. The 2010 Fantastical Classical will feature music from favourite musicals, from dance and some great classic fantasticals. The Sabre Dance, Jamaican Rhumba, English Country Garden and a special surprise treat that young and old will love are only jut the beginning. Come and experience classics you know and love, participate and be entertained. Fantastical Classical 2010, continuing the tradition!

Sunday 28th November
1.00pm and 5.00pm

TATIANA KOLESOVA
IN RECITAL

The WWSO audience stood and cheered when Tatiana Kolesova was our guest in 2008 playing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1.

We are delighted to invite this wonderful young Russian pianist back to Wollongong for a recital program at IPAC on Sunday 17 October at 2.00pm.

Tatiana was one of the select group of world-class finalists in the 2008 Sydney International Piano Competition. This display of piano virtuosity is sure to be exciting and is not to be missed. Subscribers have the option of securing their prioritised seating for this recital at a 20% discount when ordering with their subscription for 2010.

Illawarra Performing Arts Centre
Sunday 17th October
2.00pm

GRAND VISIONS
SUNDAY 5th September
1pm & 5pm
Experience the great outdoors with Copland's Outdoor Overture