Program

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Rick Prakhoff

Artistic Director and Principal Conductor

Rick Prakhoff

Conducting was the obvious choice for Rick to allow him to perform the music which first engaged him as a child. It was during his second extended stay in London, seeking a career as a classical guitarist, that he realised he had heard far more orchestral, choral and operatic performances than guitar concerts. Conducting was the only career path which would allow him to finally perform the repertoire he truly loved.

Following his BMus in Perth at WAAPA (majoring in conducting) Rick’s training continued in Melbourne when he was selected for Symphony Australia’s Young Conductor programme, working for five years in intensive workshops with renowned conducting teachers Jorma Panula, Gustav Meier, Noam Sherif, Vernon Handley and Johannes Fritzsch, working with WASO, OV, QSO, ASO and the AOBO.

As a freelance conductor Rick has performed with orchestras, choirs and opera companies in Sydney, Canberra, Perth and Melbourne.

Rick was appointed as Artistic Director of the Zelman Memorial Symphony Orchestra in 2018 and has been the Artistic Director of the Melbourne Bach Choir since its inception in 2005.

Following their first collaboration with a performance in the Melbourne Town Hall of the Verdi Requiem in 2019, Zelman, the MBC and bass Adrian Tamburini joined for a memorable performance in the Myer Music Bowl in March 2021 by Zelman’s commission of composer Luke Styles’ No Friend But the Mountains: A Symphonic Song Cycle, based on the remarkable book by Kurdish refugee Behrouz Bouchani, detailing his incarceration by the Australian Government.

Rick was honoured to lead Zelman and the MBC in their performance of Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 2 in September 2023 to highlight Zelman’s 90th anniversary.

Calvin Bowman

Organ and Composer

Calvin Bowman

Dr Calvin Bowman studied organ with John O’Donnell, and piano with Donald Thornton at the University of Melbourne. He undertook further studies at Yale University with the assistance of a Fulbright scholarship, and was awarded the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 2005.

He has presented three performances of the complete Bach organ works in public; in 1995, in 2009 for the Melbourne International Festival, and in 2022 for MONA FOMA.

In 2001, he re-opened the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ by presenting the world premiere performance of Voices by Philip Glass in the composer’s presence.

Dr Bowman’s most popular song, Now Touch the Air Softly, was recorded by Emma Matthews with the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon/ABC Classics. Recent performances of his songs have taken place at the Musikverein and the Elbphilharmonie.

Dr Bowman is an exclusive Decca/UMA artist. His debut discs of artsong entitled Real and Right and True were released in 2018.

He is currently Director of Music at St Andrew’s, Brighton.

Jessica Zuk

Assistant Conductor

Jessica Zuk

Jessica is the Zelman Symphony’s Assistant Conductor for 2025, having freshly graduated from an Honours year in conducting in conjunction with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at the University of Adelaide, where she was tutored by Dr Luke Dollman.

She has previously conducted the Maroondah Symphony Orchestra and Adelaide Summer Orchestra, and enjoyed two years as a conducting scholar with the Melbourne Bach Choir, a highlight of which was conducting the choral premiere of Anne Cawrse’s Requiem. Additionally, Jess is a co-Artistic Director and conductor at Ascolta Qui, a Melbourne-based, not-for-profit organisation supporting young musicians.

Jess completed her prior tertiary music studies as a flautist (First Class Hons, University of Melbourne; BMus, Monash University), and has played in the Melbourne Opera Orchestra, the University of Melbourne Symphony and Monash Academy orchestra. She has been the recipient of several awards and prizes including the 2022 Barbara Bishop Hewitt Scholarship (Melbourne University) and the 2019 and 2017 Anna Chmiel Memorial Woodwind Prizes (Monash University).

Photo Credit: Nicole Marshall

D’un matin de printemps (Of a Spring Morning)

Lili Boulanger (1893–1918)

Lili Boulanger was born in 1893 to a prestigious musical family. She displayed an extraordinary musical aptitude at a young age and was allowed to accompany her older sister, Nadia, to classes at the Paris Conservatoire as an observer from the age of five. Absorbing as much music as she could, Lili learned piano, violin, voice and harp within a short period of time, and made her public performance debut in 1901 aged seven. By 1913, she had won the Prix de Rome for a choral setting of Faust et Hélène. Whilst Lili’s star was on the rise, her work was hampered by a constant battle with tuberculosis, a disease she had contracted at three years of age and which remained with her for the rest of her life. She died at the age of 24 in 1918.

Lili Boulanger’s work D’un matin de printemps (Of a Spring Morning) was written in the final months of her life in 1918. She had composed it so quickly that she was able to arrange it for three ensemble combinations: orchestra, piano trio and violin (or flute) & piano.

The orchestral version opens brightly with a chirping melody for flute and piccolo over delicately pulsing figures in the strings. This theme contrasts with a slower theme for low woodwinds and cello evoking darker dreamlike hues. The two themes alternate until a harp glissando brings the piece to a sparkling close.

Roger Howell 2025

Fantasia super “Christ ist erstanden”

A note by the composer, Calvin Bowman

Fantasia super “Christ ist erstanden” is based on a violin and piano piece I wrote for Sophie Rowell and Kristian Chong in 2021. This version for organ, strings and timpani has been telescoped into a tighter form than the original; I found rewriting for the new forces and passing solo material between the instruments to be an interesting exercise.

The resurrection hymn upon which I’ve based the work was first published in around 1160, and I’ve taken three verses of the hymn to create the overall structure of the piece. In 2021, I was particularly focussed on the works of Paul Hindemith, and this focus is apparent here through the extensive use of fourths, both melodically and harmonically, rather than thirds.

Concerto for Organ, Strings & Timpani, FP 93

Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)

In 1934, the French socialite, Princess Edmond de Polignac, commissioned Francis Poulenc to write a concerto for organ and small orchestra to be played at one of her regular Saturday music soirees. The princess had earlier been delighted with the composer’s witty Concerto for Two Pianos and was hoping for similar music with the organ. Circumstances, however, changed Poulenc’s perspective on this new commission, resulting in a far more serious- sounding work than originally planned.

Two years later, in 1936, Poulenc’s friend and fellow composer, Pierre-Octave Ferroud, died suddenly, prompting the grief-stricken composer to take a pilgrimage to the Catholic shrine of Rocamadour to rekindle his faith. Turning his thoughts again to the organ concerto as a cathartic response, Poulenc studied the works of Bach and Buxtehude to gain a better insight of an instrument for which he had not composed previously, and he also sought advice from the celebrated organist and composer, Maurice Duruflé. The concerto was finally completed and then premiered privately at Princess Edmond’s salon on 16th December 1938 with Duruflé as soloist. Duruflé was again the soloist in the public premiere a year later.

In keeping with what he had learned from the organ fantasies of Buxtehude, Poulenc structured the concerto as a single movement divided into seven sections. Each section displays a variety of moods from powerful violence to utmost serenity. The startling opening theme was inspired by Bach’s Fantasy and Fugue in G minor and leads to a more joyful Allegro. Towards the end of this section, Poulenc introduces an ostinato passage from the soloist and violins that forms the main theme of the sixth section. The slower third section is reminiscent of a Baroque sarabande in the composer’s use of stately dotted rhythms and fugal passages. The final section repeats the opening organ theme leading to an emphatic conclusion.

Roger Howell 2025

Symphony No. 3 in C Minor Op. 78 Organ

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)

i. Adagio – Allegro moderato – Poco adagio
ii. Allegro moderato – Presto – Maestoso – Allegro

In July 1885, the Royal Philharmonic Society of England decided to commission a new orchestral work from a French composer for their 1886 season with Saint-Saëns (among others) in mind. At the same time, the Society invited the composer to perform Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto. Saint-Saëns agreed to the concerto, but only if he could conduct his A minor second symphony of 1859 at the same concert. The Society’s view was, however, that Saint-Saëns should compose a new orchestral work for them instead. In response to this request, the composer decided to write a new symphony, and this became his Third Symphony in C Minor, Op. 78.

Much of the inspiration for the third symphony came from the music of Franz Liszt. Saint- Saëns had met Liszt in 1852, and the two composers became lifelong friends. Many of Liszt’s symphonic poems, especially Hunnenschlacht (The Battle of the Huns) of 1877, shaped Saint-Saëns’ own writing in the genre. The prominence of organ in that work’s orchestration also influenced the composer’s decision to include it in the third symphony, hence its nickname “Organ”.

The symphony’s unusual structure is another borrowing from Liszt. Many of its themes are cyclic in nature, allowing Saint-Saëns to merge the traditional four movements into two movements comprising four sections without compromising the musical flow. Serving as an introduction to the main Allegro, the first movement opens with a four-note oboe motif set to tonally obscure chords in the upper strings. The Allegro then arrives with a hustling theme of repeated notes in the violins resembling a ghostly occurrence of the Dies irae chant. The religious connotation continues in the movement’s second half (Adagio) with the organ’s first appearance of hushed velvety chords embedded into the gentle violin melody like a solemn prayer.

The second movement serves as the symphony’s scherzo and finale. Another spiky variation of the first movement’s repeated note theme occurs in the strings begins the scherzo before a piano (played at times by two pianists) is introduced into the frivolous trio section. After a hushed period of anticipation in the woodwinds, the organ makes another entrance in full splendour, heralding the final section of the symphony. A joyful hymn then unfolds with the music being both a tribute to Liszt and a liberation of the “symphony” itself as a genre (which, at the time, the composer thought was a dying art in France). Saint-Saëns poured everything he could into this finale, including fugal passages, sudden orchestration contrasts and rhythmic syncopation knowing that he would be making his symphonic farewell. In a sad postscript, Liszt died a few months after the symphony’s premiere, prompting Saint- Saëns to dedicate the work to the composer’s memory upon publication of the score.

The Orchestra

Concertmaster: Susan Pierotti