While it’s always difficult to pinpoint a singular highlight in any given year’s artistic calendar – particularly when that year is barely halfway through – I would put forth WASO’s performance with the Russian-born conductor Vasily Petrenko and Australian violin soloist Emily Sun as a serious contender. Petrenko and Sun made a compelling duo as programming draws. Petrenko’s vast international profile boasts prominent roles with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia alongside his 15 year-tenure with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, while Sun’s many international competition prizes and 2018 ABC Young Performer of the Year award mark her as an impressive national draw that has seen her perform with many major Australian and international orchestras.

Vasily Petrenko conducts Shostakovich, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, 2022. Photo © Linda Dunjey

Though the programming for the evening was, at face value, uninspired – three men, all European, all dead – the works themselves cast an impressive ‘light and shade’ effect on the evening, with Carl Nielsen’s bustling Maskarade Overture and Mozart’s buoyant Violin Concerto No 4 in D Major bringing levity and spirit to an evening...