Skip to main content

Event overview

This event has ended

Thursday 25 June 2026

7:30pm at Hamer Hall

Friday 26 June 2026

7:30pm at Costa Hall, Geelong

Saturday 27 June 2026

2:00pm at Hamer Hall

About this performance

Program

R. Strauss Rosenkavalier Suite
Mozart Oboe Concerto
Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

About this performance

Did you know Strauss admired Mozart? We admire them both – and we’re a fan of Bartók, too. Enjoy the music of these three composers whose careers spanned different countries and eras, but who remain united in their abilities to bring out the brightest colours of the orchestra.

You will often see Strauss and Mozart on the same concert program, partly because their music sounds so compatible when it’s played side by side. Mozart’s Oboe Concerto – here performed by our skilful Principal Oboe Johannes Grosso – is filled with a sunny energy to offset the beginning of your winter. Strauss’ waltzing Rosenkavalier Suite sounds just as warm and inspiring, and it stems from the love-fuelled comic opera he wrote in the early 1900s. Its story is set in Mozart’s own time and place, 18th Century Vienna. 

The Rosenkavalier Suite in its orchestral form premiered in New York, 1944. It was there, just one year earlier, that Bartók started writing his Concerto for Orchestra. While the Mozart concerto places one solo instrument in the spotlight, Bartók takes a more democratic approach and gives each section of the orchestra the chance to shine. It’s solos for all!

Featuring

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Anja Bihlmaier conductor
Johannes Grosso oboe

2026 meet the music spotlight thumbnail

Learn more about the music on this program with MSO's Cybec Assistant Conductor Daniel Corvaia.

Supporters

MSO's Geelong performance is supported by AWM Electrical, Freemasons Foundation Victoria, the Estate of the Late Blanch Brooke Hutchings, and Perpetual Foundation – Alan (AGL) Shaw Endowment.

  • AWM Electrical AWM Electrical logo
  • Freemasons Victoria Freemasons Victoria logo

Stay tuned.
Sign up.