Orchestra Victoria's Meet @ the Market series continues with an intimate evening at North Melbourne's Meat Market on 12 September.
Classical music gets a casual makeover as Orchestra Victoria presents Meet @ the Market, transforming the traditional concert experience into something more relaxed and accessible.
Session three of this ongoing series lands at the Meat Market’s Blackwood Box, where conductor Carlo Antonioli leads an evening that mixes serious orchestral repertoire with a distinctly laid-back vibe. You can expect a fresh approach to presenting classical music, ditching the formal concert hall atmosphere for something more approachable.
Meet @ the Market
- Where: Blackwood Box, The Meat Market, North Melbourne
- When: 12 September, doors 6pm
- Find tickets and more information here
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Featuring William Barton’s Elements of the Earth
Conductor Carlo Antonioli, one of Australia’s most dynamic young maestros, guides the orchestra through a carefully curated program.
Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 Classical opens proceedings with its neo-classical precision, a cheeky 16-minute tribute to Mozart and Haydn that the composer wrote in 1917 as “the kind of music Haydn would have written had he lived in our day.”
Despite its classical framework, the symphony sparkles with Prokofiev’s signature harmonic mischief.
William Barton’s Elements of the Earth follows, melding Indigenous cultural knowledge with orchestral traditions.
Barton, a Kalkadunga composer and renowned didgeridoo player, has expanded the horizons of both the ancient instrument and modern Australian music through collaborations with major orchestras worldwide. This particular work reflects on winter as “a time of reflection, strength, resilience, hope and survival” while painting sonic landscapes of transparent horizons and mystical mist spirits.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 rounds out the evening, featuring Orchestra Victoria’s Section Principal Cello Melissa Chominsky as soloist in one of the most demanding works in the cello repertoire.
Written in 1959 for legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who memorised the entire piece in just four days, the concerto combines sardonic wit with abject gloom. Its opening movement, which Shostakovich described as a “jocular march,” contains grotesque echoes of his film score for The Young Guard (1948), depicting Soviet soldiers marching to their deaths.
The haunting second movement features the cello dissolving into ghostly harmonics accompanied by celesta.
Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe takes on hosting duties, bringing her unique perspective as a Rwandan-British art music composer and broadcaster. Known for her work on ABC Classic’s Passenger program, Stéphanie’s approach to classical music storytelling emphasises cultural context and accessibility.
Her neurodiverse experiences with synaesthesia add an extra dimension to how she presents music, making classical repertoire more relatable for curious newcomers.
Held at the stunning Meat Market
Located in North Melbourne’s creative hub, the Meat Market’s transformation from functioning abattoir to creative arts hub provides an industrial backdrop that contrasts beautifully with the refined sounds of a full orchestra. This isn’t your typical stuffy classical experience – doors open at 6pm for pre-show drinks and food, with the performance running from 7pm to 8pm, followed by social time where audience members can actually chat with the musicians.
Brogan’s Way Gin provides sumptuous cocktails and bar snacks. This setup encourages mingling and creates a festival-like atmosphere that’s worlds away from the typical concert hall experience where silence reigns supreme.
As performance partner to The Australian Ballet, Opera Australia and Victorian Opera, Orchestra Victoria brings serious classical credentials to this more casual format, creating space for classical music appreciation to grow organically through shared experience rather than imposed reverence.
For more information, head here.
This article was made in partnership with Orchestra Victora.
