Program

Rick Prakhoff

Artistic Director and Principal Conductor

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.

Elyane Laussade

Piano

A graduate of the Juilliard school in New York City, pianist Elyane Laussade has delighted audiences on five continents with her imaginative and strongly individual playing. The New York Times has said she is "a pianist with a powerful, polished technique and many an original interpretive notion ... with an impeccable sense of style and dazzling power."

Originally from the USA, she has now established herself as one of Australia's finest performers. She has performed on numerous occasions with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and has been featured by ABC Classic FM and 3MBS in studio recordings and live broadcasts.

As a soloist, Elyane has performed in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, China, Japan, South Africa, the USA, Taiwan and Europe.

As a recording artist, Elyane has recorded: Just for You, a solo CD; These Little Things, with Sydney-based violinist Jemima Littlemore; and Humanation with Melbourne cellist Luke Severn.

Elyane's most recent endeavour is the Mozart Project which will see her perform all 27 Mozart piano concertos with orchestras around Australia. She enjoys a rich chamber music involvement along with her solo career.

Her love for the musical experience as a close encounter has inspired her to run a special series of intimate recitals at the Laussade Studio in Melbourne. Elyane enjoys performing in her studio as a soloist and in collaboration with Australian and international musicians.

Jessica Zuk

Assistant Conductor

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

Overture in C H265

Fanny Hensel (1805-1847)

Fanny Meldelssohn-Hensel was born in 1805. As a child, she showed an interest in music and was taught the piano in the ‘Berliner-Bach’ tradition by her mother. At the age of thirteen, she could play the first twenty-four preludes from J.S. Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier from memory. Her famous younger brother, Felix, proclaimed that Fanny was a better pianist than he was. Despite not being recognised as a composer in her own right, Fanny wrote many solo piano pieces, a piano trio, oratorios, and a concert aria. She died of a stroke in 1847 at the age of 42.

Hensel’s Overture in C is the only work she composed for orchestra alone. Intended solely as art music, the overture was written sometime between 1830 and 1832 and premiered at a private concert at the Mendelssohn family home. The work displays a mastery of form and orchestration. From the outset of the slow introduction, gentle horns in octaves summon a tender, sighing motif in the strings answered by flutes and clarinets which builds into a theme. A sudden kettledrum stroke breaks the malaise and sends the violins hurtling towards the main Allegro section in sonata form. The Allegro’s first subject is of a joyful character in dotted rhythm that contrasts with a more lyrical second subject from the violins and woodwinds. A coda of dance-like character brings the overture to an exuberant close.

Roger Howell 2025

Piano Concerto no. 5 in E♭ Op. 73 Emperor

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

In 1809, Ludwig van Beethoven composed his fifth and final Piano Concerto. Much of it was written under emotional duress as the composer sought refuge from the attacks on Vienna by Napoleon’s armies. Despite the warlike hammering between soloist and orchestra in parts of the first movement, Beethoven played down the concerto’s military connotations and did not condone English publisher, Johann Baptist Cramer’s decision to title the work “Emperor”.

The first movement opens unusually with an extended cadenza before the orchestra states the exposition’s two subjects: a march-like theme passed around the strings and winds, and then a theme built from chords in the horns. When the soloist enters, both subjects are presented in a more subdued and lyrical manner before the earlier horn passage is transformed into a series of loud orchestral chords. A stirring development section featuring powerful exchanges between soloist and orchestra follows before the soloist’s opening cadenza returns heralding the recapitulation. Surprisingly, Beethoven omits the soloist’s traditionally improvised cadenza in favour of a bridge passage featuring previously heard material. A coda then brings the movement to an emphatic conclusion.

The second movement is a lyrical Adagio in ternary (ABA) form. Of this movement, the composer and pianist, Carl Czerny, believed that the Adagio was a representation of the ‘religious songs of devout pilgrims’. The soloist enters with a dreamy, floating melody in a descending scale pattern following on from the strings’ hymn-like introduction. To conclude the movement, the soloist tentatively anticipates the Rondo finale before suddenly launching into it.

The Rondo is a lively dance-like movement in triple metre. The main theme soon merges into a second theme featuring quieter running passages from the soloist. When the main theme returns, the soloist guides it through several harmonic modulations for the remainder of the movement. Just when the music appears to be running out of steam towards the end, the soloist launches into a final flourish before the orchestra ushers in a joyous conclusion.

Roger Howell 2025

Symphony no. 41 in C K. 551 Jupiter

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

In 1788, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed three symphonies in quick succession with the intention of having them performed together. That intention was never realised, and it remains unclear as to which of the three were played during the composer’s final years. The third in the group, Symphony No. 41 in C, was Mozart’s last and had such an impact on all who heard it after his death in 1791 that the impresario Johann Peter Salomon named the work “Jupiter” after the Roman sky god.

Mozart completed the Jupiter symphony on 10th August under the backdrop of the 1788 Austro-Ottoman War. Because Emperor Joseph II (Mozart’s employer at the time) was funding the war effort so heavily, there was little money left to fund the arts. This financial circumstance affected the composer so significantly that he had to borrow money from his friends just to keep a roof over his head.

In composing the Jupiter symphony, Mozart may have had a military theme on his mind. The first movement opens with an arresting statement of contrasting loud and soft figures from the strings and winds which builds into a martial theme for full orchestra to form the first subject. The idea of contrast continues in the second subject when a sudden outburst from the trumpets and drums interrupts the lyrical flow of the music. The final part of the second subject leading into the movement’s development is a quotation from the comic arietta, Un bacio di mano, which Mozart had recently added to Anfossi’s opera Le geloise fortunate.

The second movement Andante is in the style of a Sarabande. The violins are muted throughout and provide a delicate ornamentation to the cellos when they have the melody.

The uneasiness of the syncopated passage leading into the second subject perhaps recalls a troubled time a few months earlier when Mozart’s baby daughter died.

The third movement is a Minuet and Trio in a style like the Austrian Landler dance form. A variety of orchestral textures is heard in the Minuet including woodwind passages in close imitation and a martial idea in the second section. In the Trio, the violins have a passage that anticipates the main theme the Finale is built upon.

Mozart saves his best orchestral writing for the final movement. He skilfully combines the sonata and fugal forms into a neat package. The five themes scattered throughout are derived from the chant-like four-note motif initiated by the first violins. In an exultant coda, all five themes are combined into a fugato with the result being one of Mozart’s most powerful symphonic conclusions.

Roger Howell 2025

The Orchestra

Concertmaster: Susan Pierotti

* Principal Player
** Guest Principal Player