ACO and Beethoven 9th

Yet again I have had the pleasure of enjoying the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) and its Director, Conductor and Lead Violin, Richard Tognetti:

 

As an introduction, we got a piece of Brahms (Geistliches Lied, Op.30) and a fantastic sensitive piece of Beethoven (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op.112) with text by none other than Goethe ! 

An amazing and fantastic piece of music mellowed in the hands of Richard Tognetti and his fantastic ACO musicians with the help of the very talented Choir of Clare College from Cambridge.

But this was just an introduction,  never the less worth the whole ticket:

 - but that was before we had heard the performance of the 9th- I have never ever heard anything more beautiful - most of us are very much familiar by the bits and pieces of the 9th that are played over-and-over again - but this entire 65 minutes was the most exquisite pleasure for my ears and mind I have ever experienced - the entire concert hall was filled with the breadth and depth of the music that I have never experienced before - I could actually hear each instrument and almost each person in the big choir - simply beautiful and such a wonderful 65 minutes that I would have been able to turn around and go for another round at any time!!

More on Sydney

Australia and particularly Sydney is fascinating given the diversity of its society. After all, in less than three hundred years ago this 'city' and country was 'invaded' by convicts from the UK.

Since then this society has expanded its amazing infrastructure, culture, democracy, independence and diversity many times over into today's prospering and amazing good living society and city well known for each beaches, Opera and Sydney Harbour bridge:

 Last year Australia conducted its 16th census (which includes both Marianne and my self :-) and there are some very interesting reading:

Only 60% of Sydneysiders are born in Australia (Nationwide it is 70%)
3.5% are born in England
3.4% are born in China - thus the Chinese are the third biggest immigrants to Sydney as opposed to New Zealand if you view it Nation wide.

Only 60% of Sydneysiders speaks English at home (Nationwide it is 77%)
4.1 % speaks Arabic
3% speaks only Mandarin at home (nationwide the third group is Italian)

I have many times over made comments about the low number of churches in Sydney - and here comes the evidences which actually indicates that there are more Christians in Sydney than nationwide in Australia, but still, viewed as a western society, number of Christians are low:

28.3% are Catholics
16.1% are Anglican
17.6% has NO religion, but this is actually lower than nationwide which is 22.3%