Preeminent in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s excellent 2023 program has been its Symphony Series. These thoughtful and finely balanced concerts at the Adelaide Town Hall have been led by the very best visiting conductors and soloists.

The series has been especially noted for introducing many under-acknowledged women composers and for showcasing lesser-known but important and engaging works that enrich the orchestral repertoire and have sparked new directions in composition.

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra: Ecstasy.

For the final concert in this series, entitled Ecstasy, the ASO programmed Jessie Montgomery’s Banner, the second work of hers to be performed by the ASO this year. Her Starburst featured in their Vitality concerts in July.

Montgomery’s Banner was commissioned in 2014 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner which became America’s national anthem. As an African American, Montgomery felt that the anthem didn’t apply to her, and she wrote a piece to represent today’s multi-cultural society.

Banner is composed from elements of 12 different songs, many drawn from neighbouring countries and including work songs, freedom songs and anthems, particularly the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice by James Weldon Johnson, which...