Simone Young’s return to Melbourne saw her presenting a mostly Romantic program with soprano Emma Matthews and the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) Orchestra. The first half, heralded by Paul Stanhope’s Fantasia on a Theme of Vaughan Williams (2003), was devoted to Duparc songs and an orchestral nocturne. After interval, the slightly reduced orchestra performed Brahms’s Second Symphony.

The ANAM Orchestra is a professional training orchestra comprising élite musicians at ANAM, based in the South Melbourne Town Hall. Under the guidance of Paul Dean, ANAM prepares young musicians for the transition from the conservatorium to the concert hall and professional careers in music. This particular program allowed the players to test their musicianship in diverse styles of music and to take risks with these demanding and very different works. The ANAM Orchestra, truly symphonic in scale (eighty-five musicians were listed in the program), rose to the occasion.