The Music of Joe Hisaishi
SPECIAL EVENT
Friday 19 & Saturday 20 June 2026, 7.30pm
Riverside Theatre, Perth Convention & Exhibition Centre
West Australian Symphony Orchestra respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and Elders of Country throughout Western Australia, and the Whadjuk Noongar people on whose lands we work and share music.
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The Music of Joe Hisaishi
Act 1 (60 mins)
World of Dreams
DA.MA.SHI.E
Kiki's Delivery Service
Water Traveler
Kikujiro: Summer
My Neighbour Totoro
Interval (20 mins)
Act 2 (60 mins)
Howl's Moving Castle: Symphonic Variation
Oriental Wind: Dream More
Departures
Nausicaä of The Valley of the Wind: Fantasia
Spirited Away: Suite
Nicholas Buc conductor
Dan Golding host
Andrew Pogson host
Aura Go piano
Produced in association with Concert Lab.
WASO On Stage
About the Artists
Nicholas Buc
Conductor
Nicholas Buc is a composer, conductor, arranger, violinist and pianist. He studied Composition with Brenton Broadstock and Dr. Stuart Greenbaum at the University of Melbourne, where he received the inaugural Fellowship of Australian Composers Award. As the recipient of the Brian May Scholarship for Australian film composers, he completed a Master's degree in Scoring for Film and Multimedia at New York University, studying with Ira Newborn and Paul Chihara as well as receiving the Elmer Bernstein Award for Film Scoring.
Continuing his passion for music and film, he conducted the live-in-concert world premieres of John Williams' Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Hans Zimmer’s The Lion King (2019), Alan Menken's Beauty and the Beast (2017), James Horner’s Field of Dreams, Harry Greson-Williams’ Shrek 2, Nicholas Hooper's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Alexandre Desplat’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, as well as the North American premiere of John Powell’s How To Train You Dragon. Other live film concerts he has conducted include Pixar In Concert, Star Trek, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Back to the Future, Casino Royale, Skyfall, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Psycho, Home Alone, Frozen, The Godfather, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Little Mermaid, Star Wars: Episodes IV, V, VI and VII and all eight Harry Potter films. He has conducted all of the major Australian symphony orchestras as well as the Minnesota Orchestra, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, Detroit, San Diego, Seattle, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Austin, Grand Rapids and Madison symphony orchestras in the US. He also makes regular appearances in Asia, conducting the Tokyo, Hong Kong, Malaysian, Osaka and Taipei Philharmonic orchestras.
Alongside his conducting work, Buc is an award-winning composer and arranger. His original live animation concert, Daughter of the Inner Stars, premiered with the Sydney Symphony in 2024 and then the Vancouver Symphony in 2025, and he recently scored The Apocalypse According to Mad Max, a French-Australian documentary on filmmaker George Miller. In 2026, his new arrangement of the Australian Open theme, commissioned by Tennis Australia and recorded with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, debuted at the tournament.
Nicholas has worked with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Chris Botti, Amanda Palmer, Ben Folds and was conductor/arranger for Tina Arena on six Australian tours. He has also written arrangements for Diana Ross, Lake Street Dive, Birds of Tokyo, Missy Higgins, Passenger, Eskimo Joe, Vera Blue and The Whitlams, as well as working on five seasons of The Voice Australia. In 2019 he teamed up with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, arranging their film music for a new show with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival.
As a composer, some of his works have been premiered by the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, The Australian Voices, the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, the Benaud Trio and Concordis Chamber Choir. In November 2022 the Melbourne Youth Orchestra premiered his new Trumpet Concerto, written for and commissioned by Josh Rogan. In July 2023, his 100-minute long oratorio titled Origins premiered at the Melbourne Recital Centre. A telling of the creation story from the point of view of science, it was commissioned and performed by the 100-voice Heidelberg Choral Society, 4 soloists and 60-piece orchestra, with a libretto by geneticist Jenny Graves and poet Leigh Hay.
He has also written for film and television, with some of his work being screened at festivals and theatres around Australia, Asia and the US. In 2007 he was nominated for "Best Original Song Composed for the Screen" in the APRA-AGSC Screen Music Awards, and in 2015 was a winning finalist of the NYU Film Scoring Competition. Nicholas also recently completed work on the new Australian feature film Slant, starring Sigrid Thornton and Pia Miranda, which won Best Australian Feature at Monster Fest 2022. He also scored the Ukrainian documentary Slava, which won Best Short Film at Byron All Shorts Flickerfest 2023.
The 2025–2026 season brings debut appearances with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra and the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, along with return engagements with the Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Toronto Symphony, New Japan Philharmonic, Orlando Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, and all major Australian symphony orchestras.
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About the Artists
A/Prof. Dan Golding
Host
Associate Professor Dan Golding is Chair of Media and Communication at Swinburne University, the host of Screen Sounds on ABC Classic, and an award-winning composer and writer.
Dan is the author of Star Wars After Lucas (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), and the co-author of Game Changers (Affirm Press, 2016). He also created the soundtrack for the BAFTA, DICE, and GDCA winning Untitled Goose Game (2019), which became the first game soundtrack to be nominated for an ARIA award in history.
Other composing includes the soundtracks for Push Me Pull You (2016) and the Frog Detective series, for which his score for The Haunted Island (2018) won the APRA-AMCOS Australian Game Developer award for Best Music. Dan recently composed the theme for the ABC’s flagship podcast, ABC News Daily. Find him on Instagram @dan.golding or online at dangolding.com.
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About the Artists
Andrew Pogson
Host
Andrew Pogson is a producer, director and jazz musician who has worked in the music industry for over 20 years. He is the founder and Creative Director of Concert Lab, a concert producing and production company, and was previously the Head of Presentations at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO).
He has worked with artists such as Sting, Randy Newman, Tim Minchin, Ben Folds, Joe Hisaishi and Studio Ghibli, Kate Miller-Heidke and Flight Facilities, along with creating and producing world premieres with the MSO such as The Doctor Who Symphonic Spectacular, Video Games Unplugged, Babe in Concert, Symphonica featuring Armand Van Helden, The Film Music of Nick Cave & Warren Ellis and This Gaming Life with music comedy trio Tripod (where he also hosts their podcast, Perfectly Good Podcast). Find him on Instagram @andrewjpogson or online at concertlab.com.au.
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About the Artists
Aura Go
Piano
Aura Go is an Australian concert pianist, curator and educator. She performs internationally as concerto soloist in repertoire from J.S. Bach to Sofia Gubaidulina, as recitalist and chamber musician in imaginative programs that interweave old and new music, and as narrator and actor in cross-artform and educational projects.
In recent seasons Aura has performed as soloist with the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Queensland Symphony Orchestras, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria. Festival appearances have included the Edinburgh Festival, Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, PianoEspoo, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Australian Festival of Chamber Music and the Musica Viva Festival. In 2023 Aura toured nationally for Musica Viva in a critically acclaimed performance as pianist-actor in the stage adaptation of Paul Kildea's Chopin's Piano. Current season highlights include solo engagements with the Melbourne, Queensland and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, a national tour for Musica Viva with violinist Kristian Winther and cellist Timo-Veikko Valve, and recital collaborations with cellists Ivan Karizna and Li-Wei Qin, flautist Joshua Batty and soprano Sara Macliver.
Aura enjoys musical partnerships with pianist Tomoe Kawabata as the KIAZMA Piano Duo, and with Timo-Veikko ‘Tipi’ Valve (Principal Cellist, Australian Chamber Orchestra), with whom she recorded the complete Beethoven cello sonatas and works by Webern for ABC Classics. A committed advocate for new and underrepresented repertoire, Aura's discography also includes first recordings of works by Lisa Illean (NMC Records), Miriama Young (ABC Classic), Japanese works for piano duo (KIAZMA), and four-hand music by Ekaterina Komalkova (Tall Poppies).
Aura is Head of Piano at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University, where she leads a vibrant program that nurtures creativity, collaboration and artistic curiosity. She has previously taught at Yale College and the Sibelius Academy, and has been visiting artist at institutions including the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus (Denmark), the Feliks Nowowiejski Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz (Poland), Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences (University of Arkansas) and the Australian National Academy of Music.
Born in Melbourne, Aura studied at the Victorian College of the Arts and the Australian National Academy of Music before completing her Master of Music at the Yale School of Music. She then spent seven years in Helsinki, combining an active performing career with doctoral research at the Sibelius Academy. In 2018-19 Aura was a Musica Viva FutureMaker artist. Her artistic research explores the intersections of acting and music performance, focusing on developing musicians’ embodied imagination as a foundation for creative and compelling performances.
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About Art of the Score
Art of the Score
Art of the Score is a Melbourne-based podcast that explores, demystifies and celebrates some of the greatest soundtracks of all time from the world of film, TV and video games. In each episode hosts Andrew Pogson, Dan Golding and Nicholas Buc check out a soundtrack they love, break down its main themes, explore what makes the score tick and hopefully impart their love of the world of soundtracks.
Art of the Score has enjoyed time in the iTunes Top 10, 'What’s Hot' and 'New & Noteworthy' lists, and is listened to by soundtrack geeks all around the world. Head on over to artofthescore.com.au for more nerdery and tomfoolery.
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WASO Recommends
If you enjoyed tonight's concert, we think you'll love:
How to Train Your Dragon in Concert
Experience this acclaimed film with composer John Powell’s Academy Award®-nominated score performed live by WASO in a thrilling experience for all ages.
Hiccup is a young Viking who defies tradition when he befriends one of his deadliest foes – a ferocious dragon he calls Toothless. Together, these unlikely heroes must fight against all odds to save both their worlds.
Friday 17 & Saturday 18 July, 2026
Riverside Theatre
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About WASO
Engage | Excite | Experience | Educate
From the centre of Perth to the furthest corners of the state, we have provided the soundtrack to life in WA since 1928.
As the State Orchestra, Perth’s first and finest, WASO is the largest employer of performing artists in Western Australia and reaches two million people with musical experiences each year on stage, in our community, and online.
From concert stages to classrooms, hospitals to aged care, we bring joy, inspire learning, and nurture participation in our community, because everybody deserves the opportunity to experience live music. Every year, through community and leading industry partnerships, we engage a new generation of young and emerging artists to help secure a bright future for music in Australia.
We celebrate our rich classical music heritage with great artists from all over the world and commission and perform new repertoire to renew and expand it. The Orchestra collaborates widely with major arts companies and independent artists, performing opera to ballet, movies to musicals, jazz to rock.
Asher Fisch is Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of our Orchestra. We champion the diversity of music in all its forms, with a team of talented and passionate people who create unforgettable experiences for all West Australians to enjoy.
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