Organ Gala

Join the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra as they return to their roots in the Melbourne Town Hall during the year of their 120th anniversary. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was one of the first works they performed in this venue over a century ago, and they're revisiting its elegant Nocturne for the occasion.

British-Australian organist Joseph Nolan will navigate this four-storeys-high instrument as he performs Saint-Saëns Symphony No.3, nicknamed Organ. It’s a theatrical concert program, and not only because the symphony contains the melody that featured in the soundtrack to Babe, that heroic little pig from the movies. The concert also boasts the drama of Bizet’s Carmen as we play an orchestral arrangement of his operatic tale of tragedy and seduction. Bursting with passionate rhythms, our gala concert also features Mexican composer Arturo Márquez’s Danzón No.2, and Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s dance suite inspired by a day of country life with cattle, cowboys and all.