The Australian maestro will bring the expat supergroup together with ANAM students in Melbourne this July.

Internationally acclaimed conductor Simone Young will lead the Australian World Orchestra in its headline concert for 2017. The event will also involve a unique collaboration as 48 AWO musicians join 51 young instrumentalists from the Australian National Academy of Music for an epic performance of Olivier Messiaen’s massive, erotically charged Turangalîla–Symphonie.

Young’s last full-time post at home was as Music Director of Opera Australia from 2001-2003 although she has returned regularly to conduct all the major state symphony orchestras. Now a regular presence in Vienna, Zürich, Munich, Paris, New York, Los Angeles and London, she was until recently Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg, posts she held from 2005-2015.

“Simone Young is quite simply a tour de force and a unique personality in the world of music not just in Australia but internationally,” a delighted Alexander Briger, Artistic Director and AWO’s Chief Conductor told Limelight. “She’s an extremely personable woman, with a warm character and has a very strong bond with not only this country but its musicians.”

Young is in fact making a welcome return to the...