On the day the Soviet spacecraft Kosmos 482 crashed to Earth after 53 years trapped in orbit, it was passing strange that the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s latest tour should start with Brett Dean’s short work Komarov’s Last Words about the first man to die in space.

One of the five Short Stories commissioned for the ACO, and given its world premiere 20 years ago, piercing harmonics on the violins imitate the sparse and remote sounds of space telemetry recordings before the music becomes more agitated with the cello depicting cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov’s desperate last messages to the control centre as he fell to his death in 1967.

The concert with its strong Soviet theme is a celebration of the world’s first electronic instrument, the theremin, invented by Russian physicist Leon Theremin in 1920 as a proximity sensor, featuring 37-year-old German virtuoso Carolina Eyck in a wide-ranging packed program ranging from Bach to the Beach Boys “and beyond”.

Australian Chamber Orchestra and Carolina Eyck. Photo © Nic Walker

The instrument first came into her life as a child when her parents acquired one for their electronic rock band. Soon she became a...