Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Elder Hall. 20 Jun 2026
Major orchestras are often criticised for their programming choices: not enough new music, too many potboilers, too many white male composers, not enough women, and the list goes on. It is a hot topic, and Australia’s leading arts and music magazine, Limelight, regularly publishes surveys tracking matters such as gender diversity and the representation of Australian and living composers. The findings vary from state to state and ensemble to ensemble, but historical works continue to dominate subscription seasons, even as there appears to be a growing push to feature contemporary and historically underrepresented voices.
So, it is a remarkable thing that a major orchestra like the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra should create a series such as She Speaks, dedicated to music by female composers, particularly those still living and creating today. Now an annual initiative, the series was launched in 2021 with a program curated by Adelaide-born composer and academic Anne Cawrse. Since then, it has presented both world premières of newly commissioned works by Australian women and Australian premières of music by prominent international composers.
As exciting as this is, the challenge is to avoid the “première and goodbye” phenomenon, where a work is performed once and then quietly shelved. Music history is littered with such casualties. How does new music become part of the standard repertoire? Today’s musical ecosystem is fundamentally different from that of even fifty years ago, largely because technology has made the world inextricably interconnected. Yet that alone is insufficient to secure a work’s future. Performers, conductors and ensembles must champion new music through repeated performances. Conservatories need to embed it within their curricula, publishers must produce authoritative editions, and broadcasters need to provide meaningful exposure. Only then can new works establish a foothold in the repertoire.
But none of this matters unless audiences actually like the music and want to hear it again, and again. Arguably, Adelaide audiences have sometimes been hesitant to embrace programs built around contemporary music. It was therefore pleasing to be part of a supportive, if modestly sized, audience in Adelaide University’s Elder Hall for a concert featuring several works that deserve a future life well beyond a single performance and would sit comfortably within a standard subscription series.
The program comprised six compositions by composers largely from English-speaking traditions. There were three Australian premières and one world première. Four of the six composers are still living, one of whom is 98 years of age.
The concert opened with Overture by Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz, written in 1943 during the Nazi occupation of Poland. It is a brisk and energetic work dominated by woodwinds, brass and timpani, whose rhythmic drive propels the music relentlessly forward. Conductor Sara Duhig set and maintained a buoyant pace while allowing the contrasting lyrical central section, featuring especially fine flute playing, to emerge with clarity and warmth.
Grace-Evangeline Mason’s Upon Weightless Wings is cast in three brief movements and scored for an ensemble of around fifteen players, including tubular bells. Performed without a conductor, leadership passes naturally between instrumental groups as the musical focus shifts. Inspired by three contemporary artworks, each movement conveys a distinct sense of liberation, optimism and the exhilaration of new beginnings.
Anne Cawrse’s The King Walks in the Orangerie was the major work of the program: a setting for tenor and string ensemble of Kathryn Purnell’s narrative poem of the same name. Tenor Kyle Stegall majestically announces himself as the ghost of Louis XIV before reflecting on his regal life, loves and legacy. The score is exuberant and dramatically compelling, giving the soloist ample opportunity to explore the complexities of the so-called Sun King as he navigates joy, anger, wonder, remorse, regret, and suspicion while contemplating events that unfolded long after his death at the Palace of Versailles. Stegall is an accomplished operatic tenor who understands the importance of inhabiting a role. That approach is essential here: this is as much a character portrayal as it is an extended song cycle. The work deserves to be heard again—and widely. Organisations such as State Opera should not hesitate to program it as part of a gala concert or thematic presentation. Unfortunately, the acoustic of the upper level of Elder Hall occasionally compromised textual clarity.
Anna Clyne’s Within Her Arms is also scored for a small string orchestra of fifteen players, and once again the ASO performed without a conductor. Although contemporary in origin, the work evokes echoes of the English Renaissance through its mournful, drone-like sonorities. Gradually, the textures broaden and intensify, creating an ever-richer palette of colour and resonance. At its heart lies an almost de-personalised meditation on grief and remembrance. It is a work of quiet power that could enrich many different types of concert programs.
Thea Musgrave’s Night Windows is a suite of five miniatures celebrating the oboe’s capacity to embody searching, questioning, and discovery. Joshua Oates delivered a masterclass in control and expression, capturing the music’s fleeting mysteries and its sense of the known yet unseen. In some respects, the work is deliberately elusive: it offers tantalising gli mpses of resolution before withdrawing them, movement after movement. Only in the closing moments of the final movement, Frenzy, does Musgrave finally provide release, ending with an emphatic exclamation that feels as though the lights have suddenly been switched on.
The concert concluded with a highly entertaining performance of Imogen Holst’s Persephone. Alongside the Cawrse song cycle, it was one of the evening’s highlights. The full orchestra returned to the stage and, within moments, one could be forgiven for thinking a French Impressionist work had slipped onto the program. The musical narrative is expansive and pastoral, with superb interplay between flutes, strings and woodwinds. Like several works heard throughout the evening, this is a piece that deserves a place in mainstream orchestral programming.
She Speaks is a remarkable initiative by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Long may it continue and may many of the works it champions avoid the fate of becoming yet more victims of the “première and goodbye” phenomenon.
Kym Clayton
When: 20 Jun
Where: Elder Hall
Bookings: Closed
