Following a season-opening performance at the Canberra International Music Festival just the day before, the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra returned to home turf for a spirited programme of works at Melbourne Recital Centre.
With pieces from European, American and homegrown composers, last night’s Fantasia concert offered a global showcase of vibrant, transportive pieces. At its centre was the Victorian debut of a new work by celebrated Australian composer Richard Mills AO – following its world premiere in Canberra – inspired by Renaissance paintings of four key episodes in the life of the Virgin Mary.
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Mills had composed the new work, Four Portraits of the Blessed Virgin, specifically for MCO artistic director Sophie Rowell on solo violin, and it was a collaboration which granted brilliant opportunity for the storied performer to share her impeccable technical skill.
The work’s opening and closing movements were the most energetic demonstrations of this, facilitating bravado passages for solo violin that carried the surrounding players upward in lively, colourful crests.
However, the star presence of last night’s performance was, unquestionably, students of Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School (VCASS). The handful of adolescent performers packed out the MCO’s usual roster of 17 performers for the evening’s latter half to generate a mesmerising spiral of volume, poise and athleticism.
The concert’s title piece, Vaughn Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, proved a superb exercise in programming for the jubilant troupe of young players, their startling technical precision and verve crafting a fabulous depth of sonic texture.
The MCO upholds a commendable practice of seeking and nurturing talent within the Victorian arts community, here once again inviting VCASS students to share the stage after previous successful appearances. It proves the sharp ear for pitch and keen eye for skill which the MCO maintains across the careful curation of every programme and guest artist invitation, with last night’s Fantasia performance underlining this continued pedigree for excellence.
The Melbourne Chamber Orchestra will be performing Fantasia once more at the Melbourne Recital Centre on Sunday 4 May at 2:30pm. Get your tickets here.
