ICO 2024 season – Sundays @ 1pm

Sunday 24 March 1.00pm @ Sherwood State School, cnr Oxley and Sherwood Rds, Sherwood

Welcome to the first ICO Sundays @ 1pm concert for 2024. You will be captivated by the performance of three of our previous soprano soloists returning to sing excerpts from Handel’s Acis and Galatea (arr. Mozart) with orchestra, creating a rich palette of colours.

Stay to hear the orchestra perform Haydn’s London Symphony No. 99, written when Haydn was at the height of his compositional powers. You will enjoy the playfulness and artful manipulation of vocal performance and a symphony of memorable moments.

Program

Handel (arr. Mozart) – Acis and Galatea:

Act 1:

• Overture (Orchestra)
• Where shall I seek the charming fair? (Acis, the mortal – Vanessa Strydom)
• Shephard, what art thou pursuing? (Damon, friend of Acis – Naomi Klazinga)
• As when the dove (Galatea the sea nymph – Eline van Bruggen)
• Happy we (Acis and Galatea)
• Happy we – (Orchestra)

Act 2:

• Love sounds the alarm (Acis)
• Consider, fond shephard (Damon)
• Heart, the seat of soft delight (Galatea)
• Galatea, dry those tears (Orchestra)

INTERVAL

Haydn – Symphony no 99 in Eb major

Greta Hunter – Conductor

Greta Hunter is a Brisbane based conductor and flute specialist. She holds a Bachelor of Music (BMus(hons)) from the University of Queensland, majoring in flute performance, and currently studies Orchestral Conducting with the Cardiff International Academy of Conducting and Mark Shapiro (The Julliard School). 

Greta holds the position of conductor with the Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra (ICO), where she connects players to great orchestral works most often from the 18th – 20th centuries. With ICO, Greta creates valuable opportunities for outstanding young musicians to rehearse and perform concertos and solo works with a full orchestra. She is equally at home with choral music and is currently the musical director of Songshine Choir. Greta also works with school and community youth ensembles as well as being regularly invited to guest conduct other instrumental and vocal ensembles around Brisbane.

Greta is a flute specialist tutor at St Peter’s Lutheran College (Indooroopilly) and Westside Christian College. She is passionate about developing technique and musicianship and incorporates a multidisciplinary approach to her teaching, where she utilises and combines flute pedagogy with vocal pedagogy. Greta incorporates this approach to develop technique and musicianship for flutists and choristers alike and has seen significant positive benefits across both disciplines.

Greta is driven by the underlying philosophy that everyone deserves to experience meaningful music making. Through her work as both a conductor and flute specialist tutor, Greta guides people to explore the possibilities of expression through music and ultimately to engage with music in a deeper and more meaningful way.

Naomi Klazinga

Naomi Klazinga is an engaging, dynamic soprano passionate about sharing her love of beautiful music. A founding member of vocal quartet Seren8 (performing at the regular Lord Mayor’s Seniors Christmas Parties and Brahms’ Liebeslieder) and vocal ensemble Lucem Vitae, as well as co-director of choral workshops for the STSA choir in Laidley, Naomi has always maintained a strong belief in the power of collaborative music-making to change lives positively. Having graduated from The University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Music (first class honors, University medal) in 2020, Naomi has been requested to return for various performances with UQ Music, including performing Verdi’s Requiem and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the UQ Singers and the UQSO. She performed in the Australian premiere performance of Dona Nobis Pacem (by RV Williams) as soprano soloist, with the UQ Chorale and Queensland Youth Orchestra in her first year of study. She has performed as soloist in St John’s cathedral such works as Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G minor, Bach’s Ascension Oratorio, Bach’s Wachet Auf, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Naomi won first prize in the Ethel Osbourne competition in 2019 and was a finalist in 2018 and 2017. She won first prize in the Vocal Aria section in the Redlands Eistedfodd in 2018 and has a high distinction in her Certificate of Performance (AMEB) and Grade 7 for Voice.

Vanessa Strydom

Vanessa Strydom is a musicologist and soprano with a passion for both nineteenth-century opera and the works of William Shakespeare. She completed her Bachelor of Music majoring in performance at The University of Queensland (UQ) in 2014 with First Class Honours. Vanessa then completed a PhD in Musicology where she investigated the representations of gender in three operatic adaptations of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. In late 2016, she directed and performed in a concert of excerpts from operas based on the works of Shakespeare. This was part of the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions’ concert series “The Delighted Spirit” in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

Vanessa has sung as a soloist for The Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra, The Bach Society of Queensland Choir, The Brisbane Mandolin Orchestra and in Sola Voce’s performance of Purcell’s King Arthur. Vanessa has also performed in a variety of solo concerts for The Western Music Circle and 4MBS Classical FM and was featured as a soloist in The Badinerie Players C.P.E. Bach’s 300th Anniversary Concert. Vanessa has won various awards for her singing including the Vocal Bursary Award at the Brisbane Eisteddfod, the Bendigo Bank Singing Scholarship and The University of Queensland Vocal Prize. She has also premiered new works by acclaimed Australian composers Connor D’Netto and Benjamin Heim. A highlight of her performance career was her experience as the soprano soloist in Carl Orff’s monumental work ‘Carmina Burana’ with UQ Chorale at QPAC in 2015, backed by five choirs and UQ symphony orchestra, totalling over 500 musicians onstage.

Eline van Bruggen

Born in The Netherlands into a family of professional musicians, Eline van Bruggen has always shown a passion for performing. She started with Suzuki Method at the age of four and is a proficient flautist as well as vocalist. In 2023, Eline toured to Longreach and Winton with Opera Queensland for the Festival of Outback Opera and performed as a soloist at the Brisbane Festival. She received third prize for the Open Classical Art Song section at the Queensland Vocal Competition and was selected as a finalist for both the Ethel Osborn Prize and the Margaret Nickson Prize for Voice and Piano. More recently, Eline sang the soprano solo in Haydn’s Mass in Time of War with ChoirWorks directed by Dr Debra Shearer-Dirié. Her operatic roles include Ciboletta in Eine Nacht in Venedig and Erste Knabe in Die Zauberflöte in The University of Queensland’s complete productions, as well as Frasquita in Carmen, Crobyle in Thaïs, Ida in Die Fledermaus, Anne in A Little Night Music, Inès in Les Bavards, and Poppea in L’incoronazione di Poppea in staged concert excerpts. Eline looks forward to singing the role of Susanna in UQ’s full production of Le Nozze di Figaro later this year.

Program Notes

Handel (1685 – 1759)

Selections from Acis and Galatea (arr. Mozart)

Handel first engaged with the subject of Acis and Galatea during his stay in Italy, where in 1708 he composed a serenata, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, for three solo voices and orchestra. Ten years later he revisited the theme and wrote Acis and Galatea, with an English text and new music. Handel called the one-act work a ‘masque’, and it was for four singers and a small orchestra of two oboes, two violins and continuo. Handel revived the work between 1731 and 1742 in various forms and using a multi-voiced chorus, sometimes in a bi-lingual version incorporating parts of the 1708 work. In 1743 a complete score of a purely English version divided into two acts was published, and it became the most popular of Handel’s secular works in Britain, retaining its appeal throughout the 18th century and beyond.

In 1788 Mozart arranged Acis and Galatea for patron Baron Gottfried van Swieten. Van Swieten sought to revive the baroque style by commissioning new arrangements of older works to be played at his weekly salons in Vienna. Mozart arranged Acis and Galatea in the classical style of the day. He added second violin, woodwind, viola, and bassoon parts and re-wrote the oboe solos for clarinet. The clarity of Mozart’s arrangement emphasized the dynamics and phrasing of the melodic line. Mozart’s expertly crafted revision adds to the orchestra’s sonority and palette of colours.

The story of Acis and Galatea derives from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and concerns the mutual longings of a sea-nymph, Galatea, and the shepherd Acis, while his fellow shepherd, Damon, warns him about neglecting his flock. The lovers are united, only for the jealous Cyclops, Polypheme, to intervene, desiring Galatea for himself. Challenged by Acis, Polypheme slays him, whereupon Galatea is prevailed upon to use her divine powers to turn him into a fountain, ‘murmuring still his gentle love’.

Program notes: https://www.chandos.net/chanimages/Booklets/NI6201.pdf; https://www.acisandgalatea.org/mozart-arrangement

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 – 1809)

London Symphony No. 99

Two years after the death of Mozart, Haydn wrote his Symphony No. 99, the first of the second set of “London” symphonies. It was premiered in London at the King’s Theatre in 1794. Though he was 61 at the time, Haydn was hardly an old dog. Indeed, he was in command of his compositional powers, and even ready to learn some new tricks. Between Mozart and Haydn, we usually think of Haydn as the elder symphonist, but this work actually shows the likely influence of Mozart on Haydn. Haydn was fond of the clarinet and had used it extensively in his concertos, operas, and several of his symphonies. Symphony No. 99 is the first time Haydn used clarinets in a symphony.

This symphony epitomizes the four-movement classical symphonic form which Haydn helped to establish. The first movement begins with a slow introduction (Adagio). Haydn deviates from standard practice immediately at the first major cadence, moving to a foreign key for a few moments before returning to the home key of E-flat major for lively yet reserved Vivace assai. This continual playfulness and reluctance to “stay within lines” of accustomed harmonic practice are a fingerprint of the mature composer’s style.

The Adagio second movement carries through the harmonic amusement, being set in the relatively unexpected key of G major. Some scholars consider the first hymn-like melody, marked with the instruction cantabile (Italian for “singing” or “songlike”), to be one of Haydn’s most inspired. Listen particularly in this movement for the interplay between woodwinds – flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons – and the strings. This movement is also noteworthy because Haydn includes timpani, not ordinarily used in his slow movements.

The Menuet immediately brings to mind the graceful dance form, with a few dramatic pauses to add interest and with a more boisterous accompaniment from time to time. The surprising harmonic underpinnings continue a subtle and amusing entertainment for the harmonically inclined listeners.

The Finale further confirms the master composer’s uncommon ability to create whimsical and entertaining music within the reserved and stately court style of the classical era. Nothing too emotional, too desirous, or too upsetting here: simply orderly delight and delectation that can transport one from the untidiness of real life.

Program notes: https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/4081/symphony-no-99

Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra

Flute

Kymberley Jones

Clarinet

Giancarlo Ceja

Colleen Rowe

Bassoon

Jarrah Newman

Horn

Nicole Blackett

Paul Brisbane

Timpani and Percussion

Janine Kesting