The Australian Youth Orchestra marks an exciting milestone as we travel to the Top End for the first time in over 30 years before returning to Sydney’s City Recital Hall with a thrilling program featuring Shostakovich’s haunting Cello Concerto No. 1 and the sweeping gestures of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, conducted by the dynamic Antony Hermus.

Internationally acclaimed cellist and AYO alumna, Charlotte Miles, joins as soloist, bringing intensity and nuance to Shostakovich’s powerful work with rhythmic textures and obsessive motifs.

Composed over 150 years apart, both works chart a stylistic evolution from modernist introspection to Romantic grandeur but are united by themes of heroism, defiance, and emotional intensity.

Written under Soviet rule, Shostakovich’s concerto is intense, ironic, and emotionally charged, reflecting the composer’s inner resistance and complex relationship with authority. Beethoven’s expansive, bold, and deeply expressive Eroica, originally dedicated to Napoleon, was a revolutionary work that broke musical conventions and celebrated individual heroism and struggle.

Brett Dean’s Testament – a powerful prelude to the Beethoven both musically and conceptually, is the composer’s response to Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament, reflecting his struggles with deafness and despair, but also his resilience and determination – exactly the same spirit that drives the Eroica. The perfect contemporary mirror, opening a door into Beethoven’s world from a 21st-century perspective.

Repertoire:
SHOSTAKOVICH Cello Concerto No 1
BEETHOVEN Eroica
Brett DEAN Testament