Dan Sultan and the ASO
We acknowledge that the land we make music on is the traditional country of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. We pay respect to Elders past and present and recognise and respect their cultural heritage, beliefs and relationship with the land. We acknowledge that this is of continuing importance to the Kaurna people living today. We extend this respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are with us for this performance today.
Program
Jamie Goldsmith / arr. Ferguson Wadna, Jamie’s Song
Acknowledgement of Country
The Same Man
Kimberley Calling
Loving’s Just For Fools
It Belongs to Us
Can’t Blame Me
Nobody Knows
High Street Riot
Gullible Few
– INTERVAL –
Time Won’t Take
Wait In Love
Walk Through My Dream
Chance to Lose Control
Cul-de-sac
Lashings
Magnetic
Fire Under Foot
Old Fitzroy
Undreamt Shores
All works are composed by Dan Sultan and arranged by Alex Turley unless otherwise noted.
Welcome
A message from Dan Sultan, featured artist and composer
Blackbird was such an amazing experience, and I’ve always been really proud of it and grateful for it. To be a decade on and celebrating it with the incredible ASO is something I’ll always cherish. I have always been and continue to be grateful to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and I pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging. I also pay my respects to all First Nations Peoples in attendance at these performances. I thank everyone for coming and all who made this possible.
Program Note
A message from Alex Turley, arranger
Writing this show with Dan was a privilege and an honour. Blackbird is so much more than a rock album; it’s a beautiful portrait of a complicated artist. There are tracks on that record that hit you right in the heart. In creating these orchestral arrangements, we tried to do justice to the spirit of the original songs while also reimagining them in thoughtful, interesting ways and using the full range of the orchestral colour palette. Dan’s a different artist now than he was ten years ago, and in a way this concert is about looking back on one’s old self with a fresh perspective. He’s thrown himself into the orchestral deep end here without the lifeboat of a backing band or even a guitar. It’s been great to watch him swim with ease. Thanks everyone for coming tonight, we hope that the show leaves an impact on you. I give my respect and gratitude to all First Nations people here tonight, thank you for being here. Your voices belong on this stage.
Artists
Dan Sultan
Dan Sultan is one of Australia’s most loved singer-songwriters boasting numerous accolades to his name, including 7 ARIA Awards, NIMA Awards, Top 5 ARIA-charting albums, and an ARIA-certified gold record.
2023’s self-titled album ‘DAN SULTAN’ won the ARIA for ‘Best Adult Contemporary Album’ and was also nominated for ‘Best Solo Artist’ and ‘Best Independent Release’.
Sultan has toured countless times playing headline shows to sold-out crowds, as well as supporting the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Midnight Oil, Vance Joy and billed on some of Australia’s biggest festivals, including Splendour in the Grass, Blues Festival and Falls Festival, to name a few.
Jarra Karalinar Steel | Visual Artist
Jarra Karalinar Steel is a multidisciplinary artist and the curator of Rising’s Art Trams.
Jarra’s work explores themes of blak futurism, identity, memory and ways to insert contemporary cultural visual language into the urban and digital landscape by reclaiming space and belonging.
Alex Turley | Arranger
Alex Turley is one of the most sought-after composers and musical collaborators of his generation, having worked with all of Australia’s major orchestras and collaborated with a diverse group of artists including Ali McGregor, Banks, Ben Folds, Electric Fields, Emma Donovan, Eskimo Joe, Genesis Owusu, G Flip, the Hoodoo Gurus, Ngaiire, Paul Grabowsky and Rufüs Du Sol. In 2024 he is undertaking a highly competitive Creative and Performance Leadership Fellowship from the Forrest Research Foundation
and the Layton Emerging Composer Fellowship from UNSW.
Known for projects that cross genre boundaries, Alex has recently co- composed Barra-roddjiba with members of all-woman rock band Ripple Effect and Kunibidji elders for the Darwin Symphony Orchestra (lauded by Limelight as an “innovative cross-cultural performance”) as well as Agam, a 50-minute
orchestral suite with Carnatic music collective Sangam which premiered at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. In 2022 his show with Electric Fields and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was described as an “effervescent, electronic neo-soul song cycle … sonically painted live by the limitless textures of the most profound musical organism” (Beat).
Alex’s orchestral work City of Ghosts, written for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra when the composer was nineteen, was described as “an accessible, brilliant piece of music” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution) and possessing a “refined sense of texture and atmosphere” (Partial Durations), while the more recent chamber work Zero Sum Game was lauded as an “exciting aural landscape … alternatively driving and luxuriating, the young composer taking the compositional turns with ease” (Limelight).
Alex completed a Master of Music (Composition) at the Sydney Conservatorium with a research project investigating diverse approaches to musical temporality. This followed undergraduate studies in composition at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts with a First Class Honours Thesis investigating the work of Toru Takemitsu. He is the recipient of the Henderson Postgraduate Scholarship from the University of Sydney, John & Margaret Winstanley Award from WAAPA, an Edith Cowan Excellence Scholarship, a finalist in the APRAAMCOS Professional Development Awards and in 2021 won the Arcadia Winds Composition Prize.
Aaron Wyatt | Conductor
Aaron is a violist, violinist, conductor, composer, programmer, and academic. Originally from Perth, he spent many years as a regular casual with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra before moving to Melbourne to take up an assistant lecturer position at Monash. A member of the award winning Decibel New Music ensemble, he also develops their animated graphic notation app for the iPad, the Decibel ScorePlayer.
In 2021 he became the first Indigenous Australian to conduct a state symphony orchestra in concert, and has since gone on to have engagements with the Melbourne, Adelaide, and Sydney Symphony Orchestras.
He was nominated for a Helpmann Award for his role as musical director of Cat Hope’s opera, Speechless, in the 2019 Perth Festival, and recently conducted the premiere of Gina Williams’ and Guy Ghouse’s Noongar opera, Wundig wer Wilura. As a composer, he has written for Ensemble Offspring, GreyWing Ensemble, Ensemble Dutala, and is currently Artist in Residence with Speak Percussion.
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Violins
Kate Suthers** (Concertmaster)
Cameron Hill** (Associate Concertmaster)
Belinda Gehlert* (Acting Principal 1st Violin)
Emma Perkins** (Acting Principal 2nd Violin)
Ambra Nesa~ (Acting Associate Principal 2nd Violin)
Gillian Braithwaite
Julia Brittain
Hilary Bruer
Danielle Jaquillard
Alexis Milton
Michael Milton
Alexander Permezel
Alison Rayner
Kemeri Spurr
Violas
Justin Julian**
David Wicks~ (Guest Associate Principal)
Lesley Cockram
Rosi McGowran
Cellos
Sharon Grigoryan** (Acting Principal)
Sherrilyn Handley~ (Acting Associate Principal)
Joseph Freer
Gemma Phillips
Double Basses
Harley Gray** (Acting Section Principal)
Gustavo Quintino~ (Guest Associate Principal)
Jacky Chang
Flutes
Julia Grenfell*
Oboe
Renae Stavely~
Clarinet
Dean Newcomb**
Bass Clarinet
Samantha Webber*
Bassoon
Mark Gaydon**
Horns
Adrian Uren**
Emma Gregan
Philip Paine*
Timothy Skelly
Trumpets
David Khafagi**
Martin Phillipson~
Trombones
Colin Prichard**
Ian Denbigh
Tuba
Stan McDonald*
Timpani
Andrew Penrose*
Percussion
Steven Peterka**
Sami Butler~
Harm
Suzanne Handel* (Guest Principal)
** denotes Section Principal
~ denotes Associate Principal
* denotes Principal Player