Stonnington Symphony 'Motion & Reflection' concert

Conductor Michael Lichnovsky returns to Stonnington Symphony for the sixth time with a thoughtfully curated selection of works that explore the themes of motion and reflection, offering audiences a journey through a diverse musical landscape.

This program invites us to consider music as both forward thrust and thoughtful echo. Katy Abbott’s Fast Ride in a Suave Machine bursts onto the scene with exhilarating energy. Built from the familiar nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice, it transforms a simple motif into a gleaming engine of rhythm and colour — motion in its most playful, dazzling form.

By contrast, Caerwen Martin’s The Big Blue offers a space of deep reflection. Written in response to the devastating 2019–20 bushfires, the work evokes the vastness of sky and sea, and the stillness required to grieve, remember, and heal. Its gentle surges and resonant sonorities remind us that even in catastrophe, nature and memory move in cycles of renewal.

Elgar’s Serenade for Strings balances these perspectives with intimacy and grace. Its flowing lines sing with warmth and nostalgia, combining buoyant forward motion with an inward tenderness that seems to pause time itself.

The program culminates in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5, a monumental exploration of fate. Here, surging momentum and lyrical introspection are locked in dialogue. The journey from brooding darkness to radiant affirmation encapsulates the theme: music that moves us outward into motion, and inward into reflection.

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