The 2020 season for the KPO begins with an epic concert of famous ‘5ths’: Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto and Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony.
Known as ‘The Emperor’, Beethoven’s last and largest piano concerto has grandeur in its striking first movement, beauty and serenity in the Adagio and virtuosity in the glorious rondo finale.
We welcome Leanne Jin, one of Australia’s leading young soloists to perform the ‘Emperor’ concerto. Leanne was the winner of the Barbara Robinson Award in the 2017 KPO Concerto Competition and she has since won the 2019 Lev Vlassenko Competition and the 2019 Sydney Eisteddfod Kawai Piano Scholarship.
A new work by composer Gerard Brophy is being commissioned by the orchestra and we look forward to performing it for you.
The fifth symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich is arguably his most famous. Written after his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was denounced by Stalin, this symphony contains elements that surely kept the heroically minded Soviet politicians happy, but what was truly concealed in his Fifth Symphony has been a topic of discussion ever since. Only through the music may we glean his innermost thoughts and feelings. There are traces of inner melancholy, sarcasm, and cryptic irony and Shostakovich possibly had the final word with the apparently triumphant ending to the finale.
We look forward to welcoming you to this wonderful programme at The Concourse in Chatswood.
Paul Terracini
Dr Paul Terracini was born in Sydney and has enjoyed a career in Australia and internationally as an instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and conductor. He has held permanent positions as Principal Trumpet in the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra; Lecturer in Trumpet, Brass Ensemble and Big Band at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music; and Solo Trumpet in the Danish Chamber Players, Denmark.
As an instrumentalist, he performed as soloist in Australia, Europe, USA, and Asia. Within Australia, his solo performances included concertos with the Melbourne, Queensland, West Australian, and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras.
Paul Terracini has appeared as an opera conductor at the German Rossini Festival in Bad Wilbad, for the Danish Bel Canto Society in Copenhagen, and the Storstroms Symphony Orchestra, also in Denmark. Since assuming the role of artistic director of the Penrith Symphony Orchestra in 2010, he has, apart from programming and conducting the symphonic repertoire, pioneered the performance of chamber opera in western Sydney. For many years he has been invited as a guest conductor/composer to music schools and universities in Europe, USA, China, and Australia. He appears regularly as conductor for the Conservatorium High School, in Sydney. As a choral conductor, he has recorded for ABC Classics with Ars Nova Copenhagen, and the Sydney based choir, Cantillation.
As a composer and arranger, his music has been heard throughout the world in a variety of genres, performed by, amongst others, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass, the Danish Chamber Players, the Australian Brass Quintet, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Brass, and at festivals and conferences on every continent. His music for the two part ABC television series, Hymns of the Forefathers, in which he developed many of the traditional English hymns into symphonic poems, received international acclaim and was released on CD and DVD by ABC Classics. His title music for the television series, Classical Destinations, which was produced for three seasons, was featured on the ‘Number 1 Classical Album of the Year,’ released by Decca.
His new CD, Paul Terracini: Music for Brass, was released on the Tall Poppies label in May 2015. On this recording, he conducted his own music with Sydney Brass, featuring members of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Paul Terracini also holds a PhD from the University of Sydney, having earlier completed a Bachelor of Theology and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours). His book, John Stoward Moyes and the Social Gospel, was published in 2015.
