Sydney Symphony Orchestra kicks off its Town Hall residency with conga line of Latin rhythms
This was not a night for Brahms or Mahler, as the orchestra flicked the switch to conga, mambo and danzon in a concert called The 1950s Latin Lounge, complete with marimba, maracas and cowbells.
Conductor and compere Guy Noble added zest to infectious rhythms that, he said, were catchier than the coronavirus.
A program of light music and novelty items was an unusual choice, though, for a concert to inaugurate the 2020 season that is symbolic for several reasons. Being Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, one might have expected the Choral Symphony, the Missa Solemnis or another large-scale orchestral work, but they will come later in the season.
The concert also marked the SSO’s return to its former home, the Town Hall, where it will spend much of the next two years while the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House undergoes a renovation. The $150m project is intended to improve the acoustic and production facilities there, and to provide better access for visitors.
Being evicted, even temporarily, from the Opera House is a major disruption to the SSO and its audience.
An earlier plan to move to the ICC Sydney convention centre was wisely shelved.
The ICC is not made for orchestral music and the Town Hall is a more attractive venue: easy to get to, grandly ornate, and nostalgic for those who remember the SSO’s concerts there in earlier years. The Victorian-era interior was spectacular when lit up on Wednesday night, and it had a pleasing “big hall” acoustic that will lend grandeur and spaciousness to the SSO’s concerts of orchestral masterworks.
The program included ventures into the Latin world by Anglophone composers such as George Gershwin, Morton Gould and Australia’s Malcolm Williamson, with the Serenade from his Our Man in Havana Suite. More authentic representations came from Mexican composer Arturo Marquez, whose Danzon No 2 from 1994 has become a well-known orchestral showstopper.
Still, it’s hard to go past Leonard Bernstein’s Mambo from West Side Story, given as the encore, for sheer exuberance and orchestral colour.
Soprano Ali McGregor appeared in the guise of Peruvian songbird Yma Sumac, giving an astonishing display of coloratura, growls, trills and other effects. And burlesque artist Imogen Kelly did a tasteful striptease as the Goddess of the Sea — something you don’t see every night at a symphony concert.
Concert repeated Saturday, 7pm.
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Latin music is nothing if not about rhythm, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s percussion section turned it on for the orchestra’s season opener at the Town Hall on Wednesday night.