A ballet overture to start this concert was a good programming choice, for it set the scene for an evening in which a fleet-footed Canberra Symphony Orchestra skipped and pirouetted its way through some very engaging and entertaining music.

Jessica Cottis. Photo © Timothy Jeffes/Sydney Symphony Orchestra

The dissonant, brooding entry to Beethoven’s overture to his one-and-only ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus, belies the heroic energy of the rest of the piece. Guest conductor, Jessica Cottis, effused that energy in abundance. There was no mistaking her definition and positive direction, eliciting a tight-as-a-drum orchestral sound. Entries were solid, with tone, balance and expression beautifully responsive to Cottis’ fluid style, only stiffening up when it comes to the punchy bits.

Overall, the sound was not so much “muscular”, as one might normally expect in, for example, Beethoven’s Eroica. Here it was lighter, more refined and tippy-toed, as one might expect in a ballet.

Prometheus was a good lead-in to Nigel Westlake’s oboe concerto, Spirit of the Wild, written for, and performed here by Diana Doherty, Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Oboe and CSO Artist in Focus for 2019. Westlake wrote the work after going on an adventure,...