Happy Birthday, Robert Schumann! Celebrating the 200th anniversary of Schumann's birth, our concert begins with a musical portrait of this great Romantic genius drawn by means of songs and solos for piano and wind instruments composed in the various periods - early and late, happy and sad - of his tragically short life. The program also includes one of the greatest works in the Southern Cross Soloists' repertoire, Beethoven's brilliant early masterpiece, the Quintet Op.16 and one of Schumann's most profound yet rarely-heard creations, Scenes from Goethe's Faust. Schumann laboured at this opera-oratorio for the last eleven years of his life.  It contains some of his finest music and is regarded by many as the greatest musical retelling of the legend of the man who sold his soul to the devil. This performance features two of our most popular guest artists, Gregory Massingham and Jason Barry Smith.

Gregory Massingham - tenor
Jason Barry Smith - baritone

Brahms (arr Dean)     Variations on a theme of Schumann, Op.23
Beethoven               Quintet, Op 16
Schumann (arr Dean)    Scenes from Goethe's Faust