Queen Victoria Art Gallery welcomes the TSO for the Royal Park Series
Media release – Issued Friday 29 January 2021
2021 will see a new collaboration between the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and the Queen Victoria Art Gallery with the commencement of the Royal Park Series.
The series will celebrate the connection between an iconic art space and world-class music with three shows held at the Queen Victoria Art Gallery, Royal Park on 30 January, 20 February and 10 April, at 2pm and again at 4.30pm.
General Manager of Creative Arts and Cultural Services Tracy Puklowski said, "We are so excited to partner with the TSO. To be sharing their sounds with our community is a great joy. It will allow our visitors to experience our new summer season exhibitions with fresh eyes, and ears!".
TSO CEO Caroline Sharpen is delighted to share the TSO experience in the island's north "This inaugural event, in collaboration with QVMAG, marks the first concert of 2021 in Launceston. TSO is thrilled with our new partnership, and look forward to performing in the iconic venue that has enriched the state with its art and history since 1891. The atmospheric surrounds of the gallery provide the perfect backdrop for this concert, which also includes the debut performance the Tasmanian String Quartet."
The first concert on Sunday 30 January, Sublime Strings, will feature the Tasmanian String Quartet, a new ensemble from the orchestra. Barber’s deeply emotive adagio opens this concert before fellow-American composer Jessie Montgomery raises spirits with unifying melodies and upbeat rhythms. Beethoven’s String Quartet brings the concert to a light and enjoyable close.
The second concert in February will celebrate Strauss and Beethoven. Combining strings and winds, Beethoven’s celebrated Septet created the template and set the benchmark for all later works of this type. It commences with a voluminous adagio and concludes with a full-force presto. Richard Strauss’ tone poem Till Eulenspiegel is given a dazzling makeover in Franz Hasenöhrl’s arrangement for chamber ensemble.
The final concert in the series on April 10 is the Razumovsky Quartet. This delightful concert opens with the string quartet in D – playful, rhythmic and quintessentially Mozart. Beethoven’s own rousing ‘Razumovsky’ Quartet was commissioned in 1806 during the composer’s heroic ‘middle period’. His propelling music is woven around a Russian folk theme in honour of the culture of his patron, Count Andreas Razumovsky.
Alongside the performances, the Queen Victoria Art Gallery is currently displaying five new exhibitions that launched across December and January. Before each TSO performance, visitors are invited to view new exhibitions: Nest - Alastair Mooney, Skin - Gary Greenwood, Lost Landscapes - Anne Zahalka, Herself - featuring Tasmanian female artists of the QVMAG collection and Wrapped in Culture - a world first collaboration of First Nations artist from Canada and Australia.
Tickets for the Launceston Royal Park Series of concerts are on sale via the TSO website, www.tickets.tso.com.au.