The White Hat Guide to the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC)

Puccini's Tosca

• Floria Tosca - Cheryl Barker
• Mario Cavaradossi - Julian Gavin
• Baron Scarpia - Douglas McNicol
• Sacristan - John Bolton Wood
• Spoletta - Virgilio Marino Cesare
• Angelotti - Andrew Collis
• Sciarrone - David Hibbard
• Gaoler - Guy Booth
• Conductor - Nicholas Braithwaite
• Director - John Copley
• Set Designer - Allan Lees
• Costume Designer - Michael Stennett
• Lighting Designer - Donn Byrnes

Sung in Italian with projected English translations. Running time: approximately two hours and 40 minutes including two 20-minute intervals. There is no vocal amplification used in this production.

Chopin & Mendelssohn's Octet

The Australian Chamber Orchestra with Richard Tognetti (Artistic Director and Lead Violin) and Polina Leschenko (piano).  The orchestras three wonderful heritage violins – a Stradivari, a Guarneri and a Guadagnini - will display their wares in the Paganini caprices. Chopin's first piano concerto is a much loved work full of romantic lyricism and although Górecki is best known for his haunting and heartfelt Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, his Piano Concerto bristles with driving rhythms and energy. The concert ends with one of the glories of chamber music - Mendelssohn's Octet. In White Hat's experience ACO's performance of this work is the equal of any performance you are likely to hear anywhere else in the world.

• Paganini (arr. Tognetti) Caprice on Caprices
• Morricone Exercises I: Adagio
• Chopin (arr. Tognetti) Piano Concerto No.1
• Górecki Piano Concerto
• Mendelssohn Octet (one of White Hat's Top 100 Chamber Works)

Australian Chamber Orchestra & The Hilliard Ensemble

• Elgar Serenade for strings
• Sheryngham Ah, gentle Jesu
• Raskatov Obikhod (Australian Premiere)
• Pärt Most Holy Mother of God
• Gregorian Chant Veni Creator Spiritus
• Anon (French Medieval) Veni Creator Spiritus
• Edwards Veni Creator Spiritus
• Arensky Variations on a theme by Tchaikovsky

Tafelmusik - The Galileo Project Music of the Spheres

Canadian ensemble Tafelmusik will take you on an epic space odyssey, performing period music before stunning images from the Hubble deep space telescope. Combining music, photography and story-telling, The Galileo Project brings to life the brilliant minds of the early astronomers and the music that inspired them, as a large-scale, ever-changing backdrop of stars and planets unfolds.

The publicity states "Using the best of Bach, Handel, Monteverdi and Vivaldi, come and hear the tunes that were probably stuck in Galileo’s head when he discovered the moons of Jupiter." Now you are probably thinking, like White Hat how could tunes of composers who hadn't been born yet be stuck in his head. However we are sure that this program has been meticulously researched so all will be revealed. The program will also feature works by Lully, Purcell, Rameau, Telemann & Michelangelo Galilei brother of the astronomer). From the reputation of the group and the reviews of this concert, White Hat suggests you go out of your way to attend.

[For those wanting a little background to the history of the concept that over the centuries was known as The Music of the Spheres, White Hat suggests that you consult the program notes of Music of the Spheres - given by Ars Nova of Melbourne. This concert is unrelated to the one above but was also based on the relationship composers, mathematicians and scientists long saw between music, mathematics and the heavenly bodies.]

Danielle de Niese with the Australian Chamber Orchestra

Danielle de Niese (soprano) has long been on White Hat's list of Significant Melbourne People. She was born in Melbourne and won Young Talent Time aged 9, then moved to Los Angeles, won an Emmy and made her debut with the LA Opera aged 15. She has blossomed into one of the hottest properties in opera, enrapturing audiences in roles like Cleopatra, Euridice and Susanna at Glyndebourne, the Metropolitan Opera and on screen.

To celebrate her professional debut in her home country, De Niese sings a specially commissioned Australian work, which also marks the centenary of Australia’s Nobel laureate Patrick White. The fireworks of Mozart's Exsultate jubilatee is contrasted Schubert's haunting song, Death and the Maiden. The Australian Chamber Orchestra (Richard Tognetti Artistic Director and Lead Violin) will then perform Schubert's masterly quartet (arranged for string orchestra) which uses that same song as an inspiration.

• Mozart Symphony K196/121, “La finta giardiniera”
• Vine New work (text by Patrick White)
• Meale Cantilena Pacifica
• Mozart Exsultate jubilate
• Schubert (arr. Tognetti) Death and the Maiden
• Schubert (arr. Tognetti) String Quartet No.14, “Death and the Maiden” (one of White Hat's Top 100 Chamber Works)

Trout Quintet & Quartet for the End of Time

A rare treat. Two of what White Hat regards as the finest works in the chamber music repetoire presented in the one concert. The Schubert Trout Quintet is full of sunshine and youthful optimism while Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time is, in White Hat's opinion, one of the great works of the 20th century. A prisoner of war, Messiaen wrote the Quartet for the End of Time for the musicians he found in the camp, premiering it to an audience of inmates and guards. “Never” he said, "was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension."

Australian Chamber Orchestra Principals are joined by clarinettist Paul Dean and dynamic young pianist Saleem Abboud Ashkar, making his Australian debut.The performers are Helena Rathbone (violin), Christopher Moore (viola), Timo-Veikko Valve (cello), Maxime Bibeau (double bass), Paul Dean (clarinet) and Saleem Abboud Ashkar (piano).

• Schubert Piano Quintet, “Trout” (one of White Hat's Top 100 Chamber Works)
• Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time (one of White Hat's Top 100 Chamber Works)

Our rating: Five Hats

Beethoven 9 - Ode to Joy

The Australian Chamber Orchestra with Richard Tognetti (Artistic Director and Lead Violin), Choir of Clare College, Cambridge (Graham Ross Director), Lucy Crowe (soprano), Fiona Campbell (mezzo soprano), Allan Clayton (tenor) Matthew Brook (bass)

White Hat has long believed that many modern performance of Beethoven symphonies by large symphony orchestras lack the vitality and drive of a performance by a first rate chamber orchestra - supplemented where necessary - of the proportions that Beethoven was writing for For those who share this view we suggest you look no further. Critics called the ACO's recent Beethoven concert in London “the finest concert of the summer” and spoke of “thrilling playing”, “vibrant drive” and “total involvement”, concluding, “this compact chamber orchestra matches anything Europe can offer in energy, precision and interpretative rigour.”

Joined by one of the finest British choirs this concert promises to be something special where every note Beethoven wrote can be heard rather than lost in a sea of overblown orchestral 'atmosphere'.

• Messiaen Prayer of Christ ascending towards his Father, from L’Ascension
• Brahms Geistliches Lied
• Beethoven Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage
• Beethoven Symphony No.9 (one of White Hat's Top 100 Symphonies)

Russian Visions

Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir is one of his sunniest and most exuberant works and Shostakovich's first piano concerto is full of pyrotechnics for the pianist and accompanying trumpet. What is sometimes less recognised is that this work calls for first rate string playing from the orchestra. For that reason, White Hat suggests you take the opportunity to get along and hear it with one of the best string ensembles in Australia - or any other country for that matter.

• Prokofiev (arr. Barshai/Tognetti) Visions fugitives
• Shotakovich Piano Concerto No.1
• Shotakovich Octet
• Tchaikovsky Souvenir de Florence (one of White Hat's Top 100 Chamber Works)