Brett Dean stars as conductor and composer in a soaring start to ANAM’s 2014 season.

South Melbourne Town Hall

March 7, 2014

The Australian National Academy of Music opened its 2014 season with a program that began with Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending with Anne-Marie Johnson as soloist on violin with Brett Dean directing the ANAM Orchestra. Vaughan Williams’ enduring and popular masterpiece is one of a kind in the violin ‘concerto’ repertoire and its seemingly improvisatory violin part was beautifully played by Johnson. In this work, the violin represents the ascending bird but Vaughan-Williams’ lark has a deeply lyrical and human voice. Johnson’s playing reflected these qualities in the sensitive whispers of the beginning, the playful folk-like tunes of the middle section, and she was graceful in the final whispers of the ending – one could almost hear and feel the gentle air beneath this lark.

There then followed a breathtaking performance of Brett Dean’s Pastoral Symphony – a composition that was uniquely Australian in its evocation of birdsong and urban sounds. Listening to it in the healthy acoustics of the South Melbourne Town Hall revealed the work’s immense dynamic and the emotional range of Dean’s work. Much like the...