On Thursday September 7 Esther Yoo made her debut with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and conductor Xian Zhang performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor. Esther also performed with the orchestra on September 8. One week later, Yoo made her New Zealand Symphony Orchestra debut with conductor Pablo González, again performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor.

Yoo shared that working on Mendelssohn’s score ahead of the new season evoked strong memories of refreshing her interpretation of Bruch’s Violin Concerto in G minor before recording it for Deutsche Grammophon last year.

On the Concerto, she said, “There’s so much spirit across the three movements, different in each case, with the intense lyricism of the first movement, the serenity of the Andante and the playfulness of the finale. I approach the last movement very differently now from how I did when I was younger and more focused on its technical elements. Now it’s about enjoying the performance and connecting fully with the orchestra, and sharing that with the audience. This is a piece that I love listening to as an audience member as much as I enjoy performing it. It’s very special to be able to create this atmosphere of shared enjoyment, so I look forward to doing just that in Australia and New Zealand.”