NextGen: Explore ATAR & More

A Note from Jen Winley and Ashley Smith

Welcome to NextGen, WASO's specialised concert for high school music students and their teachers. Here we aim to dig deeper into the world of classical music and share some insights, ideas, information, and skills for you to use right now and into to your future music studies.

2025 is a special year for this project as WASO will be playing alongside the talented musicians of the UWA Conservatorium of Music.

For many music students, and indeed musicians, the idea of analysing musical works is at best, a bore and at worst, cold-sweat inducing. So why do we bother? Can we enjoy listening to music without understanding how it is put together? Of course, we can….

However, in general, we tend to prefer to listen to music that we already understand at some level, even if we aren’t deliberately analysing it. Our ears (and brains) have become accustomed to certain styles, structures, patterns, and sounds, and when we hear a work we inherently understand or are familiar with, our brains light up in recognition of it. Far from the adage that ‘familiarity breeds contempt’, the more familiar we are with a piece of music, the more our brains light up.

Hand in hand with musical analysis is a knowledge of the context in which it was written. If we can listen to a piece with the ears and understanding of someone from that time and place, suddenly we can see the innovations, the emotion, the skills, and a greater meaning behind the work. All of this creates a picture in our mind of how the work functions in time; it changes our assessment from a basic opinion of ‘do I like this piece or not?’ to a much broader appreciation of its value. Therefore, the more you understand a piece of music, the more you are likely to appreciate not only that specific work, but also other works like it.

Our hope is that by the end of this performance, you might have caught some of our enthusiasm for music analysis! You might not be as into it as we are; that’s ok, not many people are… but perhaps you will see the value in it and maybe even enjoy it just a little bit!

Jen and Ash

Jen Winley
Conductor

Australian conductor Jen Winley was appointed West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO)’s inaugural Associate Conductor in 2024, after holding the Assistant Conductor position since 2022. An accomplished percussionist and timpanist, Jen has previously appeared in regular performance with WASO, as well as with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) and Orchestra Victoria. She returned to MSO in 2024 for her first conducting appearance with the orchestra.

Jen made her professional conducting debut in 2020 while participating in WASO’s Emerging Conductors program. She went on to lead the Orchestra in a wide variety of performances, including subscription mainstage concerts, Family, Education and Community Engagement projects, regional tours, films in concert, and contemporary and recording projects. Highlights from her cross-genre projects include conducting WASO in Home Alone in Concert and the world premiere performances of Drapht and WASO: How the West Was Won; a collaboration with Perth hip-hop artist Drapht that culminated in the Orchestra’s first music videos.

Jen recently became a member of an exclusive group of conductors around the world who are approved to conduct Disney in Concert events, going on to conduct WASO in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Frozen, and Toy Story in Concert. She made a further company debut with West Australian Opera (WAO) as Music Director for Sondheim’s Into the Woods (2023).

Jen is highly focused on innovative programming development for educational and family concerts and has frequently collaborated with acclaimed UK animateur Paul Rissmann, most recently conducting the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Sounds Like an Orchestra. She has played a key role in in developing several shows in this genre for WASO. Jen spent several years as a classroom educator and continues to enjoy working with young people. She currently oversees the WASO Conducting Fellowship Program, has conducted the Western Australian Youth Orchestra since 2019, and makes her debut with the Melbourne Youth Orchestra in 2025. She will conduct Symphony on the Waterfront in 2025 in her first appearance with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and returns to WAO as Assistant Conductor for their season of Verdi’s Il trovatore.

Jen Winley is supported by the Simon Lee Foundation and the JACE Foundation.

Dr Ashley Smith
Presenter

Described as ‘Incandescent... a masterly display of skill and insight... as an apologist for contemporary music-making, you would search hard to find this young clarinettist’s equal’ (The Age), clarinettist Dr Ashley William Smith appears internationally as a soloist, chamber musician and director.

He has been recognised by a Music Council of Australia Freedman Fellowship, an ABC Symphony International Young Performer Award, a Churchill Fellowship, and an APRA Performance of the Year (Skipworth Clarinet Concerto with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra).

Notable engagements include performances for the Chamber Music Society of the Lincoln Centre, Chamber Music Northwest, the Kennedy Centre and the Beijing Modern Music Festival.

Ashley is a Senior Lecturer and Chair of Woodwind and Contemporary Performance at the University of Western Australia Conservatorium of Music. A graduate of Yale University, the University of Western Australia (UWA), and a Fellow of the Australian National Academy of Music, Ashley was awarded the highest honours as the most outstanding performance graduate of each institution. In 2020, he was awarded a Doctor of Musical Arts from UWA.

Gioachino ROSSINI
(1792-1868)

The Barber of Seville: Overture

The overture to The Barber of Seville has a fascinating history. During the 19th century, overtures to Italian operas were usually different music from the rest of the opera and served to bring the audience’s attention to the stage. In this case, this overture was used for three very different operas.

First, it was the overture to the 1813 ‘opera seria’, Aureliano in Palmira. It was then reworked for a larger orchestra and used as the overture to the historical opera, Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra in 1815, and finally recycled for The Barber of Seville in 1816. To this day, there are several published versions of the overture to The Barber of Seville; some closer to Aureliano version, others to the Elisabetta version, and others a mix of the two.

The Barber of Seville is a comic opera, an ‘opera buffa’, and is regarded by many to be the best of its type. It also has a connection to the Mozart opera, The Marriage of Figaro, with both operas being based on the related plays of the French writer Beaumarchais.

Amy BEACH
(1867-1944)

Gaelic Symphony, 1st movement

Classical music in the United States was essentially European-based until the very late 19th century. There was little sense of an ‘American’ sound, as there was for Germany, France, England and Italy; each with their own idiosyncrasies and links to culture and history. The consensus was one of elitism and snobbery, i.e. the European model must be superior to anything that could be composed by a New World (American) musician.

Although there had been American composers prior to this, the very end of the 19th century saw the beginnings of an American school of composition and the acceptance of American sounds and ideas as being valid (if not yet seen as equal to European).

Most people attribute this to Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. Dvořák was paid to travel to the USA in 1892 and set up the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. Just as he had helped create a Bohemian sound by infusing folk song idioms into traditional classical forms in his native country, he sought to help create an American sound. He stayed for three years, and it was during this time he composed his Symphony No.9 From the New World.

Whilst Dvořák’s influence was positive, it wasn’t the only source of change. The Second New England School (aka ‘The Boston Six’) were a group of American composers who were striving to compose in their own style, not just replicate the European model. Comprised of John Knowles Paine, Arthur Foote, George Chadwick, Amy Beach, Edward McDowell and Horatio Parker; their music was influenced by folk music, First Nations and African-American music, and the music and stories of the immigrants that made up the melting pot of American culture. These elements, however, were not the key factor in the American style and they were at pains to ensure these features were not merely a novelty or gimmick. Whilst they added colour and context to the music, the Second New England School sought to infuse their music with the youthful energy and tenacious spirit of their newer culture.

Beach chose to use Irish Folk tunes as the melodic basis of this symphony. At the time, Irish people were considered a lower class in society. Beach’s recognition of their plight as immigrants to the United States and the use of their traditional music, was to represent a minority. This was in line with her view that American music should be diverse, inclusive, and cosmopolitan. Her view was generally not aligned with those of the upper classes and some of the negative reviews of the symphony may have been due to Anti-Irish sentiment.

The opening of the First Movement represents the harrowing sea crossing of the Gaelic immigrants. In addition to borrowing from her own song, Dark is the Night, she uses the lively, bagpipe-inspired dance tune Conchobhar ua Raghallaigh Cluann (Connor O’Reilly of Clounish) as the closing theme.

Joseph HAYDN
(1732-1809)

Trumpet Concerto, 3rd movement

In its most traditional form, as crystallised during the Classical Period, the Concerto is a large-scale work written for orchestra and soloist. It centres on the Classical concept of balance; soloist and orchestra play equal roles, exchanging melodic lines and taking turns in the spotlight. The soloist, however, is undeniably the star. The Concerto gives them an opportunity to showcase their technical prowess and musicality.

A Classical Concerto is usually comprised of three movements:
I. Fast. Includes a cadenza near the end of the movement (Concerto-Sonata form)
II. Slow. Lyrical (variety of choices eg. Ternary, Theme and Variations, Rondo form)
III. Fast. Sometimes a cadenza (Quick Rondo or Sonata-Rondo form)

Bedřich SMETANA
(1824-1884)

My Country: Vltava

Andante
Allegro marcato
Adagio
Allegro giocoso

The tone poem depicting Bohemia’s greatest river, the Vltava (known in German as Moldau), is the second of the six spiritually and, to an extent musically, integrated movements making up Smetana’s orchestral masterpiece, the symphonic cycle My Country (Má vlast). Composed between 1872 and 1880 in patriotic celebration of the nation’s countryside, history and legend, it was intended to assert Czech identity within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Today, it symbolises the finer feelings of patriotism for people the world over.

‘Vltava’ depicts the course of the river through the countryside, by means of a rondo-like structure in which a pulsing theme first heard in E minor recurs and grows and will eventually achieve grandeur in E major. In passing episodes, the river encounters a hunt, a village festival and a moonlight dance of water nymphs. Challenged by the turbulent Rapids of St John, the river emerges broader, its spirits proudly lifted as it surges forth to meet its destiny – at Vyšehrad, dominating the right bank as it enters Prague, the legendary High Castle of Bohemia’s first royal dynasty; then on through the Golden City and beyond.

The resounding, foursquare ‘Vyšehrad’ motto with which the Vltava is greeted to Prague comes from the first movement of My Country. It is the musical and spiritual linchpin of the cycle, evoking glories of a medieval past, climaxing the river’s journey, and combining with a 15thcentury Hussite battle hymn to end the cycle in a grand apotheosis affirming the Czech people’s golden future.

Anthony Cane © 2008

First performance:
4 April 1875. Adolf Čech conducting.

First WASO performance:
7 June 1969. Thomas Mayer, conductor.

Most recent WASO performance:
11 & 12 November 2022. Johannes Fritzsch, conductor.

Instrumentation:
three flutes (doubling piccolo), two each of oboes, clarinets and bassoons; four horns, two trumpets, three trombones and tuba; timpani, percussion, harp and strings.