The Queensland Symphony Orchestra audience were in for a spectacular treat with Enigma, A Musical Tour De Force featuring the mighty Klais organ in all three pieces. The brilliant British-Australian organist Joseph Nolan was enthroned high above the orchestra ensconced between the gleaming pipes with an ethereal indigo luminescence.

Joseph Nolan and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra at the Enigma concert. Photograph courtesy of QSO

The QPAC was packed with a full capacity audience, masked and eager to hear the delights of Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Piccolo player Kate Lawson opened the evening describing how busy the QSO had been touring regional Queensland including performing an inaugural concert at the RPAC in Redlands, Moreton Bay. This was a newly designed program that was helpful for the younger audience with an excellent educational section “for younger ears” full of trivia and particular points of note for each musical composition.

Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C Minor was a triumphant start to the concert with the 12 brass musicians standing in fanfare below the concert hall’s spectacular Klais organ. Maestro Johannes Fritzsch, Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the QSO, had rearranged the Prelude to feature the brass section, which...