This past weekend started out with dreary weather that rained us out of our outdoor cinema Friday night date and ended with a beautiful, sunny Sunday visit across the street to the beach. It's been uncharacteristically cool lately, so we haven't actually suited up and gone in the water (which is ok with me, because I did the holidays full-on American-style, only to come back to swimsuit season here...not ideal for my sense of beach-readiness). We've gone a few times this week though, just to sit out and enjoy the sunshine and people watching. You'll see people dressed everything from a budgie smuggler to full formal attire and anything in between. (Budgerigars, also known as the common parakeet, are called budgies here - men's Speedos are called budgie smugglers...that's probably enough insight for you to work it out.) But I digress.... in the middle of our weekend, we transitioned from a drizzly morning to a sunny afternoon, ending in a cool, crisp Saturday evening, which we enjoyed at the Domain watching the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. This is the ruby anniversary - 40 years! - for the Sydney Festival. It's in full swing, and this was one of our favorite free events last year, so we made sure to mark our calendars and hit it up again. They did not disappoint! This year's program opened with Dvorák's overture Othello, followed by an astonishing performance of Mendelssohn's violin concerto in E minor by soloist Grace Clifford. She.was.ridiculous. If you haven't heard the piece, you might imagine that obviously a violin concerto is pretty demanding on the soloist - this was no exception. It's roughly a half hour piece (played from memory) and there's a LOT of black on the page if you look at the part (see it here), including double stops as the soloist accompanies herself in the second movement, lightning speed runs, and endless eighth note tremolos building to the conclusion. Beyond the technicality of the piece, it is musically demanding, and the soloist showed great sophistication in her phrasing. We were amazed at how young she looked on the monitors - "she must be in her twenties", Pickle noted, impressed with the accomplished young performer. After Googling her later, we found that she is actually 17 years old! She has earned various accolades, including winning Australia's Young Performer of the Year award last year. ABC did a nice little story on her here...
After an interval, the SSO was back with Dvorák's New World Symphony and concluded again this year with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, complete with canons and fireworks. It was a great night for symphony under the stars :)