Music / Broadway, National Capital Orchestra. At Snow Concert Hall, November 16. Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.

Having just been awarded by the Canberra Critics Circle for its consistent quality of performance in presenting challenging repertoire and playing new Australian compositions, the National Capital Orchestra rounded out a successful year with a dazzling concert.

Although it didn’t include any Australian compositions, Sunday’s concert certainly demonstrated the orchestra’s mastery of challenging repertoire.

Under the enthusiastic baton of its musical director Louis Sharpe, who doubled as a jovial compere, the orchestra of nearly 80 musicians was a spectacular sight as it launched into a lush arrangement by Robert Russell Bennett of the overture from the Jule Styne musical, Funny Girl.

Then followed a feast of music from landmark musicals starting with a rousing rendition by guest artists Joe Dinn and Jared Newall of Agony from the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods and followed with a delightful rendition of Harold Arlen’s Over the Rainbow by Alira Prideaux.

It was interesting to hear songs written for female artists but performed by male singers for this concert when Newall offered, You’ll Never Walk Alone from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel, and Dinn sang Memory from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats.

Compositions by Leonard Bernstein ended the first half of the program in sensational style when Prideaux took the stage in a dazzling, red-sequined gown to perform a virtuosic rendition of Glitter and Be Gay from Candide; following which the National Capital Orchestra thrilled with a stunning performance of selections from Bernstein’s West Side Story arranged by Jack Mason, which left the auditorium abuzz.

How did they top that? Well may you ask.

Selections from Lerner & Loewe’s, My Fair Lady, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s, Phantom of the Opera and Schonberg & Boublil’s, Les Misérables, superbly sung by the three guest artists, is part of the answer.

But Louis Sharpe still had some aces up his sleeve in the form of brilliant orchestral arrangements of music from the Stephen Schwartz musical, Wicked, arranged by Ted Ricketts, and a gorgeous new arrangement by Marcus Martin of the spectacular Waltz from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Carousel, both thrillingly performed by the orchestra.

Apart from the sheer pleasure of hearing the orchestral items so stylishly performed with such precision and attention to detail by an orchestra of this size, there was also pleasure in marvelling at how sensitively the orchestra accompanied the vocal items, and the care taken by Sharpe to ensure the soloists lyrics were not lost in the orchestral sound, particularly evident in Newall’s beautifully nuanced rendition of The Music of the Night, and the lovely duet, All I Ask of You, sung by Prideaux, and both from Phantom of the Opera.

For the penultimate act of the concert Sharpe introduced a final guest artist in the form of 14-year-old Zahra Zulkapli who wowed the audience with her flawless rendition of On My Own from Les Misérables. She then joined the rest of the cast, the orchestra and the audience, in a heartfelt rendition of Do You Hear the People Sing, from the same musical, which brought a memorable concert to its rousing conclusion.