Kim Walker With The Balmain Sinfonia
The Balmain Sinfonia conducted by Gary Stavrou, presents its latest sparkling Sunday afternoon concert on the 31st of May with a feast of Brahms, Elgar, Vivaldi and Donizetti, featuring bassoon virtuoso, Kim Walker.
Professor Walker is one of the world’s most celebrated bassoonists, a prolific recording artist and a highly respected international performer, teacher and administrator – most recently dean and principal of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She has played with the London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras and most recently toured throughout Europe, North America, South America, Asia & Israel.
The Sinfonia’s conductor and founding musical director Gary Stavrou says Donizetti’s Don Pasquale Overture is a musical snapshot of the best of Italian comic opera. “It still shows the imprint of Rossini, but introduces the great romantic influence that would culminate in Verdi. Like all Rossini’s music, it is teeming with grinning vitality.”
Elgar’s Romance for Bassoon, written in 1910, is a fine example of the composer’s melodic inventiveness: full of warmth, but suggesting at the same time an undercurrent of melancholy. Vivaldi’s Bassoon Concerto is as virtuosic and challenging as any of the prolific composer’s 37 concertos and Brahms’ Serenade No.1 is a masterpiece that harks back to Beethoven’s finest work.
The programme:
Donizetti: Don Pasquale Overture/Elgar: Romance for Bassoon & Orchestra/Vivaldi: Bassoon Concerto RV 484/ Brahms: Serenade No. 1
Soloist: Kim Walker, bassoon
Conductor: Gary Stavrou
Tickets: $25 ($20 concession)
Bookings: www.balmainsinfonia.com or at the door. Enquiries 9181 3929 info@balmainsinfonia.com
