WASO announces 2023 Season

WASO’s 2023 season sees the return of a full program of national and international guest conductors and soloists, while continuing to highlight West Australian artists.

Full of vibrancy, the season is set to ‘colour your life with music’ through radiant classical favourites, electric world premieres, vivid side-by-side performances and brilliant artists from near and far.

The season opens in January with Toy Story in Concert. With 2023 celebrating 100 years of Disney, audiences are invited to join Woody, Buzz and the gang on their iconic big screen adventure, while the orchestra perform the Academy Award-nominated score live to film.

WASO at the Movies continues in February with Skyfall in Concert, before the orchestra complete the final chapters in the Harry Potter Series with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Parts 1 & 2 in Concert in April and December.

In his tenth year with WASO as Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor, Asher Fisch conducts some of his favourite symphonies including Bruckner’s Fourth, Mahler’s First and Schumann’s Spring Symphony, alongside the season’s programming highlight, Act I of Wagner’s Die Walküre. One of the world’s foremost Wagnerians, Fisch will lead this unmissable side-by-side collaboration with the Australian National Academy of Music, in a program complemented by operatic moments from Verdi.

Asher Fisch is set to explore the themes and music of Wagner’s opera and Bruckner’s Symphony No.4 with WASO’s new Discover Series. Fisch will be joined on stage by the full orchestra for two one-hour events featuring commentary and performance excerpts in Discover with Asher Fisch, presented the night before the mainstage concerts.

WASO is delighted to announce that 2022 Assistant Conductor, Jen Winley has accepted the invitation to continue in the role through 2023. This two-year tenure places Jen in the company of previous Assistant Conductors Christopher Dragon, Carlo Antonioli and Thaddeus Huang who completed the same tenures before securing national and international engagements.

2023 sees WASO perform more new music with half of the mainstage classical programs featuring at works by living composers.

World-premiere WASO commissions in 2023 include two new works from WASO’s Composer in Residence, Olivia Davies; Andrew Schultz’s Bassoon Concerto, written especially for WASO Principal Bassoon Jane Kircher-Lindner; and Lachlan Skipworth’s The Tides of Longing, the story of a young refugee’s voyage and memories of home. Winner of WASO’s 2022 Composition Project, Victor Arul, will also compose a new work for WASO’s family concert, Nature’s Symphony.

Nature’s Symphony is one half of WASO’s new family concert series, Classic Adventures. Complemented by Outer Space, families with young children are invited to explore the orchestra through concerts of popular classical music excerpts centered on a fun-filled theme, conducted by Jen Winley with presenters Thea Rossen and Adam Mitchell.

WASO is thrilled to welcome composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist William Barton to perform Apii Thatini Mu Murtu (To sing and carry a coolamon on country together) as part of our MACA Classics series. Recognised as one of Australia’s leading didgeridoo players and composers, William will feature as soloist in his own work as part of Magic Spirit in October.

Other Australian guests joining the orchestra include conductor Benjamin Northey, violinist Grace Clifford and previous WASO Assistant Conductor Elena Schwarz, whilst international guests include American violinist Benjamin Beilman, Czech pianist Lukáš Vondráček, Peruvian conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya and more.

Last Night of the Proms returns with its cavalcade of classical hits, whilst WASO’s Easter concert tradition, with Joseph Nolan and St Georges Cathedral Consort, presents Mozart’s Great Mass and Haydn’s Nelson Mass. WASO Chorus Sings also returns with a program of soaring choral works in the sonorous acoustic of St Mary’s Cathedral.

WASO’s award-winning Community Engagement & Education programs continue in 2023 with Crescendo set to deliver 1,700 music lessons across the year, and ATAR Unlocked supporting students on their ATAR Music journey, amongst other artist development, touring and community programs that will be announced in October.

WASO has provided the soundtrack to life in WA since 1928.

From concert halls to classrooms, hospitals to aged care, we bring joy, inspire learning, and nurture participation in our community, because everybody deserves the opportunity to experience live music.

We celebrate our rich classical music heritage with great musicians from all over the world and commission new repertoire to renew and expand it. The Orchestra collaborates widely with local arts companies and artists, performing opera to ballet, movies to musicals, and jazz to rock for all West Australians to enjoy.

Click HERE to download the 2023 Season Brochure.

WASO 2023 Subscription Tickets

Season packages on sale now.
For bookings phone WASO on 9326 0000 or book here.

WASO 2023 Single Tickets

Tickets on sale from 9am, Wednesday 19 October 2022