A Night of Musical Excellence
The Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO) delivered a remarkable performance at the Sydney Opera House on May 1, showcasing the unique concept of Symphonic Cinema. This innovative approach, founded by Lucas Van Woerkum, reimagines existing symphonic works by adding visual elements and a wordless narrative, synchronized with live performances using digital technology.
Van Woerkum’s Loss, which received its first performance from the SSO under Benjamin Northey, was a stunning interpretation of Holst’s The Planets. The performance featured breathtaking visuals of cliffs, birds, and the sea, along with dance sequences from Arts Umbrella Vancouver, and a narrative of loss and grief enacted by Emma Thompson and Greg Wise. For some listeners, the combination of music and visuals provided a rich and immersive experience, enhancing their own imaginative interpretations. However, for others, the images and story felt extraneous, distracting from the musical narrative itself.
In the opening movement, Mars: the Bringer of War, dancers writhed in the earth, abstract shapes mutated, and at the climax, Thompson, nervous and uncertain, was joined in a procession by dancers hooded like an angel of death. In Venus, the Bringer of Peace, Thompson walked through an artist’s studio perched vertiginously on shoreline cliffs, conveying alienation from her own space. Later movements became more explicit, but spoilers are best avoided. Northey and the SSO projected the bellicose rhythms of Mars with weight and heft, while the slower music had transparent clarity, nowhere unduly rushed. The closing texture of Neptune, the Mystic, sung by the women of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs from the northern galleries, receded ethereally into the infinite.
The concert also began with Charles Ives’s searching short piece, The Unanswered Question. Then came a grippingly energized performance by SSO percussionist Rebecca Lagos of Nigel Westlake’s percussion concerto When the Clock Strikes Me, reshaped from its original 2006 version. Framed within clock-like ticking figurations, and combining a fast-slow-fast structure into a continuous movement, the work’s trajectory is reminiscent of one of those magical trips by a child into a dream world where things rapidly become wild and exaggerated, and the line between vivid reality and impossible fantasy blurs.
In Lagos’s immensely capable hands, it was not only a brilliant tour-de-force. With fluid ease of limb and wrist, minute precision, and innately musical rhythmic sense, she darted, Ariel-like, around an intimidating array of instruments, drawing listeners into Westlake’s hypnotic world of constantly mutating rhythmic organisms until the dream suddenly ended with a rushing final clap.
Deftones Deliver a Memorable Performance
Sacramento’s Deftones are one of the most gleefully enigmatic heavy music bands of all time. Their 1995 debut album, Adrenaline, has long had them regarded as forefathers of nu metal, even as they’ve progressively moved away from that sound into one that is uniquely their own. They are a metal band for whom Depeche Mode and The Cure are as influential as Black Sabbath. A group that, more than three decades into their career, are a bigger live draw now than ever, as evidenced by this, the first of two Sydney arena shows.
They are also one of the rare acts that has brought the mainstream to them, rather than cater their sound to it. On this night, that is evident not only in the way they traverse material from eight of their 10 studio albums – no sticking to the greatest hits here – but also in the fact the audience is equally engaged throughout. The musical eras veer from the primitively heavy aggression of closer 7 Words (the sole representative from their debut album) to the cinematically atmospheric Change (In the House of Flies); from the groove-laden Swerve City to the discordantly melodic opener Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away).
Sensual might be a strange adjective to use for a band that delights in primordially heavy riffing, yet it’s oddly fitting. On a surface level, we can thank the ethereal video projections that add a sense of Lynchian noir to proceedings. But it’s deeper than that. It’s in the soundscapes carved out by keyboardist/turntablist Frank Delgado and touring guitarists Shaun Lopez and Lance Jackman (deputising for Stephen Carpenter, who no longer tours outside of America). It’s also due to 52-year-old frontman Chino Moreno, a whirlwind of perpetual energy and one of metal’s most distinctive voices – haunting and melodic in Mascara and Digital Bath, suitably intense in My Own Summer (Shove It) and Around the Fur.
Concluding the pre-encore set with the similar-paced Genesis and Departing the Body creates a rare lapse in momentum, but it’s a rare misstep from one of metal’s most intriguing acts.
Jessica Mauboy’s Emotional Journey
Jessica Mauboy’s performance at the City Recital Hall on May 1, titled The Story of Me: A Musical Journey Through My Career, was a heartfelt celebration of her journey as an artist. In the two decades since her Australian Idol audition, Mauboy has established herself as one of our most celebrated contemporary artists both here and on the international stage. So it’s hard to credit the Kuku Yalanji woman’s need still to “fight for [creative] control” in recent years. So, too, were the “nerves” mentioned, but well concealed, during the minimalist set.
After going independent last year, there’s renewed vigour, vulnerability and authenticity on display as Mauboy blends witty and intimate storytelling with a commanding stage presence and vocal delivery. A spellbinding opening set from Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung woman Jem Cassar-Daley and an emotive Welcome to Country from Gadigal performer Nana Miss Koori set the tone for an evening celebrating identity, community, growth, family and liberation.
Mauboy spent the first hour reminiscing on her teen years, weaving tales and short renditions of the classics that defined her journey from discovery in Darwin to stardom. There was a soulful version of Trisha Yearwood’s How Do I Live and a soaring cover of Shania Twain’s From This Moment On, a breakthrough track at the Tamworth Country Music Festival. Mauboy was most at home in the latter hour, when she performed her own material. Where the stories veered into unrestrained territory, the impact of being labelled “jelly belly” on Idol and her mother’s defiant shoe-throwing at a manager, the vocal control remained precise.
There was a guitar-led Burn, the crowd-pleasing Pop a Bottle, a soulful version of Running Back and her anthemic Eurovision entry We Got Love, showcasing her slick vocal runs and an uninhibited energy that was matched by the audience’s dancing. Mauboy closed with a showcase for her voice – a bewitching Glow, the profound ballad Little Things, and the uplifting, pertinent Give You Love – leaving little doubt that her legion of fans is ready to embrace the new liberated terms and light Mauboy has stepped into.
