This year is the 50-year anniversary of the establishment of Australia’s formal diplomatic relations with Poland. Last night’s concert was the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s homage to this milestone.

Yeol Eum Son. Photo © Marco Borggreve

The evening opened with Maria Grenfell’s evocative work, Tarraleah. This piece was originally commissioned by the TSO to mark the centenary of Hydro Tasmania. Rather than depicting the workings of the massive infrastructure, the work muses on the experiences of the scores of migrants, many of them Polish, who came to the remote Tasmanian highlands to build this iconic hydro-electric scheme. It incorporates fragments of traditional Polish music and an old Polish hymn, Bogurodzica (The Mother of God). Fancifully, this gave me the feeling of witnessing the wilds of Tasmania with a Polish heart.

Speaking of Tarraleah, Grenfell says, ‘It would have been terribly hard for them to land in a freezing cold place, on the other side of the world from their homes and families after Poland was devastated by the war, wondering how they would rebuild their lives.’ As I listened I heard loneliness, bewilderment, and the timeless sounds of the Tasmanian wilderness. My...