2012 NATIONAL CONCERT SEASON BEETHOVEN 9
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Handcrafted in 1759. Rockin’ out in 2012. The rare and beautiful Guadagnini violin has been on tour with the ACO since 1996. It’s on loan from our art collection so that thousands can enjoy its remarkable sound. FIND OUT MORE: VISIT
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As the Founding Partner of the Australian Chamber Orchestra for over three decades we have learnt much from our partnership. Beyond investing in one of Australia’s most powerful forces of creativity, our partnership works because it is based on a mutual desire for innovation and progress. The ACO pushes the boundaries of musical excellence — looking for new ways to connect with audiences. It is these characteristics that IBM finds inspiring and valuable to our own work. The ACO reminds us that at the heart of innovation and excellence is creativity, dynamic people and fresh thinking — and the result is extraordinary.
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ANDREW STEVENS MANAGING DIRECTOR, IBM AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 1
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TOUR FIVE BEETHOVEN 9 SPEED READ Heir to the classical tradition of his great predecessors Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven raised instrumental music to a pinnacle of expressivity hitherto unimagined. Admirers of his symphonic, piano and chamber compositions heard in the music almost as eloquent as speech, music that posed the ultimate question: can instruments sing? In his titanic Choral Symphony, Beethoven answers unexpectedly in the negative. In 1824, for the first time in its history, a concert symphony bursts through its instrumental frontiers to find expression through the human voice. Beethoven conceived his disarmingly simple tune for Friedrich Schiller’s ode To Joy as a song of the people, and since 1972 it has been the anthem of the European Union. The newly porous borders Beethoven opened between Music and the Word, Simplicity and Sophistication, subtly transformed art music. Balancing the Ninth’s sheer mass in the second half of the program, the Choir of Clare College joins the ACO in the first half to explore the borderlands in which instrumentality and song continue to come together. Messiaen’s celestial Prayer of Christ ascending towards his Father presents an apocalyptic instrumental vision of the final ecstatic union of flesh and spirit. In his Spiritual Song, Brahms finds consolation for bereavement and loss not in showy sentimentality but in placid understatement. In Beethoven’s lovely choral setting of Goethe’s poems Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, we return for a moment to the composer’s middle-period and the natural world of the Pastoral Symphony. Because they believe it matters, Richard Tognetti and the ACO go the extra yard, performing on instruments as close as practical to those performed during Beethoven and Brahms’s lifetime. Beethoven usually has to make do with modern instrumental technology, and Messiaen will have to submit for once to a reimagining in the opposite direction. © Graeme Skinner
RICHARD TOGNETTI Conductor and Lead Violin LUCY CROWE Soprano FIONA CAMPBELL Mezzo Soprano ALLAN CLAYTON Tenor MATTHEW BROOK Bass CHOIR OF CLARE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE (Graham Ross Director)
MESSIAEN Prayer of Christ ascending towards his Father, from L’Ascension
BRAHMS (arr. Gardiner) Geistliches Lied, Op.30
BEETHOVEN Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op.112 I N T E R VA L
BEETHOVEN Symphony No.9 in D minor “Choral”, Op.125 Approximate durations (minutes): 10 – 5 – 7 – INTERVAL – 65 The concert will last approximately two hours including a 20-minute interval. ADELAIDE
PERTH
Town Hall Tue 14 Aug, 8pm
Concert Hall Wed 15 Aug, 7.30pm
BRISBANE
SYDNEY
QPAC Mon 6 Aug, 8pm
Opera House Sun 5 Aug, 2pm Thu 9 Aug, 8pm
CANBERRA Llewellyn Hall Sat 4 Aug, 8pm
MELBOURNE
City Recital Hall Angel Place Tue 7 Aug, 8pm Wed 8 Aug, 7pm Sat 11 Aug, 7pm
Arts Centre Melbourne Sun 12 Aug, 2.30pm Mon 13 Aug, 8pm The Australian Chamber Orchestra reserves the right to alter scheduled artists or programs as necessary. Cover photo: Maxime Bibeau © Jon Frank
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 3
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ACO ON THE RADIO ABC CLASSIC FM 8 August, 7pm Direct to air: Beethoven 9 concert
NEXT TOUR Mozart, Handel & Vivaldi Concertos 6 — 18 October
In 1981, when IBM first came on board as the major supporter of the ACO, a national tour of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony would have been unthinkable. Back then, the ACO was a part-time, Sydney-based ensemble with a short subscription season in Sydney, some regional touring and an occasional international tour. Thirty-one years later, the ACO is the country’s only truly national performing arts company, with concerts this year in all States and Territories, subscription series in eight cities, extensive reach into regional Australia, a flourishing education program and two international tours each year. This kind of growth would have been impossible without the long-standing support of our Founding Partner IBM and this huge tour of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is the ideal opportunity to celebrate this wonderful partnership. We are thrilled to present the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge on this national tour. The Choir enjoys a distinguished reputation in the UK and when it tours internationally, and we are very grateful to long-time ACO supporter Daryl Dixon, himself an alumnus of Clare College, for generously underwriting the Choir’s travel costs. At the end of August, the ACO heads to Europe for a tour which includes a performance at the Edinburgh Festival, a concert in London with Dawn Upshaw and a ten-day, action packed residency in the 2012 European Cultural Capital, Maribor in Slovenia. Just before boarding the plane to Edinburgh, we will be announcing our 2013 season. We have all been very excited as the 2013 programs have evolved over the last eighteen months and we hope that you will be inspired to join us on many occasions during that season.
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TIMOTHY CALNIN GENERAL MANAGER AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
PRE-CONCERT TALKS Free talks about the concert take place 45 minutes before the start of every concert at the venue. 4 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Gut strings At his general store at Maitland, NSW, in 1850, William Liscombe advertised “English and Roman violin strings…strong enough to tether a donkey”! Like those the ACO’s string players have fitted to their instruments for this concert, they would have been made of twined gut; though not, despite the common belief, feline. Possibly, the word “catgut” derived from “kit-gut”, “kit” being a word for the fiddle. The sound of catgut is audibly different — less constant, suggestible, occasionally even threatening to be unreliable — from the, quite literally, steelier modern synthetic wired strings. Yet it was gut that produced the sounds that poor deaf Beethoven imagined, and arguably too the sort of sounds that the solo baritone is protesting against (“No, not those sounds!”) at the outset of the Ninth’s choral finale! Gut was one casualty of the so-called progress of musical technology toward that blended massed orchestral sound we know so well from late-20thcentury recordings. So too the quirkier, uneven, harderto-handle winds and brass. “German” flutes were made of wood not silver, “clarionets” had fewer keys, and “hautboys” (oboes) produced a sound that, according to one eighteenth-century dictionary, was “Majestical and Stately…not much Inferior to the Trumpet.” Meanwhile, the trumpets and horns that Beethoven scored for had yet to acquire sophisticated modern valve systems; to produce a scale required careful lipping, and to play in more than one key demanded changes of “crooks” (added sections of tubing, of various lengths, that altered the instrument’s fundamental pitch).
WHY PERFORM ON PERIOD WINDS? GEORGES BARTHEL Flute Combined with a musical education dedicated to historical performance practice, the particular acoustic aspects of performing on a period instrument lead the player to a totally new approach towards music-making. This is of course true for Renaissance or Baroque repertoire, where using authentic instruments has now become a necessity. However, this change is no less fundamental when playing Romantic symphonies. Since the bigger size of the orchestra – especially the wind section – allows for endless combinations of sound colours, the difference in sonorities to be heard between early 19th-century instruments and modern ones is simply stunning. In the case of Beethoven’s compositions, using 19th-century instruments also helps us to understand how demanding the composer was with the performers of his time, and how aware he was of the latest improvements in instrument making. His Ninth Symphony pushes the flute (and the flautist!) to its very limits, asking for extreme dynamics and exceptional virtuosity.
MARK BAIGENT Oboe Although we now come to playing period instruments from a modern perspective in sound, intonation and style, the qualities of these older instruments still ring through. They enable the player to approach music in a fresh way and give a sense of excitement and struggle that modern players don’t have, in producing what was cutting-edge music for the time.
NIGEL CROCKER Trombone In the 1960s, Decca changed the way orchestras were recorded, including putting a microphone on every instrument. This high fidelity audio revolution continued, following technological advances through the ’70s into the digital world of the ’80s. We suddenly could hear orchestras from the inside out, which was thrilling and electrifying but very difficult to reproduce on the concert hall stage without completely dominating the orchestra. Along with Hollywood film scores, where they now sometimes have as many as fourteen trombones playing in surround sound on the big budget blockbusters, I believe these developments have heavily influenced the way modern orchestral brass sections interpret the repertoire. Since plunging into period performance, I have had that sound world turned on its head. The narrow bore and small bell AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 5
of the sackbut and classical trombone create a completely natural blend with voices, strings and winds. Here we become an organic extension of the orchestral palette, rather than a big, bold, bright colour leaping out of the ‘painting’ – jumping up and down shouting “Look at me!” This has influenced my approach even when playing this repertoire on modern trombone.
ANNEKE SCOTT Horn For this tour, our section will be playing on four “natural”, or “hand”, horns. From a distance they look closer to hunting horns, their forefathers, than modern horns. They are called “natural horns” because they have no valves and so we use a mixture of our lips, which buzz faster or slower to pick out the notes of the harmonic series, and our left hands (hence “hand horn”) which we manipulate in the bell of the instrument in such a way that we bend the harmonic series to create more notes. This is a wonderful technique but in some ways we’re restricted by the length of the instrument which dictates the key and therefore selection of notes at our disposal. To get around this we can change the length of the instruments by adding “crooks”: coils of tubing which you’ll be able to see hanging off our music stands. Each crook has a subtly different sound which composers, such as Beethoven, knew how to exploit. In many ways this combination of different crooks and the use of hand technique creates a wider range of colours and textures than the modern instrument.
About the instruments on stage Flute: Made by Rudolf Tutz, Innsbruck, Austria (2007). Copy of a flute from the first quarter of the 19th century by maker Wilhelm Heinrich Grenser of Dresden, Germany.
Oboe: Made by Dick Earle, Lewes, UK (2005). Copy of a 9-keyed Floth oboe of 1807. Clarinets: All three are modern copies of instruments by Heinrich Grenser, Dresden, Germany (1810). Clarinet in B flat by Peter van der Poel (2006), Bunnik, The Netherlands. Clarinet in A by Joel Robinson (1998), New York, USA. Clarinet in C also by Joel Robinson (1995). Bassoon: Original 7-keyed bassoon by Bühner and Keller, Strasbourg (c. 1809). Horns: Three made by Andreas Jungwirth, Austria; copies of an original instrument by Josef Wenzel Lausmann, Linz, Austria (late 18th century). One made by Englebert Schmid, Germany; copy of an instrument by Ignaz Lorenz, Linz, Austria (c. 1830). Trumpets: Made by Mathew Parker. London (1992), based on an instrument by J.L.Ehe II of Nürnberg (c. 1700).
Trombones: Copies of classical trombones, made by Ewald Meinl, Germany (2010). Timpani: A belt-driven copy of German Baroque styled copper timpani with calf heads, made by Lefima, Germany, in 1998. 6 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
MESSIAEN Prayer of Christ ascending towards his Father from L’Ascension (Composed 1932) “Debussy’s music is like water…still, unmoving; but as soon as you throw a pebble in it, there is a shock wave where the stone hits, and the water is set in motion. Debussy’s music is just like that…there are stops, and then suddenly it moves. It was those stops that seized my imagination.” – Olivier Messiaen
Olivier MESSIAEN (b. Avignon, France 1908 — d. Paris, France 1992)
His mother was symbolist poet Cécile Sauvage, his father Pierre would later translate the complete plays of Shakespeare into French. Himself a preciously gifted pianist, at 11 Messiaen enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire, where he later became a professor. In 1931, at the almost unprecedentedly young age of 23, he was appointed titular organist of one of Paris’s great basilicas, La Trinité. His apocalyptic Quartet for the End of Time was composed while he was a prisoner-of-war in Nazi Stalag VIII-A. A deeply personal mystical Catholicism coloured all his creative work, extending to his celebration of the divine gift of human sexuality in his 1949 orchestral masterpiece Turangalîla Symphony. From such diverse sources as birdsong, ancient Greek and Hindu music, and Balinese gamelan, he developed his own systems for the complex organisation of melodies, harmonies, timbres, and rhythms. He is widely considered the most influential 20th-century French composer after Debussy and Ravel.
No other musical work exercised the young Messiaen’s imagination so much as Debussy’s opera Pelléas et Mélisande. He was 10 years old when his teacher placed, as he later recalled, this “bomb in the hands of a mere child”. The evanescent, dream-like world of Debussy’s opera (whose entire score he learned to play at the piano from memory) – and of piano pieces like the same composer’s The Sunken Cathedral – guided Messiaen’s search for his own musical language. By the time he completed his decade of formal studies at the Paris Conservatoire in 1930 – during which his composition lessons with Paul Dukas (composer of the famous The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) were another key influence – he was ready, aged 22, to put his singular aesthetic sense to the test in a series of orchestral works. From the concert premiere of the first of these, Les offrandes oubliées “The forgotten offering”, in Paris in February 1931, it was obvious that French music had acquired a remarkable new voice, as Messiaen himself described it, “half gothic, half ultra-modern”. As Messiaen also later explained: “A number of my works are dedicated to shedding light on the theological truths of the Catholic faith. That is the most important aspect of my music.” This is certainly important in understanding the largest of his early orchestral works, L’Ascension, a fourmovement “symphonic meditation”. In it he presents the traditional Christian doctrine concerning the moment when Christ physically ascended into heaven to be reunited with his Father. But he does so through a filter of occult-sounding movement titles and apocalyptic biblical quotations – conjuring up endless heavenly vistas, angels, and alleluias; and (in the case of the extract performed here) in music that weds a radically pared-back texture with a harmonic palette of almost Technicolor-like vibrancy. It is strange yet typical that Messiaen chose to close L’Ascension, a work whose previous movements are scored for a full modern symphony orchestra, with this final Prière du Christ montant vers son Père “Prayer of Christ ascending AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 7
Ascension Not just in his organ music for church performance, but also in his concert music, Messiaen dedicated himself to “shedding light on the theological truths” that he believed. The Christian doctrine of Ascension is based on gospel accounts of the risen Christ’s final earthly meeting with his disciples, forty days after his Resurrection. After he had spoken with them, according to Mark’s gospel, Jesus rose — body and soul — up to heaven. As an epigraph for his evocation of the moment at which Christ returns to God his Father, Messiaen quotes from John’s gospel Jesus’s earlier prayer for this final transformation.
towards his Father” with just a single instrumental colour. By classical standards, this strange finale makes for an even stranger listening experience, one that recalls Messiaen’s description of Debussy’s music as being like water, that stops, and occasionally moves, but mostly tends toward a state of shimmering stillness. Specifically avoiding major contrasts of instrumental colour on offer from winds, brass or percussion, Messiaen scores it for the homogenised, monochromatic sound of a large body of well-blended strings, playing almost unnaturally slowly (even the shortest notes are prolonged for considerably more than a second), and further directed to play evenly sostenu (sustained) throughout. A singularity of texture is no less obsessively observed. For the nearly ten minutes it takes to perform the five sparsely-filled pages of score, all the strings move together as one in perfectly smoothed-out, impact-less steps, proceeding from one almost too-luxuriant chord to the next, swelling to fortissimo and fading back to piano, in complete homophony, without the merest hint of contrapuntal division. This music, for Messiaen, is a perfect representation of the last stage of Christ’s ascension into the heavens, when not merely his spiritual essence but also his physical, carnal, body breaks free of the earth and is merged – supernaturally – back into the godhead. Though he is rightly recognised as one of the great musical mystics of the last century, Messiaen was never drawn to a life of priestly denial or asceticism. In early summer 1932, he married fellow musician Claire Delbos, and it was while on holiday at her family’s chateau in the Auvergne in the south of France that he composed much of L’Ascension. Their happy marriage inspired his 1936 song-cycle Poèmes pour Mi (Mi was Messiaen’s pet-name for Claire), and the birth of their son Pascal, in 1937, was inspiration for a further song-cycle, Chants de terre et de ciel “Songs of earth and of heaven”. But his family happiness was tragically shortlived. After a botched operation, Claire suffered dementia and was confined to institutions until her death in 1959. In 1961, Messiaen married a former student, pianist Yvonne Loriod, who was by then the greatest living interpreter of his music. Among the many enduring legacies of their partnership, their joint recording of his apocalyptic two-piano work, Visions of the Amen, remains one of the greatest musical memorials of a marriage ever.
Prière du Christ montant vers son Père Père…j’ai manifesté ton nom aux homes… Violà que je ne suis dans le monde; mais eux sont dans le monde, et moi je vais à toi.
Prayer of Christ ascending towards his Father Father…I have revealed your name to mankind …And now I remain no longer in the world; but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you.
Prière sacerdotal du Christ, évangile selon Saint Jean
Priestly prayer of Christ, gospel according to St. John (17: 6, 11)
8 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
BRAHMS Geistliches Lied (Spiritual Song), Op.30 (Composed 1856)
Composed by:
Johannes BRAHMS (b. Hamburg, Germany, 1833 — d. Vienna, Austria, 1897) Brahms was just 20 years old when, in 1853, he met the composer Robert Schumann. Six months later, Schumann attempted to drown himself in the Rhine, and Brahms returned to Düsseldorf to help out in the older composer’s traumatised household. Brahms and Clara Schumann — in her own right one of the greatest concert pianists of the day — came to depend closely on each other through the crisis of her husband’s madness and death. Clara’s musical and personal support was to remain one of the constants in Brahms’s life until, in May 1896, she predeceased him by a little less than a year.
Though it is eighty years since the 23-year-old Messiaen composed L’Ascension, the music and sentiment behind it remain strange enough for most of us to feel, even now, an inkling of how confronting it must have seemed at the time. Going back almost eighty years further still, we meet another 23-year-old, and another religiously themed composition, that by contrast appears comfortingly familiar. Faced with such an unassumingly conventional piece as Brahms’s little Spiritual Song, we might well assume that understanding the motivations and intentions that gave rise to it is a comparatively straightforward task. At 23, Messiaen was newly, and happily, married. Brahms, turning 23 in May 1856, found himself embroiled in the terminal tragedy of someone else’s marriage. While waiting for his beloved mentor Robert Schumann, to die demented, he was drawn into a closer intimacy and dependency – both personal and musical – with Schumann’s wife, Clara. Schumann finally died on 29 July and, as a necessary recovery for those most closely concerned, Clara invited Brahms and his sister to join her for a month’s holiday in the Rhine Valley and Switzerland from mid-August to mid-September. At the end of the trip (on Clara’s birthday on 13 September), Brahms presented her with a folio of his recent compositions, including this newly-composed Spiritual Song. But Clara’s birthday also marked the end of the most intimate stage of their personal relationship. There is little doubt that Brahms adored Clara (he drew beautiful musical portraits of her in several works round this time), nor that Clara adored the attention. However, according to her astutely observant daughter Eugenie, it was Brahms’s resistance to being mothered by Clara that caused him, late in 1856, to opt for independence and leave the Schumann household for good. Clara would remain one of the most influential people in his life, but from now on at a mutually safe distance. The birthday gift of compositions was, thus, both his commitment to their ongoing friendship and a parting gesture. Clara was touched by what she called the “magnificent surprise”. Though, curiously, she admitted that this particular piece – straightforward and unassuming as it might seem – filled her “more with amazement than comfort”. The lyrics Brahms chose for the Geistliche Lied had been set to music, twenty-five years earlier, by both Felix Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny, under the title Pilgerspruch “Pilgrim’s saying”. The author, if not a pilgrim as such, was at least a noted traveller. Paul Flemming had been a student at St Thomas’s School in Leipzig in the mid-1620s, and was forced into AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 9
exile to find refuge from the troubles of the Thirty Years’ War. In 1633 he joined a mission to the court of the Czar in Russia, and in late 1635 a second expedition to Persia, with the dual hopes of promoting trade and Christianity in Asia. Believed to have been written during this mission into what is now Iran, Flemming’s poem is typical of the very personal, sentimental north German Protestant spirituality of the time. Typically, the words are not a conventional prayer addressed to God, but rather a bereaved believer’s exhortation to his own “poor heart” to put away “useless sorrow” and surrender itself joyfully to whatever God has willed.
Words by:
Paul FLEMMING (b. Hartenstein, Saxony, 1609 — d. Hamburg, 1640) Flemming was a student at St Thomas’s School in Leipzig in the mid-1620s, 100 years before Bach’s tenure as St Thomas’s music director. Flemming was forced into exile during the Thirty Years’ War. In 1633, he joined a mission to the court of the Czar in Russia, and again in late-1635 on a second expedition to the Shah of Persia, with the dual hopes of promoting trade and Christianity in Asia. Believed to have been written en route to Persia (now Iran), the lyrics of Flemming’s Song is typical of the very personal, sentimental north German Protestant spirituality of the time.
“Geistliche” – spiritual – might just as accurately be translated as “ghostly”. And coming so close after Schumann’s death, Brahms’s setting of the Song might well be interpreted as a necessary attempt at “laying a ghost”. But young Brahms is surprisingly reticent about wearing his heart on his sleeve. The piece’s gently contrapuntal melodies and expressive harmonies might appear to flow naturally in an effortless, warm procession, but in fact they are the inevitable outcome of careful planning: whereby for the entire length of the piece the tenors follow the sopranos, and the basses follow the altos strictly in canon, note for note, but a bar later and nine notes lower. Separated out, no component voice parts are especially melodious or memorable. Rather, only through their disciplined relationship does beauty arise. It is as if, as his lyricist tells, Brahms demonstrates musically that obedience and restraint, rather than wilful displays of passion, offer better consolation. Geistliches Lied
Spiritual Song
Laß dich nur nichts nicht Dauern Mit Trauern, Sei stille! Wie Gott es fügt, So sei vergnügt Mein Wille.
Only let nothing grieve thee, Poor heart, Be still! Howe’er the Lord bereave thee, Bow down, My will!
Was willst du heute sorgen Auf morgen? Der Eine Steht allem für; Der gibt auch dir Das Deine.
Why all this useless sorrow For the morrow? Will not He Who cares for all, Whate’er befall. Care, too, for thee?
Sei nur in allem Handel Ohn Wandel, Steh feste! Was Gott beschleußt, Das ist und heißt Das Beste.
He rules thy fate: Calmly await The Lord’s behest; Who all things sees, What he decrees Must be the best!
Amen.
Amen.
Translation: Mme. Davesiès de Pontès (1858) 10 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
BEETHOVEN Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Op.112 (Composed 1815) Himself forcibly becalmed, under strict medical orders, and in a succession of picturesque Czech health resorts in the middle of August – the hottest month of summer 1812 – Beethoven reported to his patron and pupil, the archduke Rudolph: “In Töplitz I heard the military band play four times every day – but that’s the only musical report I can offer you. Otherwise, I spent a good deal of time with Goethe.”
Composed by:
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (b. Bonn, Germany, 1770 — d. Vienna, Austria, 1827) Beethoven’s compositional career can be divided into three periods: early, middle, and late. In the music of his early period, reaching its peak around 1800, he quite audibly takes up where Haydn and Mozart had left off. But, in his early thirties, he began to follow what he described as “a new path”, and entered a middle period of tempestuous changes in his music and thinking. Napoleon, the inspirational republican hero of the Third Symphony, dashed Beethoven’s hopes by declaring himself emperor, and tyrannising Europe. Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815 roughly coincides with the end of Beethoven’s middle period and the emergence of his so-called “late style”.
In a letter to Goethe a couple of years earlier, a mutual friend, countess Bettina Brentano von Arnim (1785–1859), herself a gifted author and composer, reported Beethoven’s desire to make Goethe’s acquaintance. According to Bettina, Beethoven told her: “Goethe’s poems have great power over me…not only because of their contents, but also because of their rhythm…I am tuned up and stimulated to compose by his language…and I must discharge melody in all directions…Music, I believe, is the mediator between the intellect and the senses. I should like to talk to Goethe about this. Would he understand me?” Goethe, replying to the countess, asked her to encourage Beethoven to visit him at the Czech resorts where he was planning to spend the next couple of summers “taking the waters”, and meanwhile to send him copies of two songs Beethoven had recently composed on his poems, most likely including the simple and lovely Sehnsucht (Longing), published in his Op.83. When they did finally meet in 1812, Goethe wrote to his wife that he had seldom met a “more focussed, or fervent artist” than Beethoven. To a musical friend, Zelter – later young Mendelssohn’s teacher – Goethe wrote: “His talent astounded me. But unfortunately, he is completely uncontrollable…though he can be excused, and pitied, for he is losing his hearing. As it is, he is laconic by nature, and becoming doubly so through this misfortune.” Meanwhile, according to Bettina, Beethoven reported that he gave the older man a lesson in egalitarianism. Walking together through the spa gardens one day, they saw a crowd gathering as the imperial family strolled by. Goethe, by far the more eminent of the pair but also a more seasoned courtier, removed his hat and was promptly ignored along with most others. But Beethoven, “my hat firmly on my head…pushed through the thickest part of the crowd, and archduke Rudolph took off his hat, while the empress herself was first to greet me.” The following spring, 1813, Beethoven began sketching music for Goethe’s pair of carefully contrasted poems Meeres Stille “Calm Sea” and Glückliche Fahrt “Prosperous Voyage”. However, it wasn’t until late 1815 that he finally brought this choral setting to completion, for first performance at a charity concert on Christmas Day. In June that year, Schubert had set just the first AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 11
poem as a solo song, a setting that mirrored the deadly calm in music of such pared-back simplicity – a melancholy chant-like melody for the voice, and desperately slow, soft chords for the piano – that, for its time, must have seemed almost as eerie a musical conception as Messiaen’s Prayer 120 years later.
Words by:
Johann Wolfgang GOETHE (b. Frankfurt, Germany, 1749 — d. Weimar, 1832) In the history of German literature, Goethe holds a place similar to that of Shakespeare in English. A poet, playwright, novelist, soldier, politician and scientist, Goethe spent most of his productive life as a courtier at Weimar. He was deeply influenced by an artistic pilgrimage he made to Italy in the late 1780s. In 1792 he was among the German monarchist forces attempting to invade revolutionary France. He established what would become a firm collaborative friendship with Germany’s other great living poet and dramatist, Friedrich Schiller, in 1795, the same year in which he wrote this pair of poems.
Beethoven responded to the same text with music hardly less odd. At the opening strings and voices share almost – but not quite – the same music, a technique called heterophony, that introduces slight variations between the almost mirror-smooth melody line of the strings, and that of the voices, running parallel, but articulated by the sung syllables. In this way, Beethoven disposes of six of Goethe’s eight lines, in an almost featureless hush, only then to break out violently in a single blazing chord, before the music almost instantly closes back in on itself. It is not the sinister calm, but the expansive voyage that is the real focus of Beethoven’s setting. Ushered in by the swirling triplet scales of the winds (real and figurative), the hopeful sailor is carried on what is it is literally a breath of fresh air until finally brought in sight of “the Land”. When he finally published the work in 1822, Beethoven dedicated the score to Goethe. And perhaps to remind the poet of their meeting with the imperial family at Töplitz in 1812, he also added an inscription at the head of the music from Homer’s Odyssey (8: 479-81): For above all mortals, singers claim the lion’s share Of honour and respect, since the Muse has taught them Her tales, and she cherishes their republic of song. Meeres Stille Tiefe Stille herrscht im Wasser, Ohne Regung ruht das Meer, Und bekümmert sieht der Schiffer Glatte Fläche ringsumher. Keine Luft von keiner Seite! Todesstille fürchterlich! In der ungeheuern Weite Reget keine Welle sich.
Calm sea Silence deep rules o’er the waters, Calmly slumb’ring lies the main, While the sailor views with trouble Nought but one vast level plain. Not a zephyr is in motion! Silence fearful as the grave! In the mighty waste of ocean Sunk to rest is ev’ry wave.
Glückliche Fahrt Die Nebel zerreißen, Der Himmel ist helle, Und Äolus löset Das ängstliche Band. Es säuseln die Winde, Es rührt sich der Schiffer. Geschwinde! Geschwinde! Es teilt sich die Welle, Es naht sich die Ferne; Schon seh ich das Land!
Prosperous voyage The mist is fast clearing, And radiant is heaven, Whilst Aeolus loosens Our anguish-fraught bond. The zephyrs are sighing, Alert is the sailor. Quick! nimbly be plying! The billows are riven, The distance approaches; Beyond, see the land!
Translation: Edward Alfred Bowring (1853) 12 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
BEETHOVEN Symphony No.9 in D minor “Choral”, Op.125 (Composed 1822-24) On 7 May 1824, in answer to Beethoven’s request, most of Vienna’s available leading musicians – professional and amateur – gathered in the Kärnthnerthor Theatre, to premiere the Ninth Symphony. In a note he wrote that day, Beethoven called it “Fracktag” – Tails Day – complaining, petulantly, that he was, as usual, expected to dress up like a court jester for his own show.
Richard Tognetti on interpreting Beethoven Sometime ago a lady was overheard commenting after hearing one of “our” Bach Brandenburg concertos, that she prefers “her” Bach slower. She lives with her own traditions. Don’t we all? “I don’t care at all for tradition,” said Pierre Boulez “I like to establish my own tradition!…A tradition is just an accumulation of mannerisms and…imitations. The real approach is just to take the score, a personal relationship with it, and try to give that to the audience.” In our attempt to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on instruments approximating those from the composer’s lifetime (possibly an Australian first), I’d like to bring to your attention some issues that vex all keen interpreters and note that our re-appraisal may cause an unexpected bearing on the way in which you react to “your” Beethoven. In the 3/4 presto that leads into the fully born theme “Ode to Joy”, played by the celli/bassi, you are possibly used to hearing the two final notes (preceding the theme) played with an imperial ritardando, followed by Continued P. 14
Profoundly deaf, he was long past being competent to conduct, though he stood at the side of the leaders, indicating the speed at which the theatre’s resident conductor, Michael Umlauf should wave the baton, and leader Ignaz Schuppanzigh wield his bow. At the end – so the contralto soloist Caroline Ungher later remembered – he was completely unaware when the applause started, a fact that became so obvious to the audience that when she tugged his sleeve to turn him around, it “acted like an electric shock on all present; and a volcanic explosion of sympathy and admiration followed, which seemed as if it would never end.” From eyewitness accounts of the premiere, and a repeat performance two weeks later, it is difficult to say whether the applause was for the work, or for the composer. Less likely is that the performance drew much praise. Two full rehearsals were insufficient to ensure that all the performers held their parts in what was, anyway, the most difficult piece of concerted music they’d ever encountered. Winds and brass, in the hands of the crème of the imperial band players, probably held together. But when the demands of the music became too extreme, some rank-and-file violins and chorus sopranos simply stopped playing and singing completely. Nevertheless, according to one review, the opening Allegro came across as “bold and defiant…ingeniously put together and worked out with truly athletic energy. There is sustained suspense from the first chord onward, growing into the colossal theme that emerges out of it…” Twenty years later, Richard Wagner, preparing for a performance he conducted in Dresden, pictured it in clearly political terms as a “titanic struggle of an individual… against the veto of hostile powers, which range themselves between us and earthly fulfilment”. Sustaining the progress of the movement’s large-scale, fifteen-minute design, the strategically placed returns of this opening idea are underpinned by the almost fissile energy produced by the sheer mass of scraping, blowing, and drumming activity. AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 13
a pause imposed for revelation and grandeur. You may also be used to hearing the stentorian cello/bassi recitative played in echt Wagnerian tradition with majestic affectation. The problem interpreters face is that Beethoven doesn’t indicate these things in his meticulously marked score, hence many people’s “personal relationships” with these passages are at odds with “the score”: There is no pause before the “Ode to Joy” theme, indeed the very syncopation generates one of the emblems of the motif, movement, symphony, and ipso facto the world (it is where the word “Al-le” falls later on when sung). And contrary to the traditional slow rubato tempo of the recitative, Beethoven writes that these passages are to be played in tempo. The indicated tempi of the music, incontrovertibly given to us by the composer and humbly accepted by this interpreter, are more than mere proposals of playing speeds, but rather offer us the structural proportions for the whole symphony. Interpret one tempo at your own pace and run the risk of upsetting those environmental scopes. The first movement is set at crotchet=88, why argue? The initial notes are A and E — we don’t have cause to dispute those do we? But for the conundrum of the stringendo leading to the trio with an erroneous marking, the second movement’s metronome marking should also be taken without disagreement. For this performance you’re hearing the proportion of dotted half note becoming trio half note — as apprehended by Heinrich Schenker and agreed as the most acceptable solution by the editor of this performing edition, Jonathan Del Mar.
Never before, in the relatively self-contained sixty-year history of the concert symphony, had sounds of such sustained violence been imagined, let alone produced by instruments. In his 1882 study of the Ninth, George Grove, the English musical encyclopaedist and educator, said something worth keeping in mind as the rest of the symphony unfolds: despite the persuasive beauty of the following two movements, and the indelibly melodious finale, it is the music of the first Allegro that remains the generating essence of the work. If Wagner saw individual will as the motivating force behind first movement, for the second he borrowed images from Goethe’s Faust to picture the same individual taking time out to indulge in a Bacchanalian riot of carnal pleasures; but as Faust discovered, the gifts that the demon Mephistopheles offers amount to nothing more than empty gratification, a meaningless dance that spins endlessly on. While its motoric force is certainly compulsive, there is no suggestion that Beethoven thought of his Scherzo as mindless. Far from it; its overflowing energy is subject to his meticulous control and channelling, not least when the predominant four-bartriple beat is suddenly jerked into three-bar periods. Hector Berlioz, writing on the Adagio, found that it “so little observed the principle of unity that it might better be regarded as two distinct pieces than as one. The first melody is in B flat, and in common four-in-a-bar time, and is succeeded by another melody, absolutely different from it, in triple-time, in D”. Yet in the subsequent interweaving of this unlikely pairing of ideas, Berlioz heard “such sentiments of melancholy tenderness, passionate sadness, and religious meditation” as to be beyond the capacity of mere words to describe. Everyone in the first Vienna audience in May 1824 must have known that something extraordinary was about to take place. Certainly, the London press intimated well in advance of the British premiere a year later: “In the last movement is introduced a song! – Schiller’s famous Ode to Joy – which forms a most extraordinary contrast with the whole, and is calculated to excite surprise, certainly, and perhaps admiration.” But what nobody, then or later, has been able to explain entirely satisfactorily, is why Beethoven took the unprecedented decision of fitting out an instrumental symphony with a vocal finale. Beethoven had toyed, for the past five or six years, with at least two distinct ideas for an instrumental symphony with added chorus. In 1818 he made very preliminary sketches for a “symphony in ancient modes” and on ancient Greek religious themes that was to include both a choral adagio, and a bacchanalian – possibly choral – finale (an instrumental vestige of its spirit perhaps survives in the
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The other tempo issue which relies upon the interpreter’s “personal relationship” rather than plain observance of the score is in the alla marcia in the last movement, which has previously been taken at a strangely considered slow march due to another specious metronome marking (possibly due to a copyist’s slip). This, however, appears as nonsensical and is at odds with the Allegro assai vivace marking. Established by many musicologists (Clive Brown, J. Del Mar, etc.), the speedier 84 BPM to a bar makes most sense and works well. I’d like to thank our wind, brass and timpani players for providing insight into the instruments you will hear in this performance. I praise these players’ commitment and strongly believe that these instruments offer us the best sense of balance and sonic textures that serve to bring this re-appraisal of Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 to life.
Beethoven’s late style From around 1815 until his death, Beethoven not only produced musical works that can safely be described as “late” — the Missa Solemnis and Ninth Symphony the largest among them — but also something much harder to pin down, what some music historians identify as a “late style”, a mode of musical communication that reflects an aging, deaf composer’s increasing alienation from mainstream society. In Beethoven’s music, it is seen as producing works that juxtapose great complexity with extreme simplicity… music that, like the composer himself, is losing patience with living in the half-light of the middle-ground…
Ninth’s Scherzo). But by 1822, he was considering what he called a “German symphony”, sketches for which already involved a chorus singing Schiller’s To Joy, though set to an entirely different tune. Whether he had in mind two different choral symphonies, or – more likely – two diverging schemes for one symphony, remains uncertain. However, by 1824, one resulting work had to fulfil at least two purposes. In 1822, he had accepted a commission for a new symphony from the Philharmonic Society of London. Despite the commission’s clear understanding that it had been “expressly composed by Beethoven, with a view to London”, his equally clear preference for a premiere on home-ground took on – among his Austrian and German supporters – a distinct nationalistic tinge. “Friends of German music” were invited to gather for the Vienna premiere “to celebrate and offer recognition to the national master”, while “France and England will envy us the opportunity of paying personal homage to Beethoven, who is acknowledged to be the supreme master in the entire world”. To Adolph Bernhard Marx – a music historian whose later writings did more than any other to enshrine Beethoven as “supreme master”, and Germany as the centre, of the nineteenth-century European “cult of music” – Beethoven’s earlier symphonies seemed to be suggesting that instrumental music was capable of an eloquence even greater than that of words. Yet, from the finale’s opening moments, Marx believed, Beethoven demonstrated that this was not, finally, so: “He who had devoted his life’s purest and fullest power to the world of instrumental sounds…once again summons all his forces for the boldest and most gigantic effort. But behold! – the mystic, mythic life of unreal instrumental voices no longer satisfies his aspirations, which draw him irresistibly back toward the human voice and to the word.” As the orchestra introduces, in succession, brief flashbacks to each of the first three movements, the cellos and basses attempt an unlikely recitative: “All these dreamy imaginings vanish, when the string basses laboriously and painfully work themselves into an ungainly imitation of human speech; and when they begin to hum timidly the simple human tune – and then hand it over to the rest of the orchestra, we see that, after all, the needs of mankind reach beyond the mysteries of the enchanted world of instruments. And in the end Beethoven finds no satisfaction but in the chorus of humanity itself.” So that, finally, as if despairing of instruments’ feeble efforts, the solo baritone announces: AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 15
Baritone recitative O Freunde, nicht diese Töne! sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen, und freudenvollere. Freude!
O friends! Not these sounds! But let us join in more pleasant and more joyful sounds! Joy!
Quartet and chorus
Words by:
Friedrich SCHILLER (b. Würtemburg 1759 — d. Weimar, 1809) Schiller was 26 years old when he wrote An die Freude (Ode to Joy) in 1785, during a summer vacation at Gohlis near Leipzig. This idealistic invocation was to become for the next generation of writers, philosophers, political reformers, secularists, and freemasons a rallying call to the egalitarian cause of universal brotherhood, whose realisation it was hoped would usher in an age of enlightenment, not unlike expectations in the 1960s of a coming “Age of Aquarius”. Schiller’s friend, amateur composer Gottfried Körner composed the first of many musical settings of the hymn, and there is evidence that Beethoven had written an earlier setting of it as a solo song around 1799. Schiller excluded To Joy from an 1800 edition of his poems, complaining that — already — it had dated, and its simple aspirations now seemed to him politically naïve. However, after protests from friends, he reinstated it in a later edition.
Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium, wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum! Deine Zauber binden wieder, was die Mode streng geteilt; alle Menschen werden Brüder, wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
Joy, bright spark of the gods, Daughter of Elysium, We enter, fire-drunk, Heavenly One, your holy shrine! Your magic rebinds where faction and custom divided us; all humanity become brothers beneath your gentle wings.
Wem der große Wurf gelungen, eines Freundes Freund zu sein, wer ein holdes Weib errungen,
Whoever has made the great attempt to be a friend to a friend, whoever has won a loving heart, mische seinen Jubel ein! they may share in this rejoicing, Ja, wer auch nur eine Seele Even if you hold only one soul sein nennt auf dem Erdenrund! your own on this wide earth! Und wer’s nie gekonnt, But whoever never could: der stehle shrink away weinend sich aus diesem Bund. alone, weeping, from our joyful band. Freude trinken alle Wesen an den Brüsten der Natur; alle Guten, alle Bösen folgen ihrer Rosenspur. Küsse gab sie uns und Reben, einen Freund, geprüft im Tod; Wollust ward dem Wurm gegeben, Und der Cherub steht vor Gott!
Joy, all creatures drink your drafts from nature’s breast; all good, and all bad people alike have access to her rosy delights. She gives us kisses, and wine, a true friend, faithful to death: Pleasures given equally to the worm, and to the cherubim standing before God!
Tenor solo and chorus (Allegro assai vivace) Froh, wie seine Sonnen fliegen Joyous, like suns flying Durch des Himmels prächt’gen round the heavens’ glorious Plan, orbit, laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn, so brothers, run your own course,
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freudig, wie ein Held zum joyfully, as a hero to victory Siegen. Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Joy, bright spark of the gods, Tochter aus Elysium… Daughter of Elysium… Chorus (Andante maestoso) Seid umschlungen Millionen. Diesen Kuß der ganzen Welt! Brüder! überm Sternenzelt muß ein lieber Vater wohnen.
Be embraced, you millions! This kiss is for the whole world! Brothers, above the starry canopy there must dwell a loving Father
(Adagio ma non troppo, ma divoto) Ihr stürzt nieder Millionen? Ahnest du den Schöpfer, Welt? Such’ ihn über’m Sternenzelt! Über Sternen muß er wohnen.
Do you bow in worship, O Millions? Do you know your Creator, World? Seek him above the starry firmament, for above the stars must he must dwell.
(Allegro energico…) Freude, schöner Götterfunken Tochter aus Elysium…
Joy, bright spark of the gods Daughter of Elysium…
ALL PROGRAM NOTES BY GRAEME SKINNER © 2012
Beethoven performances in Australia Beethoven’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage was the first of his choral-and-orchestral works to be performed in Australia. It was given its local premiere in March 1860 by the Philharmonic Society of Melbourne. But it took the slowly growing Australian musical community almost sixty years before it was ready for the Ninth. As the Melbourne Argus reported the morning after: “The morning of Wednesday, the 27th December, 1882, at the Exhibition-building, will be for ever memorable in Australia as having witnessed here the first representation in public of Beethoven’s Ninth or Choral Symphony. We leave this performance with a mind oppressed with the magnificence of the work — astounded at the genius of the composer — with a feeling that to describe this wonderful creation of musical genius would be impossible…”
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 17
RICHARD TOGNETTI AO © Paul Henderson-Kelly
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Australian violinist, conductor and composer, Richard Tognetti has established an international reputation for his compelling performances and artistic individualism. He studied at the Sydney Conservatorium with Alice Waten, in his home town of Wollongong with William Primrose, and at the Berne Conservatory (Switzerland) with Igor Ozim, where he was awarded the Tschumi Prize as the top graduate soloist in 1989. Later that year he was appointed Leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) and subsequently became Artistic Director. He is also Artistic Director of the Maribor Festival in Slovenia.
“Richard Tognetti is one of the most characterful, incisive and impassioned violinists to be heard today.” THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (UK)
Select Discography As soloist: BACH Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard ABC Classics 476 5942 2008 ARIA Award Winner BACH Violin Concertos ABC Classics 476 5691 2007 ARIA Award Winner BACH Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas ABC Classics 476 8051 2006 ARIA Award Winner (All three releases available as a 5CD Box set: ABC Classics 476 6168) Musica Surfica (DVD) Best Feature, New York Surf Film Festival As director: VIVALDI Flute Concertos, Op.10 Emmanuel Pahud, Flute EMI Classics 0946 3 47212 2 6 Grammy Nominee PIAZZOLLA Song of the Angel Chandos CHAN 10163 All available from aco.com.au/shop.
Tognetti performs on period, modern and electric instruments. His numerous arrangements, compositions and transcriptions have expanded the chamber orchestra repertoire and been performed throughout the world. As director or soloist, Tognetti has appeared with the Handel & Haydn Society (Boston), Hong Kong Philharmonic, Camerata Salzburg, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Nordic Chamber Orchestra, YouTube Symphony Orchestra and the Australian symphony orchestras. He conducted Mozart’s Mitridate for the Sydney Festival and gave the Australian premiere of Ligeti’s Violin Concerto with the Sydney Symphony. Tognetti has collaborated with colleagues from across various art forms and artistic styles, including Joseph Tawadros, Dawn Upshaw, James Crabb, Emmanuel Pahud, Katie Noonan, Neil Finn, Tim Freedman, Bill Henson and Michael Leunig. In 2003, Tognetti was co-composer of the score for Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; violin tutor for its star, Russell Crowe; and can also be heard performing on the award-winning soundtrack. In 2005, he co-composed the soundtrack to Tom Carroll’s surf film Horrorscopes and, in 2008, co-created The Red Tree, inspired by illustrator Shaun Tan’s book. He co-created and starred in the 2008 documentary film Musica Surfica, which has won best film awards at surf film festivals in the USA, Brazil, France and South Africa. As well as directing numerous recordings by the ACO, Tognetti has recorded Bach’s solo violin repertoire for ABC Classics, winning three consecutive ARIA awards, and the Dvořák and Mozart Violin Concertos for BIS. Richard Tognetti was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2010. He holds honorary doctorates from three Australian universities and was made a National Living Treasure in 1999. He performs on a 1743 Guarneri del Gesù violin, lent to him by an anonymous Australian private benefactor.
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LUCY CROWE © Marco Borgreve/Harmonia Mundi
SOPRANO Lucy Crowe has established herself as one of the leading lyric sopranos of her generation. Described as having a voice of bell-like clarity with an impeccable vocal technique and powerful stage presence she has since performed and recorded with many of the world’s greatest conductors. Lucy’s concert engagements include the Mozart’s Requiem with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick NézetSéguin, Haydn’s Die Schöpfung and Die Jahreszeiten with the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra under John Eliot Gardiner, Mozart’s Exsultate jubilate under Sir Charles Mackerras, Mendelssohn’s Elijah under Nézet-Séguin, and Haydn’s Il ritorno di Tobia with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Roger Norrington. In the 2010/11 season, Lucy made her US opera debut to critical acclaim as Iole (Hercules) for the Chicago Lyric Opera. She made her debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Belinda in Dido and Aeneas. Other operatic engagements include the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen for the Glyndebourne Festival, Gilda (Rigoletto) for the Royal Opera, Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) for the Royal Opera, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Scottish Opera; Dorinda (Orlando) in Lille, Paris and Dijon; Poppea (Agrippina) and Drusilla (The Coronation of Poppea) for ENO; and The Fairy Queen with William Christie for the Glyndebourne Festival and in Paris and New York. Future engagements include European tours with the Monteverdis under John Eliot Gardiner, and with the CBSO under Andris Nelsons, Susanna at the Royal Opera House, Gilda at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and she will make her debut at The Metropolitan Opera, New York as Servilia in La Clemenza di Tito.
FIONA CAMPBELL © MSN Ltd./Michael Kampf
MEZZO SOPRANO Australian-born mezzo soprano Fiona Campbell is an accomplished international performer, recitalist and recording artist. Winner of the national Limelight Award for Best Solo Performance 2011, with the ABO in their Haunting Handel concert series, Vocal category winner of the ABC Young Performer of the Year Award and the Opera Awards, in the prestigious Australian Singing Competition, Fiona has consistently received wide, critical acclaim for her powerful performances and exquisite musicianship. Fiona has appeared as a principal artist with the all the major ensembles in Australia as well as overseas including Brodsky Quartet, Tokyo Philharmonic, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Opera Australia, Pinchgut Opera, Australian AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 19
Chamber Orchestra and Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, to name a few. She has collaborated on directing a special program with the Australian String Quartet with the Queensland Festival, and appeared as a broadcaster with ABC Classic FM. Career highlights include singing several concerts with the legendary tenor José Carreras in Japan and Korea and as his special guest artist in Australia. Fiona has also been a touring favourite with Barbara Bonney, making her debut at Suntory Hall in Tokyo and Cadogan Hall in London with renowned soprano. Fiona has recorded many recitals with national broadcasts. Her first solo album Love & Loss was released in 2012 and her discography includes Baroque Duets, which features a world premiere recording of Handel (Vexations840), Classic 100 Opera, Mozart’s Idomeneo, Vivaldi’s Juditha Triumphans, Early French Cantatas and Just Classics 2 (ABC Classics). fionacampbell.com.au
ALLAN CLAYTON © Pietro Spagnoli
TENOR Allan Clayton was a chorister at Worcester Cathedral before attending St John’s College, Cambridge on a choral scholarship, and then postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music. Allan was a BBC New Generation Artist between 2007–2009, and was awarded a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in 2008. Recent concert engagements have included appearances with the New York Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, Academy of Ancient Music, numerous orchestras of the BBC, The Philharmonia (London), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, The English Concert and Britten Sinfonia, with conductors including William Christie, Giandrea Noseda, Trevor Pinnock, Richard Egarr, and Paul Kildea. On stage, Allan has enjoyed critical praise for his Benedict in Opera Comique’s production of Béatrice et Bénédict, for his Ferrando in the 2010 revival of Così fan tutte for Glyndebourne Festival and most recently for his Camille in Opera North’s production of The Merry Widow, as well as appearances in Purcell’s King Arthur in France and Death in Venice at the Royal Festival Hall in London. He performed the roles of Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Castor (Castor) and Pollux for English National Opera in 2011. Most recently he performed in the world premiere of George Benjamin’s new opera Written on Skin at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. 20 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Allan has given recitals at the Cheltenham Music Festival, the City of London Festival, Derry Song Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Perth International Arts Festival, Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, Kettle’s Yard in Cambridge and Cowdray Hall in Aberdeen, appearing with many pianists including Paul Lewis, Graham Johnson, Simon Lepper and James Baillieu. His recordings include Handel’s Messiah for EMI, recorded live from King’s College Cambridge, and a live recording of Handel’s Joshua for the London Handel Society. allanclayton.com
MATTHEW BROOK © Richard Shymansky
BASS-BARITONE Matthew Brook has appeared as a soloist throughout Europe, Australia, North and South America and Asia, working extensively with conductors such as Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Richard Hickox, Sir Charles Mackerras, Harry Christophers, Christophe Rousset, Paul McCreesh and Sir Mark Elder, and many orchestras and groups including the Philharmonia, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, English Baroque Soloists, Gabrieli Consort & Players, The Sixteen, Orchestre National de Lille, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, Hallé Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester, Zurich, Collegium Vocale Gent, and the City of London Sinfonia. Matthew’s recordings include Counsel in Trial By Jury and Friar Tuck in Sullivan’s Ivanhoe with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Chandos Records); a Gramophone Award-winning recording of Handel’s original Dublin score of Messiah, Bach’s St Matthew Passion and B Minor Mass, and Handel’s Acis and Galatea, all with the Dunedin Consort (Linn Records); and Il Re di Scozia in Handel’s Ariodante with Il Complesso Barocco and Joyce DiDonato in the title role (EMI/Virgin). Engagements in 2011/12 include Araspe in Handel’s Tolomeo and Il Re di Scozia in Ariodante with Il Complesso Barocco and Alan Curtis; Seneca in L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Kouno in Der Freischütz at the Opéra Comique and at the BBC Proms; Joseph in Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ for the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris; Zuniga in Carmen at Le Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg; and Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg.
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 21
CHOIR OF CLARE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE © Nick Rutter
GRAHAM ROSS, DIRECTOR OF MUSIC Since the founding of a mixed voice choir in 1971, the Choir of Clare College has gained an international reputation as one of the leading university choral groups in the world. In addition to its primary function of leading services three times a week in the College chapel, the Choir keeps an active schedule recording, broadcasting, and performing throughout the United Kingdom and the world. The Choir has been fortunate to have had four very fine directors: Peter Dennison; John Rutter; Timothy Brown; and since 2010, Graham Ross. The Choir has toured widely, including in the United States of America, Japan, China, Russia, the Middle East and throughout Europe. In 2000 it became the first Oxbridge mixed voice choir to perform at the BBC Proms, singing Bach’s St John Passion. In addition to live performances, the Choir has produced an impressive catalogue of recordings. Illumina, an exploration of the theme of light, was runner-up for a Gramophone Award, earning such comments as “breathtaking panache”, “the most fervent rendering I have ever heard of Rachmaninov’s Nunc Dimittis”, and “one of the most accomplished choral discs of the year”. The Choir’s recording of John Rutter’s Requiem was awarded Editor’s Choice by Gramophone, CD of the week on Classic FM, gave Naxos its first No.1 in the classical charts, and was nominated for a Classical BRIT Award. A recording of music by Vaughan Williams, Sacred Choral Music, was hailed as “exceptional” by BBC Music Magazine and was acclaimed for its “sweeping energy and rich detail” by Classic FM. In 2011 the Choir began an ongoing relationship with the Harmonia Mundi label, with a recording of Imogen Holst’s choral works due for release in 2012.
© Jonathan Barker
clarecollege.com
GRAHAM ROSS DIRECTOR Graham Ross is Director of Music and Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Principal Conductor of The Dmitri Ensemble. Responsible for all practical music-making in Clare College, he builds on and seeks to enhance the continued excellence of musicianship of Clare’s instrumentalists, composers, conductors, and the Chapel Choir. He continues to broaden the liturgical repertoire by commissioning new music, and to develop the Choir’s schedule of concerts, broadcasts and international tours. 22 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
A graduate of Clare College, Cambridge and the Royal College of Music, London, he held a conducting scholarship with the London Symphony Chorus, and has served as Chorus Master for Sir Colin Davies, Ivor Bolton and Edward Gardner. He guest conducts widely, with recent projects in the UK at English National Opera, BBC Proms, Glyndebourne, and Aldeburgh, and abroad in Palestine, Nigeria, Russia, the US and throughout Europe. He holds a special relationship with Aalborg Symfoniorkester, Denmark, where he has appeared many times as guest conductor. A composer and conductor of a wide range of repertoire, he has given numerous first performances as both a pianist and conductor of a very broad spectrum of composers. He has conducted acclaimed premiere recordings of works by James MacMillan, Judith Bingham and Giles Swayne (all for Naxos) and discs of previously-unrecorded works by Vaughan Williams (Albion Records) and Imogen Holst (Harmonia Mundi). Performances of his works have been given in the UK by, among others, Aurora Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, National Youth Choir of Great Britain and Solstice Quartet. He has arranged numerous works for the Australian Chamber Orchestra, including a full program with comedian Barry Humphries, and he is delighted to bring the Choir of Clare College to tour Australia with this orchestra. grahamross.com
CHOIR OF CLARE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE Graham Ross, Director of Music Sopranos Clara Betts-Dean Rachael Darlinson Gabrielle Haigh Sophie Horrocks Helen Lilley Maud Millar Lois Salem Madeleine Seale Hermione Thompson Anna Wagner
Altos Janneke Dupre Oliver El-Holiby Abigail Gostick Eva Smith Leggatt Héloïse Werner Tenors Peter Harrison Philip Kennedy Stefan Kennedy Christopher Loyn Alexander Peter Sapumal Jaliya Senanayake
Basses William Cole Nicolas Haigh Nicholas Mogg Magnus Maharg Jack LawrenceJones Charles Littlewood Hugo Popplewell Dominic Sedgwick
Nicholas Mogg Choir Administrator
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 23
MUSICIANS ON STAGE
Photos: Paul Henderson-Kelly, Helen White
RICHARD TOGNETTI AO§
HELENA RATHBONE*
SATU VÄNSKÄ≈
Artistic Director
Principal Violin
Chair sponsored by Michael Ball AM & Daria Ball, Joan Clemenger, Wendy Edwards, and Prudence MacLeod
Chair sponsored by Hunter Hall Investment Management Limited
Principal Violin Violin Chair sponsored by Robert & Kay Bryan
MADELEINE BOUD
REBECCA CHAN
ALICE EVANS
Violin
Violin
Violin
Chair sponsored by Terry Campbell AO & Christine Campbell
Chair sponsored by Ian Wallace & Kay Freedman
Chair sponsored by Jan Bowen, The Davies & The Sandgropers
AIKO GOTO
MARK INGWERSEN
ILYA ISAKOVICH
Violin
Violin
Violin
Chair sponsored by Andrew & Hiroko Gwinnett
Chair sponsored by Runge
Chair sponsored by Australian Communities Foundation – Connie & Craig Kimberley Fund
§
Richard Tognetti plays a 1743 Guarneri del Gesù violin kindly on loan from an anonymous Australian private benefactor. * Helena Rathbone plays a 1759 J.B. Guadagnini violin kindly on loan from the Commonwealth Bank Group. ≈ Satu Vänskä plays a 1728/29 Stradivarius violin kindly on loan from the ACO Instrument Fund. # Julian Thompson plays a 1721 Giuseppe Guarneri filius Andræ cello kindly on loan from the Australia Council.
24 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Players dressed by
AKIRA ISOGAWA
MUSICIANS ON STAGE
Photos: Paul Henderson-Kelly, Helen White
VERONIQUE SERRET
CHRISTOPHER MOORE
NICOLE DIVALL
Violin
Principal Viola
Viola
Chair sponsored by Tony Shepherd
Chair sponsored by Ian Lansdown
JULIAN THOMPSON#
DANIEL YEADON
MAXIME BIBEAU
Cello
Cello
Principal Bass
Chair sponsored by the Clayton Family
Chair sponsored by John Taberner & Grant Lang
Violins
Flutes
CAMERON HILL HOLLY PICCOLI SHARON ROFFMAN KAREN SEGAL1 RACHEL SMITH CLAIRE STERLING INKERI VÄNSKÄ
GEORGES BARTHEL MANUEL GRANATIERO
Violas
THOMAS CHAWNER CERIDWEN DAVIES STEFANIE FARRANDS STUART JOHNSON7 Cellos
ROBIN MICHAEL Guest Principal
Trumpets
RICHARD FOMISON RICHARD THOMAS
Piccolo
LAMORNA NIGHTINGALE
Trombones
Oboes
NIGEL CROCKER ROS JORGENSON
MARK BAIGENT BELINDA PAUL
Bass Trombone
BRETT PAGE2
Clarinets
CRAIG HILL3 ASHLEY SUTHERLAND
Timpani
Bassoons
Percussion
PETER WHELAN5 JULIEN DEBORDES
RICHARD GLEESON JOHN DOUGLAS DARYL PRATT6
BRIAN NIXON
LEAH LYNN7 EVE SILVER8
Contrabassoon
Basses
Horns
ERIC CHAPPELL4 STEVEN LARSON7
ANNEKE SCOTT JOSEPH WALTERS JORGE RENTERIA CAMPOS MARTIN LAWRENCE
KARL NIELER
1 Courtesy of Amsterdam Sinfonietta 2 Courtesy of Australian Opera and Ballet 3 4 5 6 7 8
Orchestra Courtesy of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Courtesy of Orchestra Symphonique de Montréal Courtesy of Scottish Chamber Orchestra Courtesy of Sydney Conservatorium of Music Courtesy of Sydney Symphony Courtesy of West Australian Symphony Orchestra
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 25
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA ACO MUSICIANS Richard Tognetti Artistic Director and Lead Violin Helena Rathbone Principal 2nd Violin Satu Vänskä Assistant Leader Madeleine Boud Violin Rebecca Chan Violin Alice Evans Violin Aiko Goto Violin Mark Ingwersen Violin Ilya Isakovich Violin Christopher Moore Principal Viola Nicole Divall Viola Timo-Veikko Valve Principal Cello Melissa Barnard Cello Julian Thompson Cello Maxime Bibeau Principal Double Bass Part-time Musicians
Australia’s national orchestra is a product of its country’s vibrant, adventurous and enquiring spirit. In performances around Australia, around the world and on many recordings, the ACO moves hearts and stimulates minds with repertoire spanning six centuries and a vitality unmatched by other ensembles. The ACO was founded in 1975. Every year, this ensemble presents performances of the highest standard to audiences around the world, including 10,000 subscribers across Australia. The ACO’s unique artistic style encompasses not only the masterworks of the classical repertoire, but innovative cross-artform projects and a vigorous commissioning program. Under Richard Tognetti’s inspiring leadership, the ACO has performed as a flexible and versatile ‘ensemble of soloists’, on modern and period instruments, as a small chamber group, a small symphony orchestra, and as an electro-acoustic collective. In a nod to past traditions, only the cellists are seated – the resulting sense of energy and individuality is one of the most commented-upon elements of an ACO concert experience.
Zoë Black Violin Veronique Serret Violin Caroline Henbest Viola Daniel Yeadon Cello
Several of the ACO’s principal musicians perform with spectacularly fine instruments. Tognetti plays a 1743 Guarneri del Gesù violin, on loan to him from an anonymous Australian benefactor. Principal Cello Timo-Veikko Valve plays on a 1729 Giuseppe Guarneri filius Andreæ cello, on loan from Peter Weiss AM. Principal 2nd Violin Helena Rathbone plays a 1759 J.B. Guadagnini violin on loan from the Commonwealth Bank Group. Assistant Leader Satu Vänskä plays a 1728/29 Stradivarius violin owned by the ACO Instrument Fund, through which investors participate in the ownership of historic instruments. Fifty international tours have drawn outstanding reviews at many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Vienna’s Musikverein.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra is supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW.
The ACO has made acclaimed recordings for labels including ABC Classics, Sony, Channel Classics, Hyperion, EMI and Chandos and currently has a recording contract with BIS. A full list of available recordings can be found at aco.com.au/shop. Highlights include the three-time ARIA Award-winning Bach recordings and the complete set of Mozart Violin Concertos. The ACO appears in the television series Classical Destinations II and the award-winning film Musica Surfica. In 2005, the ACO inaugurated an ambitious national education program, which includes outreach activities and mentoring of outstanding young musicians, including the formation of ACO2, an elite training orchestra which tours regional centres.
26 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
ACO BEHIND THE SCENES BOARD Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM Chairman Angus James Deputy Chairman Bill Best Liz Cacciottolo Chris Froggatt
Janet Holmes à Court AC John Taberner Andrew Stevens Peter Yates AM
Richard Tognetti AO Artistic Director
ADMINISTRATION STAFF EXECUTIVE OFFICE Timothy Calnin General Manager Jessica Block Deputy General Manager and Development Manager Michelle Kerr Executive Assistant to Mr Calnin and Mr Tognetti AO ARTISTIC & OPERATIONS Luke Shaw Head of Operations and Artistic Planning Alan J. Benson Artistic Administrator Erin McNamara Tour Manager Elissa Seed Travel Coordinator Jennifer Powell Librarian EDUCATION Vicki Norton Education and Emerging Artists Manager Sarah Conolan Education Assistant
FINANCE Steve Davidson Chief Financial Officer Cathy Davey Senior Accountant Shyleja Paul Assistant Accountant
MARKETING Georgia Rivers Marketing & Digital Projects Manager Rosie Rothery Marketing Executive Chris Griffith Box Office Manager Ali Brosnan DEVELOPMENT Box Office Assistant Alexandra Mary Stielow Cameron-Fraser Corporate Relations and Publicist Public Affairs Manager Dean Watson Customer Relations Tom Tansey Manager Events Manager David Sheridan Tom Carrig Office Administrator & Senior Development Marketing Assistant Executive Lillian Armitage Philanthropy Manager INFORMATION SYSTEMS Sally-Anne Biggins Patrons Manager Ken McSwain Systems & Technology Stephanie Ings Manager Investor Relations Manager Emmanuel Espinas Network Infrastructure Julia Glass Engineer Development Coordinator ARCHIVES John Harper Archivist
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
ABN 45 001 335 182
Australian Chamber Orchestra Pty Ltd is a not for profit company registered in NSW.
In Person: Opera Quays, 2 East Circular Quay, Sydney NSW 2000 By Mail: PO Box R21, Royal Exchange NSW 1225 Telephone: (02) 8274 3800 Facsimile: (02) 8274 3801 Box Office: 1800 444 444 Email: aco@aco.com.au Website: aco.com.au
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 27
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
The Australian Chamber Orchestra is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra is supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW.
VENUE SUPPORT We are also indebted to the following organisations for their support:
LLEWELLYN HALL School of Music Australian National University William Herbert Place (off Childers Street) Acton, Canberra
QUEENSLAND PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE PO Box 3567, South Bank, Queensland 4101 Tel: (07) 3840 7444
VENUE HIRE INFORMATION Phone: +61 2 6125 2527 Fax: +61 2 6248 5288 Email: music.venues@anu.edu.au
Trustees Simon Gallaher Helene George Bill Grant Sophie Mitchell Paul Piticco Mick Power AM Susan Street Rhonda White
AEG OGDEN (PERTH) PTY LTD
EXECUTIVE STAFF Chief Executive John Kotzas Director – Marketing Leisa Bacon Director – Presenter Services Ross Cunningham Director – Development Jacquelyn Malouf Director – Corporate Services Kieron Roost Director – Patron Services Tony Smith
PERTH CONCERT HALL General Manager Andrew Bolt Deputy General Manager Helen Stewart Technical Manager Peter Robins Event Coordinator Penelope Briffa Perth Concert Hall is managed by AEG Ogden (Perth) Pty Ltd Venue Manager for the Perth Theatre Trust Venues. AEG OGDEN (PERTH) PTY LTD Chief Executive Rodney M Phillips THE PERTH THEATRE TRUST Chairman Dr Saliba Sassine St George’s Terrace, Perth PO Box Y3056, East St George’s Terrace, Perth WA 6832 Telephone: 08 9231 9900
28 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Chair Henry Smerdon AM Deputy Chair Rachel Hunter
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The Queensland Performing Arts Trust is a Statutory Authority of the State of Queensland and is partially funded by the Queensland Government The Honourable Rachel Nolan MP Minister for Finance, Natural Resouyrces and The Arts Director-General, Department of the Premier and Cabinet John Bradley Deputy Director-General, Arts Queensland Leigh Tabrett PSM Patrons are advised that the Performing Arts Centre has EMERGENCY EVACUATION PROCEDURES, a FIRE ALARM system and EXIT passageways. In case of an alert, patrons should remain calm, look for the closest EXIT sign in GREEN, listen to and comply with directions given by the inhouse trained attendants and move in an orderly fashion to the open spaces outside the Centre.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS VENUE SUPPORT
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE TRUST Mr Kim Williams am (Chair)
A City of Sydney Venue Clover Moore Lord Mayor Managed by PEGASUS VENUE MANAGEMENT (AP) PTY LTD Christopher Rix Founder Bronwyn Edinger General Manager CITY RECITAL HALL ANGEL PLACE 2 –12 Angel Place, Sydney, Australia GPO Box 3339, Sydney, NSW 2001 Administration 02 9231 9000 Box Office 02 8256 2222 or 1300 797 118 Facsimile 02 9233 6652 Website www.cityrecitalhall.com
Ms Catherine Brenner Ms Helen Coonan Mr Wesley Enoch Ms Renata Kaldor ao Mr Robert Leece am rfd Mr Peter Mason am Dr Thomas (Tom) Parry am Mr Leo Schofield am Mr John Symond am EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT Acting Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Bielski Director, Theatre & Events David Claringbold Director, Marketing, Communications & Customer Services Victoria Doidge Director, Building Development & Maintenance Greg McTaggart Director, Venue Partners & Safety Julia Pucci Chief Financial Officer Claire Spencer SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE Bennelong Point GPO Box 4274, Sydney NSW 2001 Administration: 02 9250 7111 Box Office: 02 9250 7777 Facsimile: 02 9250 7666 Website: sydneyoperahouse.com
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AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 29
ACO MEDICI PROGRAM In the time-honoured fashion of the great Medici family, the ACO’s Medici Patrons support individual players’ Chairs and assist the Orchestra to attract and retain musicians of the highest calibre.
MEDICI PATRON MRS AMINA BELGIORNO-NETTIS
PRINCIPAL CHAIRS Richard Tognetti AO
Helena Rathbone
Satu Vänskä
Lead Violin
Principal 2nd Violin
Assistant Leader
Michael Ball AM & Daria Ball Joan Clemenger Wendy Edwards Prudence MacLeod
Robert & Kay Bryan
Christopher Moore
Timo-Veikko Valve
Maxime Bibeau
Principal Viola
Principal Cello
Principal Double Bass
Tony Shepherd AO
Peter Weiss AM
John Taberner & Grant Lang
Ilya Isakovich Violin Australian Communities Foundation – Connie & Craig Kimberley Fund
Nicole Divall Viola Ian Lansdown
CORE CHAIRS Aiko Goto Violin Andrew & Hiroko Gwinnett Mark Ingwersen Violin
Madeleine Boud Violin Terry Campbell AO & Christine Campbell Alice Evans Violin Jan Bowen The Davies The Sandgropers
Rebecca Chan Violin Ian Wallace & Kay Freedman
Viola Chair Philip Bacon AM Melissa Barnard Cello The Bruce & Joy Reid Foundation Julian Thompson Cello The Clayton Family
GUEST CHAIRS
FRIENDS OF MEDICI
Brian Nixon Principal Timpani Mr Robert Albert AO & Mrs Libby Albert
Mr R. Bruce Corlett AM & Mrs Ann Corlett
30 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
ACO INSTRUMENT FUND The ACO has established its Instrument Fund to offer patrons and investors the opportunity to participate in the ownership of a bank of historic stringed instruments. The Fund’s first asset is Australia’s only Stradivarius violin, now on loan to Satu Vänskä, Principal Violin of the Orchestra. The ACO pays tribute to its Founding Patrons of the Fund.
FOUNDING PATRONS PETER WEISS AM, PATRON VISIONARY $1m+
OCTET $100,000–$199,000
ENSEMBLE $10,000$24,999
Peter Weiss AM
Amina Belgiorno-Nettis
Leslie & Ginny Green
LEADER $500,000–$999,999 CONCERTO $200,000–$499,000
QUARTET $50,000–$99,000
SOLO $5,000 – $9,999 PATRONS $500 – $4,999
Naomi Milgrom AO
John Leece OAM & Anne Leece
SONATA $25,000–$49,999
June & Jim Armitage Angela Roberts
FOUNDING INVESTORS Guido & Michelle Belgiorno-Nettis
Bill Best Benjamin Brady
Steven Duchen Brendan Hopkins
John Taberner Ian Wallace & Kay Freedman
NISEKO SUPPORTERS The ACO would like to pay tribute to the following donors who are supporting our continued involvement with the Niseko Winter Music Festival. NISEKO PATRONS Ann Gamble Myer Louise & Martyn Myer Foundation Peter Yates AM & Susan Yates
NISEKO SUPPORTERS A J Abercrombie Warwick Anderson Breeze Family Tim Burke Simone Carson Suzy Crittenden Cathryn & Andrew Darbyshire AM
Phil & Rosie Harkness Louise & Bill Henson Simon & Katrina Holmes à Court Family Trust Lorna Inman Robert Johanson & Anne Swann Linda Keyte Richard & Lizzie Leder
Naomi Milgrom Clarke & Leanne Morgan Andrew Myer James & Catriona Pettit Jill Reichstein Schiavello Peter Scott John & Nicky Stokes Oliver Yates Dr Mark & Mrs Anna Yates
2011 EUROPEAN TOUR PATRONS The ACO would like to pay tribute to the following donors who supported our highly successful 2011 European Tour. Graeme & Jing Aarons Samantha Allen John & Philippa Armfield Steven Bardy Isla Baring Linda & Graeme Beveridge BG Group Paul Borrud Ben & Debbie Brady Kay Bryan Massel Group Terry Campbell AO & Christine Campbell Jenny & Stephen Charles The Clayton Family Penny Clive & Bruce Neill John Coles
Commonwealth Bank Robin D’Alessandro & Noel Philp Jennifer Dunstan Bridget Faye AM Ann Gamble Myer Rhyll Gardner Alan & Joanna Gemes Tony Gill Global Switch Limited Andrew & Hiroko Gwinnett Peter Henshaw & Fargana Karimova Peter & Sandra Hofbauer Janet L Holmes à Court AC
Catherine Holmes à Court-Mather Brendan & Bee Hopkins P J Jopling QC Lady Kleinwort Wayne Kratzmann Prudence MacLeod Bill Merrick P J Miller Jan Minchin Justin Raoul Moffitt Alf Moufarrige Louise & Martyn Myer Foundation Sir Douglas Myers Marianna & Tony O’Sullivan peckvonhartel architects
Diana Polkinghorne Rio Tinto Limited Gregory Stoloff & Sue Lloyd David Stone Andrew Strauss Tim & Sandie Summers John Taberner & Grant Lang Patricia Thomas OBE Beverley Trivett Loretta van Merwyk Malcolm Watkins Michael Welch Wesfarmers Limited Gillian Woodhouse Ms Di Yeldham Anonymous (3)
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 31
ACO SPECIAL COMMISSIONS The ACO pays tribute to our generous donors who have provided visionary support of the creative arts by collaborating with the ACO to commission new works in 2011 and 2012.
THE REEF LEAD PATRONS
PATRONS
Tony & Michelle Grist
Euroz Charitable Foundation Don & Marie Forrest Tony & Rose Packer Nick & Claire Poll
Jane Albert Steven Alward & Mark Wakely Ian Andrews & Jane Hall Janie & Michael Austin T Cavanagh & J Gardner Anne Coombs & Susan Varga Amy Denmeade Toni Frecker John Gaden AM Cathy Gray
Gavin & Kate Ryan Jon & Caro Stewart Simon & Jenny Yeo Susan Johnston & Pauline Garde Brian Kelleher Andrew Leece Scott Marinchek & David Wynne Kate Mills & Sally Breen Martin Portus Janne Ryan Barbara Schmidt & Peter Cudlipp Richard Steele Stephen Wells & Mischa Way
QINOTH by Paul Stanhope Steven Alward & Mark Wakely Ian Andrews & Jane Hall Janie & Michael Austin Austin Bell & Andrew Carter T Cavanagh & J Gardner Chin Moody Family Anne Coombs & Susan Varga Greg Dickson John Gaden AM Cathy Gray Brian Kelleher
Penny Le Couteur Scott Marinchek & David Wynne Kate Mills Janne Ryan Barbara Schmidt & Peter Cudlipp Jane Smith Richard Steele Peter Weiss AM Cameron Williams Anonymous (1)
OTHER COMMISSIONS
SPECIAL COMMISSIONS PATRONS
Jan Minchin Robert & Nancy Pallin
Dr Margot Woods V Graham
Anonymous (1)
ACO RECORDINGS PROGRAM MENDELSSOHN The ACO pays tribute to our generous donors who have supported the ACO’s 2012 recording of glorious music by Mendelssohn – his Double Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra featuring Richard Tognetti and renowned Russian pianist, Polina Leschenko; and his renowned Octet Op.20. The ACO’s recording program preserves the essence of the ACO as it is today and allows people to hear the ACO again and again, for many years to come. Edmund & Joanna Capon Mr R. Bruce Corlett AM & Mrs Ann Corlett Leslie & Ginny Green Katrina Groshinski
Angela Isles Ian Lansdown in memory of Nina Lansdown Mr Anthony & Mrs Sharon Lee
32 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Bernard & Barbara Leser Ross Steele AM Victoria Taylor Evan Williams
ACO DONATIONS PROGRAM The ACO pays tribute to all of our generous foundations and donors who have contributed to our Emerging Artists and Education Programs, which focus on the development of young Australian musicians. These initiatives are pivotal in securing the future of the ACO and the future of music in Australia. We are extremely grateful for the support that we receive.
PATRONS NATIONAL EDUCATION PROGRAM Janet Holmes à Court AC Marc Besen AO & Eva Besen AO
TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS
HOLMES À COURT FAMILY FOUNDATION THE ROSS TRUST THE NEILSON FOUNDATION EMERGING ARTISTS & EDUCATION PATRONS $10,000+ Mr Robert Albert AO & Mrs Libby Albert Daria & Michael Ball Steven Bardy Guido & Michelle Belgiorno-Nettis Liz Cacciottolo & Walter Lewin John & Janet Calvert-Jones Darin Cooper Family John B Fairfax AO Chris & Tony Froggatt Australian Communities Foundation – Ballandry (Peter Griffin Family) Fund PJ Jopling QC Miss Nancy Kimpton Paula Kinnane Jeff Mitchell Alf Moufarrige John Taberner & Grant Lang The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP & Ms Lucy Turnbull AO Peter Weiss AM E Xipell Anonymous (1)
DIRETTORE $5,000$9,999 The Abercrombie Family Foundation Geoff Alder The Belalberi Foundation Jenny & Stephen Charles Ross & Rona Clarke Leith & Darrel Conybeare Bridget Faye AM Ian & Caroline Frazer Edward C Gray Annie Hawker Rosemary Holden
Keith Kerridge Wayne N Kratzmann Lorraine Logan David Maloney & Erin Flaherty Hon Dr Kemeri Murray AO Louise & Martyn Myer Foundation Marianna & Tony O’Sullivan Sandra & Michael Paul Endowment John Rickard The Roberts Family A J Rogers Paul Salteri Paul Schoff Ian Wallace & Kay Freedman Ian Wilcox & Mary Kostakidis Cameron Williams Anonymous (1)
MAESTRO $2,500$4,999 Michael Ahrens Jane Allen Tiffany Andrews Will & Dorothy Bailey Bequest Doug & Alison Battersby Virginia Berger Patricia Blau Cam & Helen Carter Jon Clark & Lynne Springer Caroline & Robert Clemente M Crittenden John & Gloria Darroch Kate Dixon Leigh Emmett Rhyll Gardner Liangrove Foundation Goode Family Maurice & Tina Green Warren Green
Philip Griffiths Architects Nereda Hanlon & Michael Hanlon AM Liz Harbison Lindi & John Hopkins Angela James & Phil McMaster David & Megan Laidlaw Peter Lovell Alastair Lucas AM The Marshall Family Jan McDonald The Michael Family P J Miller Donald & Jane Morley Jennie & Ivor Orchard S & B Penfold Patricia H Reid Endowment Pty Ltd Ralph & Ruth Renard D N Sanders Greg Shalit & Miriam Faine Petrina Slaytor Amanda Stafford Kerry Stokes AC & Christine Simpson Tom Thawley Dr & Mrs R Tinning Laurie Walker Ralph Ward-Ambler AM & Barbara Ward-Ambler Karen & Geoff Wilson Janie & Nev Wittey Anonymous (2)
VIRTUOSO $1,000$2,499 Annette Adair Antoinette Albert David & Rae Allen Andrew Andersons David Arnott Sibilla Baer The Beeren Foundation
Ruth Bell Victoria Beresin Kathy Borrud Ben & Debbie Brady Vicki Brooke In memory of Elizabeth C Schweig Jasmine Brunner Sally Bufé Neil Burley & Jane Munro G Byrne & D O’Sullivan Elizabeth & Nicholas Callinan J & M Cameron Michael Cameron Cannings Communication Sandra Cassell Ann Cebon-Glass Georg & Monika Chmiel Angela & John Compton Alan Fraser Cooper Judy Croll Betty Crouchley Diana & Ian Curtis Marie Dalziel Lindee & Hamish Dalziell Mrs June Danks Michael & Wendy Davis Anne & Thomas Dowling Jennifer Dowling Professor Dexter Dunphy AM Anne-Maree Englund Bronwyn Eslick Peter Evans Julie Ewington Helen Elizabeth Fairfax Elizabeth Finnegan Nancy & Graham Fox Joanne Frederiksen & Paul Lindwall Colonel Tim Frost Anne & Justin Gardener Daniel & Helen Gauchat Colin Golvan SC Richard & Jay Griffin
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 33
ACO DONATIONS PROGRAM Paul Harris Lyndsey Hawkins Peter Hearl Reg Hobbs & Louise Carbines Michael Horsburgh AM & Beverley Horsburgh Penelope Hughes Wendy Hughes Pam & Bill Hughes Roger Massy-Greene & Belinda Hutchinson AM Phillip Isaacs OAM D & I Kallinikos Len La Flamme John Landers & Linda Sweeny Mrs Judy Lee Greg Lindsay AO & Jenny Lindsay Sydney & Airdrie Lloyd Bronwyn & Andrew Lumsden Judy Lynch Jennifer Marshall Martin Family in memory of Lloyd Martin AM Roderick & Leonie Matheson Jane Mathews AO Kevin & Deidre McCann Brian & Helen McFadyen Ian & Pam McGaw J A McKernan Mrs Helen Meddings G & A Nelson Nola Nettheim Glen Hunter & Anthony Niardone Anne & Christopher Page peckvonhartel architects David Penington AC Ayesha Penman Mark Renehan Dr S M Richards AM & Mrs M R Richards Warwick & Jeanette Richmond In Memory of Andrew Richmond David & Gillian Ritchie Em Prof A W Roberts AM Julia Champtaloup & Andrew Rothery In Memory of H. St. P. Scarlett Paul Skamvougeras Diana Snape & Brian Snape AM Maria Sola & Malcolm Douglas Ezekiel Solomon AM K W Spence Cisca Spencer Peter & Johanna Stirling Benson
Geoffrey Stirton Mr Tom Story John & Jo Strutt Dr Douglas Sturkey CVO AM Dr Charles Su & Dr Emily Lo Rob Thomas Anne Tonkin Colin & Joanne Trumble Ngaire Turner Loretta van Merwyk Kay Vernon Bill Watson M W Wells Sir Robert Woods Nick & Jo Wormald Anna & Mark Yates Don & Mary Ann Yeats Mark Young William Yuille Anonymous (19)
CONCERTINO $500$999 Antoinette Ackermann Mrs Lenore Adamson in memory of Mr Ross Adamson Peter & Catherine Aird Elsa Atkin Jeremy Ian Barth Max Benyon Baiba Berzins Brian Bothwell Denise Braggett Diana Brookes Morena Buffon & Santo Cilauro Darcey Bussell Fred & Jody Chaney Colleen & Michael Chesterman Stephen Chivers John Clayton ClearFresh Water Joan Clemenger Sam Crawford Architects Professor John Daley Ted & Christine Dauber Mari Davis Dr Christopher Dibden Martin Dolan Mike & Pamela Downey In Memory of Raymond Dudley Professor Peter Ebeling & Mr Gary Plover M T & R L Elford Suellen Enestrom Barbara Fargher Michael Fogarty Patricia Gavaghan Mirek Generowicz
Peter & Valerie Gerrand Paul Gibson & Gabrielle Curtin Brian Goddard Prof Ian & Dr Ruth Gough Philip Graham Katrina Groshinski Matthew Handbury Lesley Harland Mr Ken Hawkings Virginia Henry Dr Penny Herbert in memory of Dunstan Herbert M John Higgins & Jodie Maunder Peter & Ann Hollingworth Dr & Mrs Michael Hunter John & Pamela Hutchinson Stephanie & Michael Hutchinson Philip & Sheila Jacobson Deborah James Brian Jones Caroline Jones Angela Karpin Bruce & Natalie Kellett Tony Kynaston & Jenny Fagg Robert Leece AM Megan Lowe John Lui Donald C Maxwell Philip Maxwell & Jane Tham Dr Hamish & Mrs Rosemary McGlashan Patricia McGregor Mrs Robyn McLay I Merrick Jan Minchin John Mitchell & Carol Farlow Graeme L Morgan Julie Moses Helen & Gerald Moylan Susan Negrau J Norman Graham North Robin Offler Allegra & Giselle Overton Selwyn M Owen Josephine Paech L Parsonage Deborah Pearson Kevin Phillips Michael Power Tomasz Rawdanowicz Larry & Mickey Robertson Sophie Rothery Team Schmoopy Manfred & Linda Salamon Greg & Elizabeth Sanderson Robert Savage AM Garry Scarf & Morgie Blaxill Jeff Schwartz
Ken & Lucille Seale Jennifer Sindel John Sydney Smith Dr Fiona Stewart Prof Robert Sutherland Shaun Tan Master William Taylor Leslie C Thiess Joy Anderson & Neil Thomas David Walsh John & Pat Webb G C & R Weir Gordon & Christine Windeyer Mr Hugh Wyndham Anonymous (29)
CONTINUO CIRCLE BEQUEST PROGRAM The late Kerstin Lillemor Andersen Dave Beswick Ruth Bell Sandra Cassell The late Mrs Moya Crane Mrs Sandra Dent Leigh Emmett The late Colin Enderby Peter Evans Carol Farlow Ms Charlene France Suzanne Gleeson Lachie Hill Penelope Hughes The late Mr Geoff Lee AM OAM Mrs Judy Lee The late Richard Ponder Margaret & Ron Wright Mark Young Anonymous (10)
LIFE PATRONS IBM Mr Robert Albert AO & Mrs Libby Albert Mr Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM Mrs Barbara Blackman Mrs Roxane Clayton Mr David Constable AM Mr Martin Dickson AM & Mrs Susie Dickson Mr John Harvey AO Mrs Alexandra Martin Mrs Faye Parker Mr John Taberner & Mr Grant Lang Mr Peter Weiss AM
CONTRIBUTIONS If you would like to consider making a donation or bequest to the ACO, or would like to direct your support in other ways, please contact Lillian Armitage on 02 8274 3835 or at Lillian.Armitage@aco.com.au. 34 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
ACO INSTRUMENT FUND BOARD MEMBERS Bill Best (Chairman) Jessica Block Janet Holmes à Court AC
John Leece OAM John Taberner
ACO COMMITTEES SYDNEY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE Bill Best (Chairman) Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM Chairman ACO & Executive Director Transfield Holdings Leigh Birtles Executive Director UBS Wealth Management
Liz Cacciottolo Senior Advisor UBS Australia Ian Davis Managing Director Telstra Television
Tony Gill Rhyll Gardner Tony O’Sullivan Managing Partner O’Sullivan Partners
Chris Froggatt
Peter Shorthouse Client Advisor UBS Wealth Management John Taberner Consultant Freehills
MELBOURNE DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL Peter Yates AM (Chairman) Chairman Royal Institution of Australia Director AIAA Ltd
Debbie Brady Ben Brady Stephen Charles
Paul Cochrane Investment Advisor Bell Potter Securities Colin Golvan SC
Jan Minchin Director Tolarno Galleries Susan Negrau
EVENT COMMITTEES Bowral
Brisbane
Sydney
Elsa Atkin Michael Ball AM (Chairman) Daria Ball Cam Carter Linda Hopkins Judy Lynch Karen Mewes Keith Mewes Tony O’Sullivan Marianna O’Sullivan The Hon Michael Yabsley
Ross Clarke Steffi Harbert Elaine Millar Deborah Quinn
Helene Burt Liz Cacciottolo (Chair) Judy Crawford Dr Dee Debruyn Di Collins Judy Anne Edwards Chris Froggatt Elizabeth Harbison Susan Harte Bee Hopkins Sarah Jenkins
Vanessa Jenkins Charlotte Mackenzie Prue MacLeod Julianne Maxwell Marianna O’Sullivan Julia Pincus Amanda Purcell David Stewart Tom Thawley Nicky Tindill
ACO CAPITAL CHALLENGE The ACO Capital Challenge is a secure fund, which permanently strengthens the ACO’s future. Revenue generated by the corpus provides funds to commission new works, expose international audiences to the ACO’s unique programming, support the development of young Australian artists and establish and strengthen a second ensemble. We would like to thank all donors who have contributed towards reaching our goal and in particular pay tribute to the following donors: CONCERTO $250,000 – $499,000
OCTET $100,000 – $249,000
QUARTET $50,000 – $99,000
Mr Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM & Mrs Michelle Belgiorno-Nettis Mrs Barbara Blackman
Mr Robert Albert AO & Mrs Libby Albert Mrs Amina Belgiorno-Nettis The Thomas Foundation
The Clayton Family Mr Peter Hall Mr & Mrs Philip & Fiona Latham
Mr John Taberner & Mr Grant Lang Mr Peter Yates AM & Mrs Susan Yates
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 35
ACO PARTNERS 2012 CHAIRMAN’S COUNCIL MEMBERS The Chairman’s Council is a limited membership association of high level executives who support the ACO’s international touring program and enjoy private events in the company of Richard Tognetti and the Orchestra. Mr Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM Chairman Australian Chamber Orchestra & Executive Director Transfield Holdings Mr Philip Bacon AM Director Philip Bacon Galleries
Mr Colin Golvan SC & Dr Deborah Golvan Mr John Grill Chief Executive Officer WorleyParsons Mrs Janet Holmes à Court AC
Mr Donald McGauchie AO Chairman Nufarm Limited
Mr Andrew Stevens Managing Director IBM Australia & New Zealand
Mr John Meacock Managing Partner NSW Deloitte
Mr Paul Sumner Director Mossgreen Pty Ltd
Ms Naomi Milgrom AO Mr & Mrs Simon & Katrina Holmes à Court Ms Jan Minchin Mr David Baffsky AO Director Observant Pty Limited Tolarno Galleries Mr Brad Banducci Mr John James Director Mr Jim Minto Managing Director Woolworths Liquor Managing Director Vanguard Group TAL Ms Catherine Mr Jeff Bond Mr Clark Morgan Livingstone AO General Manager Vice Chairman Chairman Peter Lehmann Wines UBS Wealth Telstra Mr Michael & Management Australia Mrs Helen Carapiet Mr Andrew Low Mr Alf Chief Executive Officer Mr Stephen & RedBridge Grant Samuel Moufarrige OAM Mrs Jenny Charles Chief Executive Officer Servcorp Mr Steven Lowy AM Mr & Mrs Robin Chief Executive Officer Crawford Mr Scott Perkins Westfield Group Head of Global Banking Rowena Danziger AM Deutsche Bank Mr Didier Mahout & Kenneth G. Coles AM Australia/New Zealand CEO Australia & NZ BNP Paribas Dr Bob Every Mr Oliver Roydhouse Chairman Managing Director Mr David Mathlin Wesfarmers Inlink Senior Principal Mr Robert Scott Sinclair Knight Merz Managing Director Mr Glen Sealey Wesfarmers Insurance General Manager Ms Julianne Maxwell Mr Angelos Maserati Australia & Frangopoulos New Zealand Mr Michael Maxwell Chief Executive Officer Australian News Channel Mr Geoff McClellan Mr Ray Shorrocks Head of Corporate Partner Mr Richard Freudenstein Freehills Finance, Sydney Chief Executive Officer Patersons Securities FOXTEL 36 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Mr Mitsuyuki (Mike) Takada Managing Director & CEO Mitsubishi Australia Ltd Mr Alden Toevs Group Chief Risk Officer Commonwealth Bank of Australia Mr Michael Triguboff Managing Director MIR Investment Management Ltd The Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP & Ms Lucy Turnbull AO Ms Vanessa Wallace Director Booz & Company Mr Kim Williams AM Chief Executive Officer News Limited Mr Geoff Wilson Chief Executive Officer KPMG Australia Mr Peter Yates AM Chairman, Royal Institution of Australia Director, AIAA Ltd
ACO CORPORATE PARTNERS The ACO would like to thank its corporate partners for their generous support.
FOUNDING PARTNER
ACO2 PRINCIPAL PARTNER
NATIONAL TOUR PARTNERS
OFFICIAL PARTNERS
PERTH SERIES & WA REGIONAL TOUR PARTNER
CONCERT AND SERIES PARTNERS
Peter Weiss AM Daryl Dixon EVENT PARTNERS
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 37
ACO NEWS • AUGUST 2012
news ANNUAL GIVING CAMPAIGN 20 July Update Our sincerest thanks to everyone who has made a donation in our 2012 Annual Giving Campaign, which supports the vital work of our National Education Program. We have raised just over half of our goal of $500,000 to support our ever-expanding Education Programs which, this year, visit students in every state, across regional and metropolitan Australia and at every level of the education system. Together we can continue to inspire young people across Australia. If you have not already done so, we hope you will consider supporting our National Education Programs. Please visit www.aco.com.au/support
NEW CD Sharon Bezaly: Pipe Dreams We recorded this CD with the extraordinary flute player Sharon Bezaly when she toured Australia with us in 2009. Featuring contemporary South American and Australian works for flute and chamber orchestra: Serebrier’s Flute Concerto with Tango, Izarra’s Pitangus Sulphuratus, Vine’s Pipe Dreams and Ginastera’s Impresiones de la Puna.
38 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
ANNUAL GIVING CAMPAIGN Total Donations $ 500,000 $ 400,000 $ 300,000 $ 200,000 $ 100,000 $0
$
294,987
WESFARMERS TOUR SUMMARY Building on success… Through July, Richard Tognetti, members of the ACO and ACO2 travelled from Darwin to Perth and Sydney on The Reef Tour. Created through Richard’s extraordinary vision — with collaborators including Jon Frank, Mick Sowry and Iain Grandage — The Reef Tour was made possible through the support of our Principal Tour Sponsor, Wesfarmers Arts.
way. Fourteen years ago, with Wesfarmers’ assistance, we expanded the ACO’s National Concert Season to include Perth on a regular basis. We are therefore delighted to have been able to build on the success of this longstanding partnership, to
present the extraordinary in the country’s leading concert halls as well its community halls.
PERTH SERIES & WA REGIONAL TOUR PARTNER
Through the educational activities conducted as part of The Reef Tour, we have been able to offer once-ina-lifetime opportunities for young people to hear and enjoy classes with some of this country’s most talented and inspirational artists.
ACO Emerging Artists work with school children in Broome. © Mick Sowry
© Louis Thorn
The ACO’s association with Wesfarmers goes back a long
ACO2 during The Reef tour in Western Australia.
Richard Tognetti and ACO2 rehearsing for The Reef.
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 39
EDUCATION NEWS July Update
ACO2 made its Sydney Opera House and Perth Concert Hall debuts after touring through regional Western Australia, performing The Reef. Along the way, they worked with local school children.
all over Australia playing alongside us for a week. The week culminated in a concert at City Recital Hall Angel Place with soloist Emily Sun and the Academy students playing to a full house.
We also performed at Our Lady of Carmel School in Waterloo, Sydney, for an audience of primary school children. This concert was organised in partnership with the Australian Children’s Music Foundation. © Fiora Sacco
Our National Education Program is expanding exponentially and in July we worked with students at every level from all over Australia.
Melbourne students came to hear our first matinee concert presented specifically for secondary students at Melbourne Recital Centre, hosted by Limelight Magazine Editor, Francis Merson. The inaugural ACO Academy also took place in July, with 27 talented students from
Aiko Goto leads the ACO Academy Orchestra.
YOUR SAY Feedback about The Reef “The Reef, Perth: Hypnotic Rapture! I was transfixed and mesmerised for the full two hours, barely surfacing to catch my breath between waves... I was glued to my seat long after the auditorium cleared. The return to reality was more than I could bare – an audio, visual and sensory heaven. Thank you so much to the entire team, crew, visionaries and supporters who made this magic happen.” Cath Resnick
“We have just got home from enjoying the ACO play The Reef. It is the most fantastic artistic performance I have ever seen. The music – with the film – with the didgeridoo – with the singing – I was enthralled from start to finish. Such a talented team of people – Jon Frank, Richard Tognetti, Derek Hynd, Iain Grandage, Stephen Pigram, Mark Atkins and all of the others – to combine and bring us this most beautiful of performing art. Amazing!! Thank you so, so much. If I could I would definitely go again, and again!” Lee and Richard Stevens
Let us know what you thought about this concert at aco@aco.com.au.
40 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
YOUR SAY Feedback about the Trout Quintet & Quartet for the End of Time beyond that. It was truly sublime. What an etherial and transcendent performance! It was like waking from a dream at the close.â&#x20AC;? Sue Thorvaldson
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thank you for an amazing concert last night. Especially the Messiaen...amazing and very inspirational.â&#x20AC;? Rory Smith â&#x20AC;&#x153;I attended the ACO chamber music concert in Brisbane last night, featuring Schubertâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Trout Quintet and Messiaenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Quartet for the End of Time. I would like to congratulate Paul Dean in particular for his fantastic clarinet performance in Quartet for the End of Time â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it was a real revelation.â&#x20AC;? Geoffrey Trim â&#x20AC;&#x153;I had the great fortune to see the ACO concert in Sydney yesterday. Thank you so much for a wonderful time. The Schubert was very enjoyable, but the Messiaen was
â&#x20AC;&#x153;Saw this last night and was blown away. The Schubert was intricate, flamboyant and joyous. The Messiaen could not have been more different it its intent. Sombre, stark. The program really put it into perspective for me. Synathesia, Death Camp, Revelations â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the end of time. The Messiaen clarinet solo and the last moments of the violin is soul wrenching given the setting of authoring and first performance of this piece. So great.â&#x20AC;? Job Wallis
Let us know what you thought about this concert at aco@aco.com.au.
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