26 July 2025
Notes from a Bus by Julia Hill
AYO Tour blog
Friday July 25th brings us our last long-haul bus ride. I glance up from my Netflix drama and realise half of us are standing up, blowing bubbles, and the other half are outside the bus, standing on the highway (?!) – ah, an iconic traffic jam. I too, decide to join the ‘highway team’, but am immediately called back; looks like the traffic is moving again.
Well, whilst everyone else is waving to our fellow highway crawlers (some wave back, some don’t), I will recount the last week of our international tour!
We have performed five concerts in Niendorf aul Poel, Vienna, Graz, Amsterdam and Wiesbaden. From a sold-out barn, to a sold-out Musikverein, we have endured long hours on busses and planes, tried the culinary specialities of each city, and played our souls out to audiences.
My personal favourite part of the concerts has been when didgeridoo soloist, William Barton, begins his solo for Peter Sculthorpe’s Earth Cry. Each time, he has begun playing offstage, causing the audience to erupt into excited whispers, heads turning to figure out where the sound is coming from. In our Concertgebouw concert, William sung the start of his solo, his voice a reflecting 1000 spirits, stories and sounds. It was the most moving experience of my life.
Now that we have performed every piece on both programs a few times, David challenges us with every note, crafting our sound with spontaneous care. I love seeing his smile when I look up from my stand. He has truly found joy in music, and we are privileged to have that joy shared with us.
Christian Li has earnt a standing ovation every time with Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Maurice Ravel’s Tzigane and Jules Massenet’s Meditation. His impossibly accurate technique combined with total absorption in the music, dazzles both the audience and orchestra.
I’m coming out of my concert reverie, and it looks like the bus is now moving at a pace normal for a highway. We only have two concerts left: one in Berlin and our homecoming concert in the Sydney Opera House on 31 July. Despite spending the last nine hours on a bus, my fellow orchestra members are energetic as ever – the AYO spirit remains strong!
The next time I write will be my final tour blog. I can’t wait to tell you about our final week even though I’ll probably be suffering from post-tour-depression when I write it. Until then, tschüss!
Julia Hill, Media and Communication Fellow 2025