“Story time!” William Barton says as he sits down with his yidaki on Thursday night at the Melbourne Arts Centre. This statement proves to be an invitation and a mission statement for an extraordinary evening that threads together voices, histories and musical lineages not often heard side by side. 

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s New Worlds program, featuring works by Florence Price, Deborah Cheetham Fraillon and Antonín Dvořák, is a brilliant work of curation. Though from vastly different worlds, the three composers are linked by their use of music as a vessel for heritage and a thunderous call for liberation.

New Worlds: Deborah Cheetham Fraillon and the MSO. Photo © Laura Manariti

The concert opens with Florence Price’s Concert Overture No. 2, whose music is based on three spirituals, Go down Moses, Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen and Every time I feel the spirit. It takes MSO Chief Conductor Jaime Martín and orchestra a moment to settle in: the indulgence of these expansive, hugely emotional melodies can mean tempo and unity take a back seat, but once they reach the upbeat...