Australian Youth Orchestra | Ngapa William Cooper
Monday 10 July, 2023, Sydney Opera House
An unusual audience filled the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House on the evening of Monday 10th August. There were people young and old, seasoned concert-goers and new, all waiting to hear Ngapa William Cooper, played by the country’s best young musicians.
Nigel Westlake, Lior, Sharon Grigoryan, Dr Lou Bennett AM. These are Australian Music Royalty, and Monday’s concert showed us precisely why. At the culmination of its 2023 Winter season, an 88-strong Australian Youth Orchestra was led through Nigel Westlake’s music by the composer himself in a showcase of what is to come in orchestras around Australia and indeed the world. Players who cut their teeth in the AYO now grace our concert stages and pass on their training to up and coming orchestral musicians, many of whom were in the seats of the Concert Hall on Monday night.
The programme began with The Glass Soldier, commissioned by Don Farrands in memory of his grandfather N.H. Ferguson. This suite is very evocative, and one almost didn’t need to read the program to know what was happening. Westlake plays with orchestral textures expertly, from solo instruments through to the full might of the AYO. The most overt colours came in Symphonies of Glass, where the Celeste and Crotales depicted the stained glass of an ancient village church in France. It must be said that each of the players on stage played with a skill and maturity that belied their age. Concertmaster In Yi Chae was dealt the bulk of the solos throughout the evening, and each time she played with a beautiful tone and not a note out of place. Principal Trumpet Arkie Moore stood to play an extremely exposed solo in I Was Blinded – But Now I See – a duet with timpanist Jack Peggie that echoed Copland in its broad, majestic lines.
Nigel Westlake’s compositional voice is one we have become accustomed to, and is full of song-like lines, expert orchestral voicing and dramatic syncopation – to mention a few devices. Beneath The Waves was commissioned by the AYO for Cellist Sharon Grigoryan and the orchestra, and is based on the score for the movie Blueback, based on Tim Winston’s book of the same name. If Nigel Westlake is a familiar voice, then Tim Winton is even more so. There are no better words to describe this piece that Westlake’s programme notes, “I could taste the salt spray of the Indian Ocean…” The writing in Beneath the Waves felt more filmic than The Glass Soldier, with a less specific story in mind. Sharon Grigoryan showed us why she is one of Australia’s leading Cellists, as she brought a vast array of colours out of her instrument. Here she and the orchestra were amplified, and the effect drew us into the filmic nature of the score. Whale Song was the most effective use of the amplification, as the reverb on the Cello was turned up and Grigoryan made her instrument sing like a pod of whales. The percussion section deserves a mention, especially those lucky enough to swing some whirlies about their heads. There were some excited school students in the audience each time this instrument appeared from behind the orchestra.
The main event of the evening was Ngapa William Cooper. William Cooper was an extraordinary Yorta Yorta man who petitioned King George V for Aboriginal representation in parliament, in the form of a federal MP chosen for and by Aboriginal people. This piece is a collaboration between Westlake, Lior and Dr Lou Bennett. It began its genesis pre-pandemic, and the eventual premiere on Monday night was made in extraordinarily pertinent timing, surely a blessing in disguise. In the words of Dr Bennett, “Ngapa William Cooper’s universal message of standing up for the oppressed, regardless of the consequences, is as pertinent today as it was almost 90 years ago.”
The juxtaposition of Jewish culture with Indigenous – two displaced peoples – was emphasised from the first bar. The piece began with Lior and Dr Bennett facing each other on the edges of a sharp spotlight, Lior singing a Jewish call to the ancestors, and Dr Bennett answering in the Yorta Yorta language. Both of the singers have extraordinary voices and commanding presences, and their timbres were extremely well-matched. Nigel Westlake’s music came alive when there were singers atop the orchestra. The strings played the part of accompaniment, with occasional solos from the principal players, and each section of the orchestra had its moment to shine. In The Protest, audience members gasped and pointed as the horns raised their instruments from the back of the orchestra, and the effect of gum leaves shaken by the percussionists and Dr Bennett was transporting. The real hero of Ngapa William Cooper was the text, expertly penned by Westlake, Lior and Dr Bennett, along with Sarah Gory. The News started from the point of view of William and his wife Agnes reading the paper and seeing no mention of their son, lost in the war, and from here on the text brought home the reality of the loss experienced by both the Jewish and Indigenous peoples in the Second World War. Perhaps the most moving moments of the evening happened in At The End of My Days, when both vocalists put forth these challenging lyrics:
“At the end of my days
I want to know I spoke up when I saw wrong
At the end of my days
There’ll be no doubt I stood up for what was right
I will be proud of my name
At the end of my days”
As the final chords died away and the audience began to rise to their feet, we were left to ponder what to do with this information. Will we hold our heads high at the end of our days, just like William Cooper?
