Daughters of Elysium Second Performance

Artist / Group
Canberra Symphony Orchestra
Location
Llewellyn Hall, ANU School of Music
Works being performed
Daughters of Elysium
August 8, 2024
Daughters of Elysium, Canberra Symphony Orchestra

This program defies the depths of Canberra winter with a celebration of the human spirit: its sacred fragility and transcendent imagination.

We open with a world premiere from Miriama Young, an Australian and Aotearoa / New Zealand composer and sound artist. This new work follows Young’s Kinds of Blue, commissioned and premiered by the CSO in 2023, under the baton of Jessica Cottis.

Daughters of Elysium takes its title and inspiration from Friedrich Schiller’s ‘An die Freude’ (Ode to Joy). The paradisal Elysian Fields held great significance in the ancient Greek imagination, a blissful conception of the afterlife that persisted through the centuries.

Beethoven drew on Schiller’s poetry, especially for the fourth movement of his Symphony No. 9, one of the greatest works in the classical repertoire. This final movement defies symphonic categories, the massed voices inspiring hope and calling us to live in peace and harmony.

This performance marks the 200th anniversary of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, one of the most profound triumphs of musical and human expression.

Artists

Jessica Cottis Conductor
CSO Chorus
Canberra Symphony Orchestra

With guest artists to be announced in 2024

Repertoire

Miriama Young Daughters of Elysium | World premiere
Ludwig Van Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125