Return visits from our overseas stars always create a hum of excitement and anticipation. Take the annual sold-out five-star performances by the Australian World Orchestra, for instance, or the tours of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Sydney’s 30-year-old violinist Harry Ward chose the intimate acoustic of the Opera House’s Utzon Room for his latest visit, giving a 75-minute recital that showed the many sides of this performer who joined the Berlin Philharmoniker in 2023 after a period spent in its training orchestra, the Karajan Akademie.

Before that he had worked his way up ranks with the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s nursery group ACO2, as well as appearing with Kathryn Selby in a concert during the 2020 lockdown and fronting the ANAM Orchestra for a rare performance by Konstantin Shamray of Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Concerto.

In the latest of the Utzon Music Series concerts he was joined by Sydney’s Ying Ho, a late replacement for Finnish pianist Noora Ylönen, but as the Berlin-based violinist told the audience: “We’ve been playing together for a bloody long time.”