IN A city that moves mountains, nothing is impossible.
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Still, Mount Isa exceeded itself last week.
The city did something, Queensland Music Festival’s artistic director James Morrison said, that was rare even in established cities.
It formed its own symphony orchestra.
Musicians, mostly school-aged, were blooded into the world of classical performance.
Morrison described it to the North West Star “as a celebration of what Mount Isa can achieve”.
Mayor Tony McGrady said the whole enterprise “lifted the spirits of the people who live here”.
Under the eyes of puffed-up parents with vid-cams, the green musicians became a legitimate “symphony orchestra” when it played its first major piece.
Not any symphony, the city’s own, Matthew Dewey’s Symphony of the Inland Sea took its public bow along with the players.
The piece began with a fanfare, which was as if the listener was viewing a sunrise from Telstra Hill alongside the piece’s composer.
It captured the majesty of the Outback with the wonder of a ute-bound pup.
The Centre was twice filled on Thursday and Friday. Councillor McGrady said, as a comparison, the ratio of the Isa’s population that attended the concerts was as if Brisbane’s Lang Park turned away thousands from a State of Origin decider.
For the players, it was like attaining their P plates. The concerts made them independent drivers and gave them a freedom.
This did not automatically make them racing car drivers, but it put the goals of Mount Panorama’s Bathurst 1000 or the Melbourne F1 Grand Prix in focus as achievable.