Experience Mahler’s awe-inspiring First Symphony with Dr Nicholas Milton AM and the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra. Gustav Mahler was the leading conductor of his generation, but he’s best known today for his vast, breathtaking symphonies. Marvel at the remarkable virtuosity of the orchestra in one of the most exciting works in the repertoire. To open the concert, celebrated Australian cellist Julian Smiles joins the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra for Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks’ luminous and transformative Cello Concerto No.2, Presence, inspired, as the composer so beautifully puts it, by the idea of ‘the soul ascending into the cosmos’.