In 2012, conductor Alex Briger brought together for the first time Australia’s orchestral
diaspora - musicians born, bred or trained in Australia, now largely working overseas –
and the Australian World Orchestra was born. AWO based out of Sydney, is now an
annual event and this recording is the result of the orchestra working under Zubin Mehta
in 2013. These performances take Briger’s original idea to a whole new level, this
musical offering achieving a quality which unites musicial and artistic aspirations.
Under Mehta, the AWO produces a richly coloured reading of The Rite of Spring, heard
here in a revelatory pairing with Mahler’s first symphony in its original five-movement
version. Mahler is a composer synonymous with Mehta. Zubin Mehta has conducted
Mahler in concert extensively for over five decades the world over including orchestras
sharing a direct hertitage with the composer the New York Philharmonic, of which Mehta
has been their longest serving Principal conductor, and Vienna Philharmonic being two
such orchestras. Mahler’s Symphony No.1 is the symphony Mehta chose to program
when celebrating his 50th anniversary debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in 2012.
AWO attracts Australian musicians from far and wide. Notable Australian’s violinist
Natalie Chee, concert-master of the SWR Orchestra in Stuttgart, through to violist Toby
Lea, principal viola in the Vienna Philharmonic are two of over 50 attracted back along
with musical colleagues from the Bavarian Radio, Singapore Symphony, Philadelphia,
Osnabruck Symphony, Comiche Opera, Chicago Symphony, and Gewandhaus
Orchestras.

To the delirious Sydney Opera House audience at the conclusion of the concert and
pointing to the orchestra behind him Mehta said: “Do you realise what you’ve got here?”
After a resounding “Yes” from the audience, the 77-year-old maestro added: “Don’t let go
of them!”

This whole project is put together in 7 days and if nothing else it is clearly evident that
maestro Mehta extracts impressive energy from the assembled forces!

Visceral, exhilarating energy combined with crystal clarity ... Stravinsky’s
masterpiece had never sounded better…
— Limelight magazine, October 2013