Writing when he was a mere 16 years old, Mendelssohn noted that his newly composed Octet “must be played by all the instruments in symphonic orchestral style.” It beggars belief that someone so young could have written one of the grandest chamber music works. The Octet is epic in proportion, youthful in its excitement and simply breathtaking when it reaches its exhilarating conclusion.

Spurred on by this, and by Mendelssohn’s own inspiration from Goethe’s Faust, Adelaide-born composer Jakub Jankowski’s Octet is grand in scale and dramatic in performance – the players at times becoming the characters of Faust and Mephistopheles – before the piece, like Mendelssohn’s, comes to an exultant conclusion.
In between, Jennifer Higdon’s Quiet Art acts as a palate cleanser – a moment of calm that the world sorely needs at this time.

This is a concert that will lift the roof off the venue and the spirits of all those in it.