★★★½☆ Alondra de la Parra and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra deliver a night of Latin rhythms and urban cool.

Hamer Hall, Melbourne
April 14, 2016

Day two of the inaugural BBC Proms Australia, and the turn of Queensland Symphony Orchestra and its music director, Alondra de la Parra, to take the platform at Mebourne’s Hamer Hall, delivering an evening of feisty Latin rhythms and urban cool.

Largely, all five events of this brief Aussie Proms season seem to be similarly angled towards a lighter tone of voice, apparently in a bid to tempt new concertgoers who might be scared away by more imposing repertoire. However, this programme revealed an important lesson: having an open mind can light the path to rewarding discoveries, for both the veteran and the novice music lover.

Of course, it’s no secret that classical music suffers from an image problem, seen by the uninitiated as the entertainment of the affluent, the dull or the elderly. Regardless of how grossly undeserved this reputation is, stripping away some of these irritating stereotypes is a holy grail that programmers all over the world have been chasing for years, but one tactic in particular is arguably the most divisive: crossover.

As has...