Hear ethereal musical clusters, floating tones and swathes of spacious sound in this music series inspired by the symbolism of clouds.

Presented alongside the Magritte exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Cloud music sees SCO artists create a unique one-night only performance aligned to the art of Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte.

Hosted in the Art Gallery’s atmospheric Kaldor Hall SCO’s response is an hour-long mise-en-espace designed and directed by Alexander Berlage which features the world premiere of new works by Jane Sheldon as well as the Australian premiere of excerpts from Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel. 

Program:

Thomas Adès: Three Berceuses from The Exterminating Angel (Australian premiere)
Jane Sheldon: Apollo & The Erotic Sublime (world premieres)
Pascal Dusapin: Wolken
Thomas Adès: Life Story

The South Pole is a realm rarely touched by human footsteps, shrouded in an aura of mystery and inaccessibility. Yet, within this frozen landscape, lie untold tales and forgotten histories, waitig to be unearthed.

Antarctica, a collaborative endeavour between Mary Finsterer, Tom Wright and Sydney Chamber Opera company, delves into the complex dimensions of the southern continent, blending historical, mythical and scientific narratives into a captivating musical odyssey. Through the outstanding compositions of Australian Finsterer, audiences are taken to an ethereal realm, where the allure of Antarctica unfolds through a fusion of classical and contemporary musical elements, weaving together the exploits of a cartographer, a natural scientist and a philosopher, each driven by their own aspirations and curiosities.

The genesis of Antarctica was a symposium at the University of Tasmania in 2017, where Finsterer and Wright collaborated with scientists from the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, through the Creative Antarctica Program.

First performed at the 2022 Holland Festival and in Australia at the 2023 Sydney Festival, this is a rare opportunity to see this groundbreaking work for the first time in Tasmania with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jack Symonds.