Inspired by Derek Jarman’s film Blue, this concert by the Canberra Symphony Orchestra (CSO) took a colour that is all around us, and through new and old music, made it electric.

Under conductor Jessica Cottis, who experiences some sounds as colours, the concert opened with the world premiere of a new CSO commission, Kinds of Blue by Miriama Young.

A dual-national Aotearoa/New Zealand-Australian composer and sound artist, Young is also Associate Professor in Music at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.

Kinds of Blue explored and reflected the colour blue as a sound medium. It opened with a restless swelling. The dramatic story it told suggested music from a 1940s film noir. Sounds overlapped sounds across the timbres of the orchestra.

It was many kinds of blue, in the sense of blue being melancholic and mysterious. It had something unique to say. The composer, who was there, took to the stage to thank the orchestra and the audience.

Jessica Cottis conducts the Canberra Symphony Orchestra’s Electric Blue. Photo © Thomas Lucraft

An early work of the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, his Piano Concerto in F-sharp minor, Op. 20, is also a work...