Zelman Symphony capacity audiences of Mahler's epic Eighth Symphony - the "Symphony of a Thousand" - at the Melbourne Town Hall. In what was believed to be "a first" for an Australian Community Orchestra, the performances involved over 580 performers including an augmented Zelman Symphony of some 125 players led by Guest Concertmaster, Wilma Smith, Concertmaster of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO), and featuring many guest principal players from the MSO and other top orchestras and music institutions. David Macfarlane played the magnificent organ, a 370 voice choir was formed from nine community choirs, and an 80 voice children's choir involved students
A Thousand Acres (film) the end of its very long 104 minutes, I was unable to say who I was supposed to like and who I was supposed to hate - although I could name several characters for whom I had no feelings at all... The screenplay is based on a novel by Jane Smiley, unread by me, which won the Pulitzer Prize - which means that either the novel or the prize has been done a great injustice." Desson Howe wrote in "The Washington Post": "That Jane Smiley’s "A Thousand Acres" would become a movie was inevitable. Another virtual certainty was its bowdlerization...