With fingers curled, outstretched, clenched, separated, sweeping and always generating energy, conductor Alondra de la Parra’s left hand was riveting to watch as it shaped her interpretative vision for her first official engagement as the QSO’s new Music Director. It is also the Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s 70th birthday. Seventy years ago, in 1947, Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture was the first item on the Orchestra’s programme. Doffing the cap to that event, it popped up again at the first Maestro Concert.

Overtures can be a throwaway, a romp, a warm up but to de la Parra and the QSO’s credit, the Tannhäuser breathed from the first utterance and embraced the crowd. The brass section, which shone throughout the concert, was the first cab off the rank as it ‘sang’ Wagner’s chorale phrases with a warm yet marbled tone. The playing made you listen as it steadily rose in power, the conductor casting long shapely lines from deeply involved players. When de la Parra’s face was visible, her expressions were refreshingly positive and radiated pride in her new orchestral family.

^{Pianist Zhang Zou}

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