Hot on the heels of TÁR, a psycho-thriller about a fictional conductor, comes a documentary about a real one.

Knowing the Score is a portrait of Limelight’s Artist of the Year for 2022, the conductor Simone Young. Directed by Australian filmmaker Janine Hosking (The Eulogy, My Khmer Heart, My Ganja Queen) and produced by Margie Bryant (SBS’s Who Do You Think You Are?), the feature-length documentary incorporates archival footage, interviews and fly-on-the-wall scenes of rehearsals, meetings and backstage life.

It also includes recent performances and rehearsals with the Vienna State Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and the Orchestra nationale de France, and some delicious blasts from the past, such as a 1990s interview with Kerri-Anne Kennerley on the Midday Show.

The story culminates in the triumphant reopening of the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House, where the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs perform of Mahler’s Symphony No 2, ‘The Resurrection’ under the baton of the Orchestra’s new Chief Conductor.

Knowing the Score: Simone Young and the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. Photo supplied

Knowing the Score is a sequel to an earlier documentary, The Young One, also...