SOAR: Louise Turnbull

Some of you heard her first – now bring a friend and show them why.

Louise Turnbull grew up making music on the Mornington Peninsula. In June she returns as an international artist, to play one of the most searching and unforgiving works in the violin repertoire. Sibelius's Violin Concerto asks for everything: white-knuckle precision, aching restraint, and above all the judgement to know when to stay grounded and when to soar. Built from ice and fire in equal measure, it is a fitting showcase for a violinist of Turnbull's calibre.

SOAR opens with an ascent. Graeme Koehne's Elevator Music lifts us – literally, and with a glint of mischief – in an unmistakably Australian voice.

From there we turn north in earnest: to the frost-clear landscapes of Sibelius's Finland, then to Elgar's England, and the affectionate portraits of his closest friends. Each Enigma variation is a small story – a nickname, an in-joke, a private tenderness. Its mystery, we think, is no mystery at all: the simple richness of friendship, which the FSO is delighted to celebrate with one of its own, home again to play among friends.

ARTISTS

Louise Turnbull  Violin

Thaddeus Huang  Conductor

Frankston Symphony Orchestra

PROGRAM

Graeme KOEHNE  Elevator Music

SIBELIUS  Violin Concerto

ELGAR  Enigma Variations

FSO 60th Anniversary Season • IGNITE 24 Apr • SOAR 20 Jun • WONDER 26 Sep