If you’ve never watched a classic film with a proper, thoughtful, custom-built film score played live by a real orchestra, the experience is fascinating. More importantly, it gives you an appreciation of how intimately a film director and composer must work together to build an impactful cinematic experience, and how amazingly skilled the players and the conductor must be to ensure that the music matches and deepens what’s on screen.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was scored for string orchestra by Bernard Herrmann, so as the Canberra Symphony Orchestra strings assembled on the Llewellyn Hall stage in a purple half-light before a giant silver screen, it was possible to imagine the original studio orchestra – assembled especially by Hitchcock – readying itself to record.  

Jen Winley and the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Arianne Schlumpp

First though, the orchestra performed a nature-inspired musical landscape by Leah Curtis, commissioned by the CSO, called Nightfaring. An experienced composer for film herself, this calm and meditative work opened with the most exquisite cello solos from principal Patrick Suthers. 

The CSO was lucky enough to engage Jen Winley as conductor for this program. Not only...