Here’s a few observations about the ACO’s 2012 season brochure, which I received today:
- The svelte Russell Crowe look on the cover is definitely eye-catching. Could this be the very first time a man in a flannelette shirt has appeared on the front cover of a major orchestral ensemble’s new season program? If so, why has it taken so long?
- Ideally there’d be a Winnie Blue dangling from the corner of Tognetti’s mouth but we can’t have everything.
- Has someone found God? The program includes a lot of religious toe-tappers:
- Ah, Gentle Jesu
- Most Holy Mother of God
- Veni Creator Spiritus (three times!)
- Exsultate Jubilate
- Prayer of Christ Ascending Towards His Father
- The ACO appears to have significantly decreased its component of music written by living composers, but two of the composers only died quite recently: Meale (2009) and Gorecki (2010)
- If these two were treated as living composers (although the technology is currently beyond us) the Live Music ratio jumps to 20%
- After flirting last year with a few more pieces appearing on the composite “top 200 classical classics” lists, the ACO has again reverted to avoiding these works like the plague, mostly
- The Repertoire Safety Index has dropped a bit, indicating that the ACO is playing more works by famous composers, but not necessarily their famous works
- It remains to be seen whether one of the other orchestras will trump them on this score
- For the record, works by Australian composers steady at 9%
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