★★★★☆ Wang does not disappoint, with a pyrotechnic display of technical supremacy worthy of her reputation.

After whetting the appetites of Aussie music lovers earlier this week with an exquisite solo recital, the giddy anticipation ahead of Chinese-American piano megastar Yuja Wang’s Australian concerto debut with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was palpable at a packed Sydney Opera House yesterday evening. However, before the headline act of the concert, the SSO, under the baton of prodigious 29-year-old French conductor Lionel Bringuier, offered the second helping of German composer Jörg Widman of the 2015 season, following Christian Tetzlaff’s performance of his violin concerto earlier this year.

Receiving its Australian premiere, Con brio, described as a “concert overture for orchestra,” was conceived as a response to Beethoven’s symphonies, and uses the relatively modest forces of a Classical orchestra, omitting lower brass and an extended percussion section. Widman deconstructs and distorts the very fabric of Beethoven’s music, lurching from moments of musical familiarity into a more exotic, mercurial palette of extended instrumental techniques and dissonant harmony. SSO have reserved several concert openers this season for short, contemporary works, securing a platform for modern music by pairing 21st-century repertoire with more popular box-office draws....