AdYO's End of Year Concert Set for Elder Hall, 11/24

The Adelaide Youth Orchestras' (AdYO) dynamic 2013 season will finish on a high note at Elder Hall on Sunday November 24 with an End of Year Concert at 3pm featuring performances by three of AdYO's orchestras - the Adelaide Youth Wind Orchestra, the Adelaide Youth Sinfonia and the Adelaide Youth Strings - including three new works¹ (two of them premieres) by some of South Australia's rising young composers.

Thanks to funding secured through Carclew Youth Arts' Project & Development Grants Program, AdYO was able to commission a new work from 25 year old Adelaide composer David John Lang earlier this year - written especially for the musicians of the Adelaide Youth Wind Orchestra (AdYWO) and its conductor, Bryan Griffiths. As part of the End of Year Concert program AdYWO will premiere David John Lang's new composition On Further Reflection: A Day in the Life of the Mall's Balls - a 10-minute musical depiction of 24 hours in Rundle Mall.

"The Mall's Balls have been part of the Rundle Mall streetscape since 1977 - just two large silver balls, one balancing on top of the other - reflecting everything around them: the buildings, pavement, sky and people," says David John Lang. "When I drew The Spheres - as they're officially known - on a musical stave, they formed two round semibreves spanning a third, a D and an F. That became my first bar and those two semibreves - representing the Mall's Balls - stand in every single bar of this piece of music."

AdYWO conductor Bryan Griffiths says the orchestra's 30 members - comprising woodwind, brass and percussion students at both high school and tertiary level - have enjoyed being involved in the compositional process.

"David John Lang has the ability to write interesting and thought provoking music that can be still be performed by students - which means we have an exciting new piece that allows young music students to be engaged with the art form, while still being challenged technically," says Griffiths. "It's also a very accessible piece for audience members."

A second original work - Song Without Words (Lullaby) by Daniel Schricker - again commissioned by AdYO, will also be premiered at the End of Year Concert - this time by the Adelaide Youth Sinfonia (AdSI), an ensemble of 60 high school aged musicians. Like David John Lang, Daniel (23 years old) completed a Bachelor of Music Studies with First Class Honours at the Elder Conservatorium of Music last year. He's now undertaking a Masters degree in composition at Elder. Daniel was selected along with Dylan Crismani in late 2012 to undertake a residency with AdSI as part of its South Australian Young Orchestral Composers Residency Program. Introduced in 2013, the program paved the way for two composition students from Elder Conservatorium to observe AdSI, write a short work, have it workshopped and then premiered by AdSI throughout its concert season. Dylan's composition, Charleston for Orchestra, was premiered by AdSI as part of AdYO Gala Concert at the Adelaide Town Hall in early September. It will be performed by AdSI for a third time at the End of Year Concert.

"The residency program evolved last year from conversations I had with Professor Graeme Koehne - Elder Conservatorium's Head of Composition - about how our two organisations could collaborate to create opportunities for skilled young composers to learn to write for a youth orchestra and have their work performed in a professional concert setting," says Associate Professor Keith Crellin OAM - AdYO's Artistic Director. "Commissioning new works is part of AdYOs commitment to fostering artistic vibrancy in this state and contributing to Australia's overall musical landscape. In the last 12 months our level of commissioning and premiering new works has grown from typically one work a year, to three. AdYO is currently seeking opportunities to co-commission works with other State Youth Orchestras so we can increase our activity in this area even further."

Applications from 2nd year and above Bachelor of Music and postgraduate composition students at the Elder Conservatorium are now being accepted for places in the SA Young Orchestral Composers Residency Program in 2014. Applications close Friday 29 November, 2013 - visit www.adyo.com.au for more information.

NB: of the three new works by SA composers being performed as part of the AdYO End of Year Concert - two of them will be premieres: David John Lang's On Further Reflection: A Day in the Life of the Mall's Balls and Daniel Schricker's Song Without Words (Lullaby). Dylan Crismani's composition, Charleston for Orchestra, will be performed.

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