Zelman Symphony Orchestra | French Organ

September 13th, 2025, St John’s Anglican Church, Camberwell, VIC

A somewhat misleading title for the evening, “French Organ”, as it suggests we are in for a stolid performance of Messiaen and Bach, (and a host of other bit part composers who had a great deal of expertise writing for the organ). In fact, the lure of the event for myself, was both the French aspect, and the organ aspect separately, and the curiosity lay in discovering how the two would mutually co-exist.

Being a huge fan of French impressionist composers, and lesser so with the organ (normally thought of in terms of reverential hymn material), it’s hats off to the Zelman Symphony Orchestra, for this most ambitious programme. A great deal of complexity was embedded within the lofty ambition of this programme, especially for an amateur orchestra and this was most notable with the last piece of the first half, the Poulenc for strings, organ and timpani.

Credit where credit is due. What a welcome feature of the evening that we were enveloped in warmth. The heating was on, which might sound rather trivial and obvious. However, after my last experience at St Paul’s Cathedral in the CBD, where it was perishing, and after ten minutes, I felt I was a stitched on certainty for hypothermia. That night , l lost my voice by the interval, and my legs went numb!

Given that we already had to contend with church seating, which at best is uncomfortable, it was wonderful to be warm, and therefore we were attentive and receptive to the delights that lay in wait for us.

I can certainly remember as a youngster, attending orchestral concerts, where the demographic make up was a real pot pourri of all ages and backgrounds. The reality of today is that young people are totally engrossed with gaming and online activities, to the point of addiction, and thus, when it comes to classical music attendance, conspicuous by their absence. The general age of the audience tonight was sixty plus.

Rick Prakhoff our esteemed conductor who’s stewardship was displayed with great verve, vim and vigour, explained to us that the ceiling of this church and of Saint Andrews in Brighton were both affected by an arson attack and thus replete with recently fitted tiled ceilings.

I was certainly transported back fifty years to my youth when I used to frequent Camberwell socially, and remember very clearly the Golden Bowl  for tenpin bowls and trampolining and the Tivoli theatre/cinema. The suburb itself has changed immeasurably, expanded and bloomed. The change even more emphasised by my thirty-five year absence, living in London.

One assumes that these Zelman minstrels have a loyal following and subscription base as the general public is not immediately attracted to French organ works, and in fact there’s almost comical dismissal of classical organ works  (apart from Bach’s enduring Toccata and Fugue or of aficionados enjoying Messiaen) as being a fitting soundtrack for Dr Phibes’ horror flicks with Vincent Price perched at the keyboard.

The first half of the concert was somewhat underwhelming as the orchestra, wrestled and struggled with difficult rhythms, and some of the tuning of the strings was dubious at best. The Poulenc was indeed an overly ambitious undertaking, and not something that seems to have captured the imagination of the assembled audience.

However, the true treasures of the evening lay in the second half and it is fair to say  that Camille Saint-Saëns rocked the Casbah. CSS is better known for the Carnival of the Animals, especially The Swan, and his glorious Second Piano Concerto in G minor. But what a magnificent, rollicking, sweeping, often lyrical and monumental work his Organ Symphony proved to be. The strings dealt with a beautiful opening section steeped in glorious lyricism, most delicately and serenely, and as the piece grew and grew, the brass and percussion sections found their mojo.  Our swashbuckling captain for the evening, Mr. Prakhoff, conducted the powerful and glorious themes with great pomp and energy.

Calvin Bowman at the organ, for whom the evening was built around, was certainly featured, and what an experience to hear the organ integrated so decidedly and imperiously, in both a compositional sense and performance execution, into this rambunctious romp of a piece. The Symphony had all the strut and confidence of a raucous ‘Last Night of the Proms’ at the Albert Hall. At the end of tonight’s show, the audience duly  erupted with enthusiastic delight.

As a personal side note, I discovered at the end of the evening that I was sat next to the parents of Mr Bowman, who were both much overjoyed with the way the evening went and they proudly waxed rhapsodic about his love affair with Bach and his time studying the organ at Yale University in the United States. As the arrival of spring in Melbourne appears somewhat delayed, a note to venue owners and proprietors – please ensure the heating is turned on if you want your audience to enjoy the evening!