Adelaide Symphony Orchestra 2022 – A season of perpetual emotion

Following on from the success of FOFO (Festival of Orchestra), the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s 2022 Season is up and away, packed full of big, bold programs, offering a rich musical universe that is guaranteed to sway the emotions.

ASO Managing Director, Vincent Ciccarello, said the 2022 Season seizes on music’s ability to say things that words cannot say, and to make us feel things unlike any other artform.

“2021 has been a watershed year for the ASO,” Mr Ciccarello said. “South Australians have come out in tens of thousands to hear the ASO and they’ve given us the confidence to be brave, bold and adventurous.

“And so, in 2022, we have a really diverse program that will thrill, delight and excite, but also give pause to reflect, to ponder and to swoon – a season of perpetual emotion,” he said.

“We’ll continue our revelatory exploration of music by women composers; we’ll present some of the world’s most exciting musicians; and, of course, together with the new, there will be the orchestral music that audiences love to look forward to.”

2022 begins with a bang: John Williams at 90, marking not only the 90^th birthday of the world’s most famous and recognisable film composer but the re-opening of the Adelaide Festival Theatre, shines a spotlight on the music the brings the movies to life: including Star Wars, Harry Potter, E.T., Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Twice postponed due to COVID, the ASO is thrilled to present over 12 days in September, Beethoven: The Symphonies, a focused celebration of some of the most enduring music ever written: all of Beethoven’s nine symphonies including the Eroica, the Pastoral and the Choral, featuring the Ode to Joy. It will be conducted by Beethoven specialist, Douglas Boyd.

The highlights of Wagner’s famed Ring Cycle in 70 minutes: the ASO’s Conductor Laureate, Nicholas Braithwaite, conducts The Ring Without Words (Der Ring Ohne Worte), an orchestral compilation of the best-loved bits of The Ring, arranged by Lorin Maazel. In the same concert (Symphony Series 5: Spellbound), Australian soprano Nicole Car, who has been setting the operatic world alight with her performances at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Vienna State Opera, sings a selection of Richard Strauss’s most beautiful orchestral songs. One not to miss.

Another young Australian, who is also making a splash on the international stage, pianist Jayson Gillham becomes the ASO’s Artist in Association, continuing a relationship that began with a critically acclaimed recording of the complete piano concertos by Beethoven. In addition to performing Mozart with the ASO and the winner of the 2021 Malko Competition for Young Conductors, the exciting Dmitry Matvienko, Jayson presents a solo recital of Bach and Chopin in Elder Hall.

The ASO welcomes home Andrew Bain, the Adelaide boy who is now Principal Horn of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and who can be heard on the soundtrack of the latest Star Wars films, to give the world premiere of a horn concerto commissioned by the ASO from composer Paul Dean.

It is one of three world premieres in 2022 of works commissioned by the ASO: celebrated jazz pianist and all-round musical polyglot, Joe Chindamo, has written Ligeia (based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe), a concerto for ASO’s Principal Trombone, Colin Prichard; and Cathy Milliken, the ASO’s Composer in Association, delivers Earth Plays V: Ediacaran Fields, inspired by the unique fossil collection in the South Australian Museum.

Continuing its commitment to showcasing the music of women composers, the ASO gives the Australian premieres of music by Unsuk Chin, Grażyana Bacewicz and Anna Clyde.

And She Speaks, the ASO’s acclaimed mini festival of music by women, grows from one to two days. Co-curated by award-winning Adelaide composer Anne Cawrse and pianist and writer, Anna Goldsworthy, She Speaks II (1 and 2 July) features five concerts, a symposium and film screening, dedicated exclusively to music by women from South Australia, Australia and overseas. Presented in association with the University of Adelaide.

The inimitable Guy Noble is back to conduct a Last Night of the Proms with a new twist; and so too is the fun-filled Classics Unwrapped series.

Grainger Studio will be a haven of tranquillity for two Sanctuary Series programs –

Time & Space (4, 5 February) and Journey Within (21, 22 October).

The Matinee Series offers three one-hour lunchtime concerts in the beautiful acoustic and ambience of Elder Hall, a perfect starter to a mid-week outing.

And, because our audiences asked, we bring back the ASO Chamber Series, highlighting the incredible musicianship of ASO players in an intimate setting.

2022 concludes with the evergreen Messiah by Handel, conducted by Erin Helyard and featuring the Adelaide Chamber Singers and an all-star cast.