Symphony No. 1 (2021)
(Black Summer)

The highlight of the concert was the new Dean Symphony, commissioned for the AWO. It was essentially using the same musical forces as the Beethoven and the Schumann, but with a totally different approach to how the musicians worked together. The older works use the strings as the core of the music with the brass and the winds adding melodic themes and tonal colour. Dean happily uses or combines instruments in unexpected ways that are exciting and a treat to the ear.

The work opens with the two flute and two clarinets up the side aisles playing fragments of bird song which gradually build to a cacophony of bird noise while the strings all play high harmonics. This shifts to a melodic theme on the violas (which got a lot of solo spots) and joined by the cellos with little melodic themes popping up all over from the winds and brass. And that is just the first movement.

There is some wonderful scoring for the bass instruments in various combinations of bass bassoon, bass trombone and the four strings basses as the foundation to the music. This is a modern piece of music that deserves to be heard again and we can only hope that other symphony orchestras around the country will program it in coming years.