Austin Symphonic Band Performing Sydney Harbour from Australian Fantasia
Austin Symphonic Band. February 14, 2023 concert at the Connally HS Performing Arts Center in Austin, TX. ASB performing Sydney Harbour from Australian Fantasia by David Stanhope. Music Director Dr. Kyle R. Glaser conducting. "The Sun Never Sets" Concert.
Video and Sound Production: Eddie Jennings
From the program notes written by David Cross:
Australian Fantasia (2002) David Stanhope (b. 1952)
1. Sydney Harbour
One of the world’s most beautiful natural harbors, Sydney Harbour is famed for its sparkling waters, the Sydney Opera House, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is also a working harbor for a thriving maritime industry that supports the city’s economic development.
Stanhope represents the grandeur of the Sydney Harbour with an aggressive brass fanfare, followed by a straightforward scoring of Waltzing Matilda. If you’d like to sound like an authority on the song, using real Australian slang, this is the story behind Waltzing Matilda: there was a swagman (a man who drifts or waltzes from job to job, often carrying a blanket roll then known as a ‘Matilda’) who camped under a tree. As he was waiting for his water to boil to make himself a billy tea, a jumbuck (sheep) came along, and he stole it by placing it into his knapsack. However, as the owner came up with three policemen asking what was in his knapsack, the swagman jumped into the waterhole and drowned, and he continues to haunt the site as a ghost.
David Stanhope is a freelance conductor and composer. He joined the music staff of the Australian Opera in 1986 and is also a regular guest conductor with Australia’s leading contemporary group, Sydney Alpha Ensemble, and the Australian Ballet. He was commissioned to provide music for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and has played horn, bass trombone, and piano in orchestras throughout Australia.
Listen for:
• Constant shifts from duple to triple subdivision in the opening fanfare.
• Highly chromaticized, Wagnarian lines.
