Sunday 19th May 2019 at 2pm

Schonell Theatre, The University of Queensland
Adults $30, Concessions $26, Students $12 and under 5 free
Tickets for Schonell Theatre concerts may be purchased by calling Maree Williamson on (07) 3378 2384.

Ample free parking available next to the Schonell Theatre.  Complimentary programs and post-concert refreshments are also provided!

Sunday 26th May 2019 at 2pm

SunPAC - 470 McCullough Street, Sunnybank 4109
All Tickets:  $35 
For bookings please phone 3323 9650 or book online www.sunpac.net.au

The Brisbane City Pops Orchestra is excited to present Love and Latin as our second concert of 2019. It will be a program full of beautiful music inspired by love, as well as the captivating rhythms of Latin music – a favourite style of this orchestra!

You will swoon to these well-known melodies of love as we perform pieces by Franz Lehar (the king of operetta, including The Merry Widow).  Then you will sway to the rhythms as we play a selection from the Andalucia Suite by the famous Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuana.

Our guest artist for this concert is an amazing young mezzo-soprano Xenia Puskarz Thomas. Xenia has recently completed a Bachelor of Music (Honours) at the Qld Conservatorium of Music. In 2018 she was awarded the Tinkler Encouragement Award at the IFAC Handa Australian Singing Competition and has completed a number of professional engagements. We are delighted to have Xenia sing Schubert’s Ave Maria and The Maids of Cadiz by Delibes, plus more.

The orchestra will also perform some favourite Latin pieces, including Delicado by Azevedo, Estrellita by Ponce, Cumana by Barclay (for piano solo) and Blue Tango by Anderson. We will also pull the strings of your heart with Fly Me to the Moon by Howard, Wine, Women and Song by Strauss and Liebestraum by Liszt.

It will be an amazing afternoon full of the best music of Love and Latin – a concert not to be missed!    

Andrew Robinson (Conductor)

Former resident conductor of the St Lucia Orchestra (now BCPO), Andrew Robinson has conducted many of the leading orchestras in Australia and the US. Winner of the ABC- Westfield Young Conductor of the Year award in 1997, he was Assistant Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra from 1998-2001, performing with the orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. He has also conducted performances at the New York City Ballet and with numerous other American orchestras, as well as working with the Los Angeles Master Chorale. In Australia, he has appeared with the Queensland Symphony, the Tasmanian Symphony, the Melbourne Symphony, the Canberra Symphony, the State Orchestra of Victoria, and the Pacific Chamber Orchestra, among numerous others. From 2007-2012 he led the Queensland Philanthropic Orchestra, a charitable music project that raised nearly $40,000 for Queensland medical research.  

An experienced music educator, Andrew served from 2000-2002 on the conducting faculty at the University of Southern California, one of the premier music schools in the US. He was Music Director of the inaugural Auckland Philharmonia Summer School in 2000, and from 2003-2008 held the same position with the Young Conservatorium Symphony at Griffith University. 

Andrew first studied flute at the Canberra School of Music before turning to conducting. In 1998 he was selected as one of three young conductors from around the world to perform in Carnegie Hall at the inaugural Carnegie Hall Conductor’s Workshop, and subsequently was a Conducting Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts. An accomplished flautist, Andrew won the 7 th Australian Flute Competition in 1995, and continues to perform occasionally around Brisbane. He qualified as an optometrist in 2006 and is now a partner in private practice in Bardon.

Xenia Puskarz Thomas (Soprano)

Mezzo-soprano Xenia Puskarz Thomas will complete her Bachelor of Music (Hons) at the Queensland Conservatorium in 2018.

She was awarded the Tinkler Encouragement Award at the 2018 IFAC Handa Australian Singing Competition. Xenia has performed excerpts from Mozart’s Idomeneo (Idamante) and Massenet's Cendrillon (Le Prince Charmant) and the roles of L’Enfant (Ravel’s L'Enfant et Les Sortilèges) and Gladys Callaway (Dean’s premiere Dry River Run).

Recent professional engagements include performing with Camerata of St John's in the 2017 Tyalgum Music Festival and their Helpmann nominated “Home” concert. In 2017 Xenia represented Australia in the 2017 Australia-Chinese Film Festival in Wuhan, China.