The title of this Adelaide Symphony Orchestra concert, Serenity, aptly describes the flavour of the opening piece, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending (1914), an enduring audience favourite. The skylark, found in farmland and open country, is known for the song of the male, particularly when hovering high in the air. Vaughan Williams was inspired by George Meredith’s 1881 lyric poem celebrating the skylark as an emblem of pristine nature, and the violinist mimics the bird’s characteristic trilling as it rises into the sky. In a restrained but eloquent performance under conductor Benjamin Northey, violinist Emily Sun exquisitely captured the magic of the lark — it was as if the bird was hovering above the stage, with the orchestra on the ground below representing farmers, fields and villages.

Emily Sun. Photo © Shi-Joong Kim

Thus enchanted with nature, the audience was then introduced to the pre-Cambrian world of Ediacaran life through the world premiere performance of Cathy Milliken’s Earth Plays V: Ediacaran Fields, the fifth element of her orchestral cycle Earth Plays. South Australia’s Flinders Ranges is home to the Ediacara fields at Nilpena Station, a unique site of...