On 28 February Simone Young and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra premiere a new concert overture by Carl Vine at the Sydney Opera House. Dreams Undreamt is a 6 ½ minute work created as part of the orchestra’s 50 Fanfares project and commissioned by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra supported by Geoff Ainsworth AM and Johanna Featherstone. It receives further performances on 1 and 2 March.
“I love the idea of a sequence of events so freakish, so other-worldly, that you wouldn’t dream of it”, says Vine of the piece. “But what if you did?” Dreams Undreamt begins with a quietly excited fanfare for solo trumpet, taken up by horns and woodwinds, before the work surges forth. Its rhythmic vitality, which sees triple and duple patterns bounce off each other, is underscored by a trio of percussionists, driving the work forward with timpani, wood blocks, tom-toms, cowbells, and brake drums.
The premiere will mark thirty years of collaboration between orchestra and composer, who celebrated his 70th birthday in 2024. In 1995 they premiered Vine’s Percussion Symphony, for four percussionists and orchestra, with Edo de Waart, as well as his Theme for The Planet of Doom with film music legend John Williams. Edo de Waart was joined by pianist Michael Kieran Harvey for the premiere of Vine’s first Piano Concerto in 1997. In 2004 the orchestra premiered Vine’s Cello Concerto with Steven Isserlis and Jiří Bělohlávek; Vine’s Piano Concerto No.2 followed in 2012, with Piers Lane as soloist. In 2013 they recorded an anthology of Vine’s symphonies to date, conducted by Edo de Waart and Stuart Challender.