The Metropolitan Orchestra breaks down barriers by performing for refugees, most of whom had never seen an orchestra before.

The Metropolitan Orchestra, in conjunction with St Vincent de Paul Society NSW’s SPARK programme, delivered two concerts to newly arrived refugee families in Sydney’s Western Suburbs last month. The orchestra performed for close to 200 parents and children, many of whom had only been in Australia for a few weeks, across two kid-friendly Cushion Concerts featuring Prokofiev’s well-loved Peter and the Wolf at Fairfield Public School, with the narrator, Tyran Parke, supported by an Arabic interpreter.

The initiative came about after one of the SPARK programme’s officers, who had attended several TMO concerts, approached the orchestra’s General Manager Bevan Rigato in 2014. After two years of planning and coordination, the concerts took place on September 26, to an audience of new-arrivals, almost all of whom had never seen an orchestra before.

^{Narrator Tyran Parke and TMO performing Peter and the Wolf}

“We determined that our version of the Family Cushion Concert featuring Peter and the Wolf would be perfect for this audience,” Rigato told Limelight. “We included our narrator and worked with SPARK to...