The Orchestra will be performing a new work by Dr Linda Kouvaras, Fanfare for Brass and Percussion, as well as Dvorák’s Symphonic Variations, Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini, Op 32, and Meale’s Clouds Now and Then.

In celebration of the School of Music at the University, with campuses at VCAM Southbank and in the Conservatorium at Parkville, Dr Linda Kouvaras was invited to compose Fanfare for Brass and Percussion.

For this work the composer said she wanted to impart something of the momentousness of the occasion.  Dr Kouvaras is a Senior Lecturer in Musicology at the University of Melbourne and is the country’s most longstanding scholar in postmodernism in art-music and on feminist musicology. In 2010 Linda will be artist-in-residence at Hobart Conservatorium and later at the Arthur and Yvonne Boyd Estate in Bundanon, NSW.

Benjamin Northey is a leading Australian conductor who has worked extensively with both national and international orchestras. In May, Benjamin will be heading to London to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, which will feature Dvorák’s Symphonic Variations. He will then be back in Australia to lead the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in a tribute to Louis Armstrong, featuring James Morrison and Emma Pask.

Antonín Dvorák’s Symphonic Variations has 27 diverse variations, based on the thematic material from his earlier composition of, "Husla" (The Fiddler), a male choral piece. Highly influenced by Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn and his priority in composition, Dvorák placed importance on the treatment of the idea, rather than the creation of the idea. The variations are diverse and range from the simple to virtually unrecognisable.

Clouds Now and Then is strongly influenced by Japanese music and aesthetics. Written by Australian composer Richard Meale in 1969 it was inspired by the short poem: "Clouds now and then. Giving men relief. From moon-viewing." Focused on the international avant-garde, Meale was a supporter of Asian and contemporary music and worked as a broadcaster at the ABC as well as being a pianist, lecturer and conductor.

The story for Tchaikovsky’s 1876 symphonic fantasia, Francesca da Rimini, comes from 'Inferno', the first part of Dante’s fourteenth-century epic poem The Divine Comedy. The work is about the forbidden love between Francesca and her husband’s brother, Paolo, who are condemned to the storms of hell for their sins of lust. Francesca da Rimini depicts Francesca’s recollections of brief happiness surrounded by the storms that torment them for eternity.