Composer’s tribute to Iwaki premieres in Melbourne

31 Oct 2011
Renowned Melbourne composer and Professor at the University of Melbourne Barry Conyngham’s symphonic tribute to the former Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO), Hiroyuki Iwaki (1932-2006), will have its Melbourne Premiere by the MSO at the Melbourne Town Hall on 18 November 2011.

Renowned Melbourne composer and Professor at the University of Melbourne Barry Conyngham’s symphonic tribute to the former Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO), Hiroyuki Iwaki (1932-2006), will have its Melbourne Premiere by the MSO at the Melbourne Town Hall on 18 November 2011.

Professor Conyngham who is Dean of the Faculty of the VCA and Music said the revered Iwaki as both friend and champion.

Iwaki was Chief Conductor of the MSO from 1974 to 1989 and worked regularly with the Orchestra until his retirement in 1997.

The memorial symphony, entitled Gardener of Time (Toki no entei) (2010), celebrates the vibrancy of Iwaki’s life and career, and reflects Professor Conyngham’s deep respect for Iwaki as well as the intense influence of Japanese culture on his own career.

"In Western tradition, purpose-composed memorials tend to be slow and sad laments or elegies," he said. "That’s why so few have been written commemorating conductors, who tend to be fairly lively characters.

"Hiroyuki Iwaki was a vital person, who conjured every mood and tempo. He was someone who, according to Japan’s indigenous Shinto tradition, reincarnated all the spirits. And that’s what I have endeavoured to reflect in the score."

Professor Conyngham, who studied in Tokyo in the 1970s, took the theme for the memorial work from an essay by mutual friend, Toru Takemitsu, who meditated on musicians as "gardeners cultivating infinite time".

"My friend Maestro Iwaki was a Gardener of Time, an exciting, energetic, unpredictable, but also thoughtful, tender, and full-of-life person", he said.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert program will feature Professor Conyngham’s Gardener of Time, Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme, Op.33 and Elgar’s Symphony No.1 in A flat major, Op.5, conducted by Tadaaki Otaka, with cellist Alisa Weilerstein.