Arcadia Winds

Arcadia Winds are trailblazers for Australian wind music, admired equally for their virtuosity, their charisma and their imagination. Now, fresh from a triumphant regional tour, they invite you to share some morning music with them at The Edge, Fed Square.  

Janáček Mladi (Youth) is a touchstone of the wind quintet repertoire, a fond and colourful picture of the composer’s boyhood. Tzigane is a high-charged, passionate journey through Eastern Europe, written by flautist and composer Valerie Colman. Richard Strauss’s Serenade for Wind, written when he was just 17, is a musical homage to Mozart, Mendelssohn and his beloved father. 

At the centre of this mid-morning concert is a new work, Sam Wu's I See You, which is inspired by and dedicated to the doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers who demonstrated incredible courage and selflessness while saving lives during the 2020-2022 pandemic. This work has been commissioned by Carrillo Gantner AC and Ziyin Gantner. As a natural extension to this commission, there will be a collection at the concert for the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Foundation.  

Sit down, take a deep breath and relax at this, our final Musica Viva Australia at The Edge concert for 2023.  

Event partner: Fed Square

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Sam Wu, composer of I see you, writes: 

I See You is written in honour of the valiant efforts Intensive Care Unit staff undertook to take care of critically ill patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. In preparation for writing this piece, I was fortunate to take a tour of The Alfred’s world-class ICU wing (after pandemic restrictions were relaxed) in Melbourne, and hear from Dr. Dashiell Gantner, as well as some of his colleagues, about their experiences throughout the pandemic.  

The work reflects upon and honours ICU frontline workers by portraying the process of healing from a sickness like Covid-19. At first, the music is fragmentary, with melodies interspersed with quiet, breath-only sounds––suggesting that the mere act of breathing is laborious. Then, the material is put through trials and tribulations, as a battle unfolds both on the microscopic (the immune system) and macroscopic (the heroic ICU staff) levels. At last, we arrive at a lyrical, complete presentation of the initial fragments, both a symbol for the restoration of health, as well as the valiant care-taking of patients by ICU healthcare staff throughout the pandemic. We end on a quiet, hopeful note; a moment of gratitude for all our frontline workers. 

© SAM WU 2023