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CLASSICAL - Master Series 10
ASO with Nicola Benedetti

DIANA CARROLL - Reviewer
INDAILY - 2.11.12

SCOTTISH violinist Nicola Benedetti is the new darling of classical music audiences the world over and now Adelaide has joined her fan club. Last Friday night at the Town Hall she gave a virtuosic performanceof Tchaikovsky's magnificent Violin Concerto in D – she was superb and the audience was in raptures.

Benedetti told Limelight Magazine that this concerto "is one of the most romantic, relentless, heartbreaking and the most tiring to play. You have to be absolutely dedicated and inside the piece with every fibre of your body." That dedication showed as she coaxed the most sublime notes from her 1717 Stradivarius. The violin solos are so exquisite that the audience could not resist applauding between movements.

Benedetti is a musical sensation: a two million pound recording contract at 16, a career playing with the world's leading orchestras, and seven successful CDs, many breaking previous sales records. And still she's only 25! She's also very pretty, no doubt thanks to her Scottish Italian parentage, and stylish on stage in her trademark black sheath dress. Never has classical music looked so sexy. The players of the ASO appeared thrilled to be in her presence and played magnificently throughout the program.

The opening piece, a work by Australian composer Liza Lim, seemed awkwardly juxtaposed with the masterpieces of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Antonin Dvorak but the ASO's commitment to new music is laudable. Flying Banner paints a musical portrait of Australia fused with Chinese artistic traditions

Dvorak's delightful Symphony No 9 From the New World, rounded out a stimulating program. This much-loved work is surely one of the greatest examples of pure musical composition. The horns, the bassoon, the strings, the percussion – there is excitement, drama, multiple musical themes, all wrapped up into one astonishing symphony.

These three pieces gave guest conductor Garry Walker the perfect palate with which to paint his own unique picture. On loan from the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, where he is permanent guest conductor, Walker gave an illuminating display of the language of conducting. At first glance, he is precise and particular; later he becomes more voluble, expressing every nuance of the music. Walker embodies perfectly the idiosyncratic nature of the conductor's art and, in so doing, gave the ASO the opportunity to excel.

Tomorrow night the ASO will present The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring In Concert at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.

ENDS.