Most music schools throughout the country mount special concerts to display their wares. Such exercises are good PR for the school within their campus and wider communities. They provide opportunities for students to perform unfamiliar music – sometimes composed by fellow students – alongside more familiar fare. Sometimes, they even present the fruits of scholastic research. They can even invite participation by players from other disciplines and schools outside the university. In effect, they are true community orchestras.

Warwick Potter and the University of Queensland Symphony Orchestra. Photograph courtesy of the School of Music, University of Queensland

Such was the case with the Vice-Chancellor’s Concert mounted by the University of Queensland in QPAC’s Concert Hall this past weekend. UQ’s Symphony Orchestra, around 90 strong, were marshalled for some 12 weeks through an entertaining program of Americana by their conductor Warwick Potter. The youthful and enterprising conductor is a former bassoonist, graduating from UQ with a PhD in Music Performance (Conducting) in 2015. On the basis of the three programs of his I have managed to catch in recent years, Potter has some intriguing ideas about programming for young players but there is still room for...