UNFINISHED 

Luke Severn conductor

Elyane Laussade piano

Jess Irwin violin

Beethoven – Romance No. 2 in F major

Beethoven – Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, Op. 15

Schubert – Symphony in B minor, D. 759 ‘Unfinished’

Sibelius – Finlandia, Op. 26

The Bendigo Symphony Orchestra 2023 season begins with a feast of romance from Beethoven to Sibelius at The Capital Theatre. The audience will be treated to superb melodies by our soloists and large orchestra. 

Bendigo Symphony Orchestra concertmaster, Jess Irwin will open the season as soloist in Beethoven’s beautiful Romance, welcoming our audience to a season filled with recognisable melodies and exciting discoveries.

Elyane Laussade is a dear friend of BSO following the huge success of her performance in December 2021. This time she joins BSO in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 1 which shows the emergence of Beethoven’s unmistakable voice, with its bold melodic ideas and daring harmonies.

This concert marks the beginning of her performance cycle of all five Beethoven piano concertos, which she will undertake with BSO.

The orchestra will also perform one of the best-known works in the symphonic repertoire – Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, so called because he only wrote 2 movements, when symphonies of the time had 3 or 4. Known as one of Schubert’s most enduring, cherished and affecting works, the symphony is full of beautiful melodies.

The concert will conclude with another well-known work, Sibelius’ tone poem Finlandia created on the occasion of one of the ‘Festivals for the Journalists Pension Fund’ that took place in Finland at the end of the 19th century. It was an event that, despite its rather harmless title, was held as part of Finland’s efforts to achieve independence from Russia.