ICO 2026 Season – Sundays @ 1pm

Sunday 29 March 1.00pm – Indooroopilly State High School

Welcome to our first ICO Sundays @ 1pm concert for 2026. We hope you have enjoyed a symphony of memorable moments this year.

From the soaring elegance and collaborative spirit of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor to the radiant theatricality of Beethoven’s Creatures of Prometheus, this program traces how music, dance and imagination awaken humanity and joy.

Program

Felix Mendelssohn – Concerto in E minor for Violin and Orchestra Op. 64

INTERVAL

Ludwig van Beethoven – The Creatures of Prometheus

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.

Elizabeth Lu – Soloist

Elizabeth is a Year 12 student at the Queensland Academy for Science, Mathematics and Technology and began the violin at the age of eight, inspired by a television character. She also learns piano and viola.

A dedicated member of the Queensland Youth Orchestras (QYO) since 2020, Elizabeth has held several prominent leadership positions across the ensembles. In 2022, she served as Associate Concertmaster of Queensland Youth Orchestra 3 (QYO3), performing as the soloist for Kabalevsky’s Violin Concerto accompanied by QYO3 at the Old Museum, and touring with QYO3 to Bundaberg, Maryborough, and the Sunshine Coast. In 2023, she was appointed Concertmaster of Queensland Youth Orchestra 2 (QYO2), leading the orchestra on tour to Kingaroy and Maryborough. That same year, she toured with the QYO Chamber Orchestra to Kingaroy, Cherbourg, the Sunshine Coast, Gympie, and Caboolture, and led the QYO2 String Quartet in performances at venues including QPAC and the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University. Elizabeth’s orchestral experience also includes six years within the QYO organisation, where she was the Associate Principal of the Second Violins with the Queensland Youth Symphony (QYS) last year and now plays in the First Violin section. In 2024, she was also a member of the first violin section of the Young Mannheim Symphonists.

Beyond her orchestral achievements, Elizabeth has performed solo works such as Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 4 and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor as the soloist in the Morning Music concert series at the Old Museum, and was featured as the broadcast star guest musician on the classical radio 4MBS. She has also appeared as the soloist in Kabalevsky’s Violin Concerto (3rd movement) with QYO3, and performed Vivaldi’s Winter and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto (3rd movement) with the Queensland Academy of Science, Mathematics and Technology Chamber Orchestra. Additionally, Elizabeth performs regularly in chamber ensembles and has played in a professional setting for wedding ceremonies and private events as part of a string quartet. She has appeared in major events including Spirit of Christmas at QPAC as Principal of the Second Violins in 2023, and was selected again the following year to perform side-by-side with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra (QSO). Her favourite work, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor, holds a special place in her musical development—performed for her LMusA violin exam, with her school orchestra, and in Morning Music recitals. Elizabeth’s competition successes include awards at the Brisbane and Ipswich Eisteddfods. Passionate, dedicated, and inspired, she continues to explore music as both an art form and a lifelong pursuit.

Program Notes

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1826)

The Creatures of Prometheus, 1801.

The Creatures of Prometheus ballet was the creation of dancer, composer, and choreographer Salvatore Vigano. Vigano took the Prometheus myth from a French novel and adapted it to the spirit of the age, the Enlightenment. Beethoven wrote the overture, an introduction, fifteen numbers and a finale to this ballet, an opportunity to make himself known to a theatrical audience. In the course of a short time he wrote over one hour of music with special attention to the finale.

According to legend, Prometheus creates man and woman from stone statues only to discover that they are not humans yet: they lack spirit and soul! Apollo helps Prometheus to humanise the creatures by showing and teaching them music, dance and drama. By learning these beauties humans can be moral, free and happy, and as a result make just and harmonious societies. This idea of humanity being illuminated by science and art was very close to Beethoven.

After Melpomene the Muse of Tragedy kills Prometheus, and Thalia the Muse of Comedy resurrects Prometheus, the story ends with a joyful dance scene. Beethoven and Vigano chose the popular englische dance for the finale and with a good reason. The English dance had spread across Europe as a progressive, radical new dance. According to the rules dancing partners are constantly changing, a nobleman could end up with a commoner, this way mingling the classes. This idea for the spiritual children of the Enlightenment was the tiny representation of the ideal society.

Program notes: https://www.popularbeethoven.com/beethoven-the-creatures-of-prometheus/

Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847)

Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64, 1844.

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto stemmed from a deep friendship and collaboration with the esteemed violinist, Ferdinand David. It was the first in a series of violin concertos written by pianist-composers with the assistance of eminent violinists. David was responsible both for the cadenza and for giving frequent advice regarding technical matters through the compositional process. The outcome was a serious, exquisite, elegant essay in the romantic concerto genre, ultimately ranking among the finest violin concerti written in the nineteenth century. Perhaps David anticipated this when he said to the composer, “This is going to be something great! There is plenty of music for violin and orchestra, but there has only been one big, truly great concerto
(Beethoven) and now there will be two!” Mendelssohn replied, “I am not competing with Beethoven.

The Mendelssohn concerto bore no resemblance to the Beethoven work. Its three movements are played without pause. This concerto discards the usual orchestral introductory exposition, beginning instead with orchestral “accompaniment” style, thereby creating a sense of expectation. The violin soloist obliges quickly with a soaring, restless melody, intensifying as it rises. Completing its statement, the soloist moves to a lower register, and remains in the background, as the second theme murmurs from flutes and clarinets. Mendelssohn’s development provides a structural surprise. In this section, the composer moves a written cadenza from its traditional place at the end of the first movement to a new location at the end of the development. The recapitulation enters from the orchestra with the soloist continuing an arpeggiated figure derived from the cadenza. The soloist is clearly collaborating at this point with the orchestra rather than seizing the stage, revealing one of the concerto’s features of interlocking partnership between the two forces. A solo bassoon, holding one note from a cadential chord bridges this movement into the second.

The middle section, an Andante in C major, offers a tender theme sung by the soloist as its main subject. A middle section spins a minor tune over bustling 32nd notes providing significant contrast to the opening calm. The third section recalls the opening theme, refreshed by new accompaniment. Fourteen bars of transitional material bridge to the concluding section.

A tiny introduction and brass fanfare opens the brilliant finale. The soloist answers with lightly scampering arpeggios. A bright main theme from the soloist dances over fairy-like accompaniment from the orchestra. Echoes of Midsummer Night’s Dream are everywhere. Changing this delicate mood, the orchestra asserts a strong second theme, which steadily loses its initial weight, gains flexibility, and finally runs off in a playful mood. The soloist provides a lyrical theme in the development section leading to continued collaboration with the orchestra until a dazzling conclusion.

Program Notes by: Marianne Williams Tobias

Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra