Australian Debut in Adelaide
- Stephanie Childress
- Apr 20
- 1 min read
This April marked my Australian debut (and first time in Australia, period!) in the city of Adelaide.
At first I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the city’s natural landscapes, its river walks, the botanic gardens - a veritable oasis.
I soon discovered that the city is also home to a thriving arts and culture scene, famed for its Festival and Fringe (the equivalent of the yearly Edinburgh Fest) as well as numerous theatre groups. The locals seem tremendously proud of the investment in arts and culture, which I always love to see as someone who has frequently worked in countries and cities struggling to fund the arts, let alone their orchestras.
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra is an absolute gem of a group, and the musicians were wonderfully hard-working, diligent and committed. We premiered composer Joe Chindamo’s Concerto del Motore written for the orchestra’s principal clarinettist, Dean Newcomb, an obvious favourite of the Adelaide audience as the packed Adelaide Town Hall proved over two consecutive nights. We followed that with Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony, a piece I have performed frequently this season, striving to discover new colours, moods, and modes of structuring such a mammoth work.
This was truly a joy for my first trip down under, thank you to all involved!
