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Concert review from the stage by violinist Julia Hill

Sunday morning in Vienna is usually a quiet affair… unless the Australian Youth Orchestra is in town. 

We had arrived for our first ever performance, and that was worthy of a full house.

My name is Julia Hill, and I am a member of the AYO. This is my concert review from the stage.

Like the audience, we too were blasted by gold as we leapt onto stage, statues winking at us from above, chandeliers glistening. With the tiered stage, it almost felt as though we were there to watch the audience rather than the opposite!

Conductor David Robertson strode onto stage, welcoming the audience in German, and
inviting Carlo Antonioli to the podium for his Musikverein debut, conducting Peter Sculthorpe’s Earth Cry.

As the hall imploded into silence, a whisper sounded from the side of the stage, followed by a drone. Heads turned, audience members subtly pointing to the source of the music. It was the sound of William Barton playing didgeridoo, the overtones echoing to the back of the hall.

As William took his seat at the front of the stage, the orchestra phased into performance. We were now one being with William, reciting a story of Australian Country. There were moments of risk, resilience and renaissance as Carlo weaved our sound into every centimetre of the hall. Congratulations to Carlo and William, for an extraordinary first performance in the Musikverein.

A short stage change revealed our soloist, violinist Christian Li, and conductor David Robertson. As we performed Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, I could see Christian completely absorbed in the music, David watching him with equal intensity.

We lamented, we reminisced, and we soared, with Christian leading us through the acrobatics of the score. A final note of ‘E’ powered through the orchestra, shouts of “Bravo!” permeating the space – a pinnacle to take us to interval.

The final work was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, a piece in which 1001 stories are told. As the orchestra set the landscape, our wind and string soloists painted the characters on our canvas of sound. Every now and then, I saw an audience member peer down at us from the top balcony, searching for a particular instrument, and the slight tap of a front-row member’s hand as the music intensified.

We brought all the scenes David had described to us in rehearsals to the audience – the rise and swell of tumultuous waves, the streets of a merchant town and the vibratoed shimmer of love. The audience reflected that love back at us with a standing ovation and cheer for one more.

David had written us an encore piece, A Joyful Noise. The brass projected a fanfare over the flitting strings and winds, like a final statement to our listeners – “Thank you for being a part of our music”. The winds, strings and percussion acknowledged that gratitude, each section passing a musical ball to each other in thanks. With a final joyful note, we ended our first concert in the Musikverein.

I will never forget this concert. Never. Thank you for being there with us.

Julia Hill, Media and Communication Fellow 2025