WASO’s 2025 regional tour to Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre and Mandurah Performing Arts Centre

The West Australian Symphony Orchestra is packing up and preparing for a regional tour, travelling to Bunbury and Mandurah in February to perform The Lark Ascending and Mozart’s Masterpieces.

The concerts will feature WASO concertmaster Laurence Jackson at the helm, performing the dual role of director and violin soloist on Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending.

“I always love the chance to hit the road and drive south with the violin, and as it will be the start of our 2025 season, it will be a chance for us to blow the cobwebs off and gear up for another busy season in two very special places,” Jackson, who plays a violin made by J. B. Vuillaume circa 1850, says.

“It is absolutely vital that we, as the WA State orchestra, bring world-class music-making to regional areas. There is a real demand and thirst for this from our regional audiences, as we have seen over the years, and the warmth and appreciation we have experienced from them has always been fantastic. Long may it continue.”

Jackson, who was appointed WASO’s concertmaster in 2015 after 10 years as concertmaster of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, regards it a real privilege to be given the opportunity to direct his colleagues without a conductor.

“For the orchestra, it stretches us technically and musically, and forces us to think like chamber musicians and listen and respond, as well as just to watch,” he says.

“For me, it’s great to have the overall musical control over the performance and be able to shape it as I like. It’s a lot of responsibility, of course, but also great fun.”

Jackson says he is looking forward to bringing wonderful music to regional audiences in a program of considerable contrasts.

“Two iconic Mozart works frame the concert, his Don Giovanni Overture, which is in part both dramatic and yet lighthearted, and the much-loved Symphony No.40, tragic and turbulent and portraying a deeply troubled genius,” he says.

“Inspired by a poem by George Meredith, Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending will change the mood completely and features the violin soloist as a small songbird as it rises up and up over the rolling English countryside, singing all the way until it’s lost out of sight.

“It’s definitely a highwire act for the violin soloist, and personally one of my favourite solo works, and much-loved amongst audiences too. In complete contrast, we will end the first half with Benjamin Britten’s Simple Symphony, a suite of four quirky and perfectly formed musical vignettes that is anything but simple for us to play.”

WASO Performs The Lark Ascending and Mozart’s Masterpieces is at Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre, February 7 and Mandurah Performing Arts Centre, February 8. Tickets at waso.com.au.