MUSIC lovers are in for a treat on Sunday for a rare regional performance of Mozart’s Requiem.
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The 2.30pm performance at the Orange Regional Conservatorium will officially mark the return of the Orange Symphony Orchestra.
Orchestra manager David Shaw said a regional performance of the 40-minute piece might only occur once every five or 10 years.
“It will be a big spectacle,” he said.
“Mozart died before he finished it and it was thought to be his own requiem.”
Mr Shaw said several composers attempted to finish it, but the most accepted version was by Franz Xaver Süssmayr because he was Mozart’s student.
“He was thought to be closest to him,” he said.
Mr Shaw said many of the orchestra’s members had returned to live in Orange after training elsewhere.
He returned this year after moving away in 2009 to spend time in Canberra and Melbourne.
“Having lived in a big city and started to pursue a career in music, I was looking around for somewhere I could really feel valued,” he said.
“In a big city, there’s a little bit of a feeling that if you don’t do something, someone else will do it for cheaper and you miss out.”
He now teaches in Orange and Bathurst and said even the 40-minute drive to Bathurst was an improvement on the travel required during his years away.
Unfortunately, Mr Shaw will not be playing on Sunday, but he said the organisational side had kept him busy.
“Mozart famously disliked the flute,” he said with a laugh.
Orange Youth Orchestra will also take to the stage to perform Summer from The Four Seasons, Finale from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2 and I Hate Music by Bernstein.
The concert was made possible by a grant from the Orange Regional Arts Foundation.
Very limited tickets are on sale from the conservatorium office.