The Preston Symphony Orchestra invites you to become a subscriber for the 2025 season.
- Save on full ticket prices
- Free admission to any extra performances
For further information, contact:
info@prestonsymphony.org.au
ABN 21 831 635 473
The Program for 2025 – Our 75th Anniversary Year
The Preston Symphony Orchestra celebrates its 75th birthday in 2025 with a program that draws on all-time audience favourites while also reflecting the place of contemporary music and the emergence of women composers in concert planning. PSO’s 2025 season is an imaginative embrace of the excitement of music-making 75 years after the orchestra began in 1950.
Concert 1 Jubilation, Sunday 23 March, 2.30pm
Preston City Hall
Andrew Groch, conductor
Anne Marie Johnson, violin;
Shostakovich: Festive Overture
Bruch: Violin Concerto No.1
Katy Abbott: Hidden Thoughts 3: Stories of Awe
The opening concert of 2025 marks the anniversary with a bang – Shostakovich is frequently requested by the orchestra’s players and his Festive Overture is a celebratory start. A core part of Preston Symphony Orchestra’s identity is the annual Youth Concerto Competition – in March we hear the Bruch Violin concerto No. 1 with soloist Anne-Marie Johnson. Anne-Marie was the winner of the competition in 2008 and is now Acting Associate Concertmaster at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Contemporary Australian music is also an important part of PSO. The concert concludes with Katy Abbott’s 2024 work Hidden Thoughts 3: Stories of Awe in a version specially commissioned for community orchestra.
Concert 2 Resurgence, Sunday 15 June, 2.30pm
Preston City Hall
Leonard Weiss, conductor
Zoe Knighton, cello
Lili Boulanger: D’un matin de printemps
Marie Jaëll: Concerto for Cello
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.4
MSO Assistant Conductor Leonard Weiss conducted the Preston Symphony Orchestra in rehearsal during 2024 and is coming back in 2025 for his first full concert. It opens with a signature work by Lili Boulanger, a crucial figure in the 20th century Parisian music scene. ‘D’un matin de printemps’ (‘Of a spring morning’) is lush and melodious. Her compatriot composer, Marie Jaëll, is receiving renewed attention in recent years – partly for her lyrical Cello Concerto, written in 1882, which is thought to be the first cello concerto composed by a woman. This performance by Melbourne cellist Zoe Knighton will be the Australian premiere. The concert ends in celebration with Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony.
Concert 3 Youth Concerto Competition, Sunday 14 September, 2.30pm
Darebin Arts Centre
Carlos del Cueto, conductor
Finalists and program will be advised in June 2025.
Concert 4 Collisions, Sunday 23 Nov 2.30pm
Preston City Hall
Andrew Groch, conductor
Florence Price: Symphony No.3
Dvořák: Symphony No.9 “From a New World”
Dvořák’s New World Symphony is familiar to many concert goers. Less so is Florence Price’s Third Symphony, which takes the ‘American symphony’ to new heights through its use of African American, modernist, and jazz idioms. This is an exhilarating chance to hear both works in a single concert.