That’s where the orchestra’s artistic team came in, and Andrew says TSO Director Artistic Identity Simon Rogers picked just the right talent for the commission: Australian composer-pianist Joe Chindamo OAM.

“My hope was that Joe could write a work that he was proud of, that showed off Emma’s virtuosity, and that was consistent with Joe’s canon,” Andrew says. And with this team locked in, he had no doubt the result would be “technically significant, exciting, and with sufficient appeal that it could become a cornerstone of the Australian literature”.

But while Andrew was humble enough to let the creative team get stuck into the practical side of the project, he certainly wasn’t passive throughout the process. He observed the concert preparation with Emma and conductor Otto Tausk as they analysed and played through the score, and he listened to the full orchestral rehearsals that he describes as “an absolute highlight”.

“I was made to feel incredibly welcome and part of the process. The sense of involvement was very powerful and exhausting at the same time because everyone gives their all physically and emotionally.”

Emma describes a similar experience: she felt the music was a journey through “the gamut of human emotion”.

“It is engaging throughout and has wonderful architecture,” Emma shares. “It all builds towards the end, which is astonishingly exciting. It’s like watching a movie with a great plot and wonderful actors – you couldn’t wish for anything more.” 

Emma and Joe spent plenty of time planning how the score would turn out, and she told the composer to “go for it and to not hold back”. He had familiarised himself with her unique style of playing through listening to recordings and having heard her in past performances. Emma says she hoped he would write to the strengths of her instrument, and as there were “no egos and there was no tension whatsoever”, they were able to forge a successful collaboration throughout the composition process.

“We have the same goals: to create and recreate beautiful music that makes a difference in today’s world,” Emma recalls.

It wasn’t Joe’s first time working with the TSO, either: the string section has recorded his music for an ABC Classics release, and performed his music in the Obscura series. In 2021, the TSO also premiered their commission of his Concerto for Orchestra. So it’s no surprise that as soon as he had his first meeting with Emma, Joe knew this project “would be special”.

“She is so open-minded and excited by a wide spectrum of music-making,” Joe remarks.

“From the outset, I was made to feel so comfortable about creating a concerto for her that the piece almost wrote itself.”

To inspire “outside-the-square thinking”, he asked Emma if there was a concerto she’d love to play – but hasn’t yet been written. This gave him a feel for the types of music she’d be passionate about, which he combined with his own voice as a composer to ensure the music would sound “authentic, honest, and fresh”.

But when asked to break down the music, Joe is hesitant to describe the building blocks. Instead, he takes pride in the way the smallest musical elements are combined to share a story that in the concert precis he described as both a “nod to the great tradition to its adherence to time-honoured conventions” and a work that “reflects the pulse of our own time – that is alive to and speaks of the spirit of the day”.