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 New York Times" wrote: "Though Michelle Pfeiffer delivers impressively cold fury as the story's version of Regan (now an embittered breast cancer patient called Rose), and Jessica Lange works hard to breathe life into its Goneril (called Ginny), the film remains stilted and unconvincing... Think obsessive-compulsive Lady Macbeth or Ophelia with an eating disorder, and you have an idea of just how simplistic that seems." Roger Ebert in the "Chicago Sun-Times" wrote: ""A Thousand Acres" is an ungainly, undigested assembly of 'women's issues,' milling about within a half-baked retread of "King Lear." The film is so unfocused that at