NextSunday 9 March, 3:00pm
Harry Sdraulig: Torrent
Dvorak: Cello Concerto in B minor
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No 5
Conductor: Paul Terracini
Soloist: Hyung Suk Bae
KPO’s opening concert for 2025 features two eminent Australian artists. In recent years Harry Sdraulig has gained international recognition as a composer, collaborating with many acclaimed artists. He is now the most frequently commissioned and performed composer of his peers here in Australia. In 2021, Torrent, was commissioned by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as part of the 50 Fanfares Project.
Hyung Suk Bae won the KPO Concerto Competition in 2008 performing, Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in B minor - generally considered to be the most challenging and greatest of all the cello concerti - and has gone on to become an acclaimed soloist, chamber musician, educator, orchestral musician and artist. Written in 1894, with the standard format of three contrasting movements, it is scored for full romantic orchestra plus 4th horn.
When Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony in E minor was premiered in 1888, community reaction was mixed and the composer himself believed it to be a failure. Since then this symphony has become one of the most loved and recognised of all Tchaikovsky’s compositions - and an audience favourite.
Paul Terracini
Dr Paul Terracini was born in Sydney and has enjoyed a career in Australia and internationally as an instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and conductor. He has held permanent positions as Principal Trumpet in the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra; Lecturer in Trumpet, Brass Ensemble and Big Band at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music; and Solo Trumpet in the Danish Chamber Players, Denmark.
As an instrumentalist, he performed as soloist in Australia, Europe, USA, and Asia. Within Australia, his solo performances included concertos with the Melbourne, Queensland, West Australian, and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras.
Paul Terracini has appeared as an opera conductor at the German Rossini Festival in Bad Wilbad, for the Danish Bel Canto Society in Copenhagen, and the Storstroms Symphony Orchestra, also in Denmark. Since assuming the role of artistic director of the Penrith Symphony Orchestra in 2010, he has, apart from programming and conducting the symphonic repertoire, pioneered the performance of chamber opera in western Sydney. For many years he has been invited as a guest conductor/composer to music schools and universities in Europe, USA, China, and Australia. He appears regularly as conductor for the Conservatorium High School, in Sydney. As a choral conductor, he has recorded for ABC Classics with Ars Nova Copenhagen, and the Sydney based choir, Cantillation.
As a composer and arranger, his music has been heard throughout the world in a variety of genres, performed by, amongst others, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Brass, the Danish Chamber Players, the Australian Brass Quintet, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Brass, and at festivals and conferences on every continent. His music for the two part ABC television series, Hymns of the Forefathers, in which he developed many of the traditional English hymns into symphonic poems, received international acclaim and was released on CD and DVD by ABC Classics. His title music for the television series, Classical Destinations, which was produced for three seasons, was featured on the ‘Number 1 Classical Album of the Year,’ released by Decca.
His CD, Paul Terracini: Music for Brass, was released on the Tall Poppies label in May 2015. On this recording, he conducted his own music with Sydney Brass, featuring members of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Paul Terracini also holds a PhD from the University of Sydney, having earlier completed a Bachelor of Theology and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours). His book, John Stoward Moyes and the Social Gospel, was published in 2015.