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HOW DO YOU CELEBRATE A VIOLIN OVER 250 YEARS OLD? When the violin in question is a rare Guadagnini, handmade in 1759, you celebrate by giving it the biggest possible audience you can find. That’s why we lent ours to the Australian Chamber Orchestra. That way, thousands of people can experience its remarkable sound. After all, an instrument this special is worth celebrating.
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O U T S TA N D I N G I N D I V I D UA L E X P E RT I S E . A M P L I F I E D.
ACO W H AT ’S ON A C O V IR T U A L UNTIL 27 MAY HAMILTON, BALLARAT, BENDIGO Join our virtual orchestra on a tour of regional Victoria. Direct members of the ACO as they perform in your very own musical journey. aco.com.au/acovirtual
A C O E N S E MBL E & P E NR I T H S T R ING S 21 MAY PENRITH ACO Musicians join the Penrith Strings for their first public concert of 2017, featuring music by Mozart, Haydn and Mendelssohn. aco.com.au/penrith
A C O UL URU F E S T I VA L 2–4 JUNE ULURU We return to the spiritual heart of Australia. Featuring Australian soprano Greta Bradman and members of the Gondwana Indigenous Children’s Choir. aco.com.au/uluru
MOUN TA IN 12 JUNE PREMIERE 3–20 AUGUST NATIONAL TOUR A unique musical journey through vistas few have visited, this is a visceral experience by film director Jennifer Peedom, Richard Tognetti and the ACO. aco.com.au/mountain
DE AT H & T HE M A IDE N 14–23 JUNE BALLARAT, BENDIGO, HAMILTON, HEALESVILLE, HORSHAM, WARRNAMBOOL Swedish violinist Malin Broman directs ACO Collective in an inventive program of emotive music by Schubert, Dowland and Britten. aco.com.au/deathmaiden
IN T IM AT E MO Z A R T 24 JUNE–9 JULY ADELAIDE, CANBERRA, MELBOURNE, NEWCASTLE, PERTH, SYDNEY, WOLLONGONG Experience one of the world’s leading performers of Mozart, pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout, as he joins Richard Tognetti and an intimate ACO ensemble for a performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.13 in C major. aco.com.au/mozart 8
ME S S AGE F ROM T HE M A N A GING DIR E C T OR
What a wonderful start we have had to 2017, and this program promises to continue the fine music-making of recent months, at home and abroad. The ACO is often referred to as an orchestra of soloists, and we always look forward to the opportunity to feature our own musicians within our programs. Principal Violin Satu Vänskä plays Pietro Locatelli’s extraordinarily difficult Violin Concerto nicknamed The Harmonic Labyrinth, and our former Emerging Artist, now full-time ACO Violin, Glenn Christensen, will take to the stage as co-soloist for the Vivaldi alongside Satu and Principal Cello Timo-Veikko ‘Tipi’ Valve. I pay tribute to the Libling Family for their generous commission of James Ledger’s new work The Natural Order of Things, written in honour of Simon Libling whose fascinating life story appears in full on our website, and in edited form in this program. Over the years, the Orchestra has had some of the world’s rarest and most beautiful instruments come in to our midst, combining to produce the burnished sound for which the ACO is renowned. These include the 1729 Guarneri filius Andreæ cello, recently donated to the ACO by Peter Weiss ao; the Guadagnini violin on loan from the Commonwealth Bank; instruments by Guarneri del Gesù, Maggini and Da Salò on loan from anonymous benefactors; and the Stradivari and Guarneri violins purchased by the ACO Instrument Fund. On this tour we have an additional special treat in store. I am very pleased to announce that the ACO Instrument Fund has made another acquisition – a 1616 Hieronymus and Antonio Amati cello – which will become part of the Orchestra’s ever-growing stable of extraordinary instruments. This exquisite masterpiece made by two of Cremona’s finest instrument makers of the 17th century will be introduced to our audiences by Tipi as he is centre stage for Debussy’s Cello Sonata in an arrangement by Australian composer Jack Symonds. I do hope you enjoy the concert.
Richard Evans
Managing Director 9
“EXCEPTIONALLY ABSORBING ” THE NEW YORK TIMES ON JENNIFER PEEDOM ’ S SHERPA
A unique musical journey through vistas few have visited – a visceral experience with live visuals by the gifted film director Jennifer Peedom and music by Richard Tognetti and the ACO.
12 JUNE
3–2 0 A UGU S T
SYDNEY OPER A HOUSE | VIVID LIVE & SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL WORLD PREMIERE
ADELAIDE, BRISBANE, CANBERR A , MELBOURNE, NEWCASTLE, PERTH, SYDNEY
TICKETS FROM $59 | ACO.COM.AU | 1800 444 444 (MON–FRI , 9AM–5PM AEST ) Transaction fees apply. Subject to availability.
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Produced by Stranger Than Fiction Films and Lingo Pictures, in association with Camp 4 Collective, Sherpas Cinema and the ACO.
ACO SOLOISTS Satu Vänskä Director & Violin Glenn Christensen Violin Timo-Veikko Valve Cello CRAWFORD SEEGER Andante for Strings VIVALDI Concerto for Two Violins and Cello in G minor, Op.3, No.2, RV578 I. Adagio e spiccato II. Allegro III. Larghetto IV. Allegro JAMES LEDGER The Natural Order of Things
world premiere
LOCATELLI Violin Concerto in D major, Op.3, No.12 The Harmonic Labyrinth I. Allegro II. Largo – III. Allegro Interval DEBUSSY (arr. Symonds) Sonata for Violoncello I. Prologue: Lent, sostenuto e molto risoluto II. Sérénade: Modérément animé III. Finale: Animé, léger et nerveux MENDELSSOHN (arr. strings) String Quartet in A minor, Op.13 I. Adagio – Allegro vivace II. Adagio non lento III. Intermezzo: Allegretto con moto – Allegro di molto IV. Presto – Adagio non lento
The Australian Chamber Orchestra reserves the right to alter scheduled artists and programs as necessary.
Approximate durations (minutes): 5 – 9 – 13 – 22 – INTERVAL – 12 – 28 The concert will last approximately two hours, including a 20-minute interval.
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WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO HE AR Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, Giuseppe Guarneri filius Andreæ, Hieronymus and Antonio Amati. Some of the greatest instrument makers the world has ever seen. And their artistry, pursuit of perfect craftsmanship and invention ushered in the era of the virtuoso, particularly for the violin. Composers such as Tartini, Corelli, Albinoni, Geminiani, and Antonio Vivaldi and Pietro Locatelli, both of whom are featured on this program, were eager to demonstrate the full range of virtuosic brilliance the violin could offer. Locatelli’s 12th concerto from his Opus 3 set, L’arte del violin, published in 1732, even comes with a warning to those who dare to play it: easy to enter, hard to exit. PICTURED: The difficulty of Locatelli’s The Harmonic Labyrinth is best depicted by the number of notes on just one of the many pages of this fiendishly difficult Concerto.
But these words of caution are not a deterrent to ACO Principal Violin and curator of the ACO Soloists program, Satu Vänskä; rather they serve as a source of inspiration and encouragement. “The Locatelli is such a peculiar and, in some ways unconventional piece. It has taken me months to get my head around it. There are just so many notes to play. He was the one that encouraged Paganini. Locatelli wrote 24 Caprices, then Paganini obviously played them and wrote his. Everyone knows Paganini’s but few people know the original inspiration,” says Satu. “Locatelli’s concerto is just so physically exhausting; the whole piece is relentless. But I find that really compelling as a violinist. It isn’t performed very often. I’m not even sure if it has been played in Australia before. The ACO certainly hasn’t.” “This whole concert is about showcasing the ACO in all its diversity. It demonstrates the range of what we can do and what we can play,” she says. Timo-Veikko Valve, Principal Cello and also soloist in this concert concurs. “In a program such as this, one can really experience and hear all the voices that make this an Orchestra of soloists, not just those at the front.” “This program might look esoteric on paper, but there is a lot of thought into how it all fits together,” Satu continues. “We have the ‘new’ pieces – Ruth Crawford Seeger’s Adagio and James Ledger’s The Natural Order of Things – juxtaposed with these Italian Baroque masterpieces by Locatelli and Vivaldi. It is like a trompe l’oeil except for the ear, hearing these old pieces with some fresher pieces and making them sound a bit like ghosts, taking them into the 21st century.”
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Glenn Christensen, a former Emerging Artist and now full-time member of the ACO, will be joining Satu and Tipi for Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins and Cello. “Vivaldi was so extraordinarily prolific and inventive in his writing. His music is so exciting and distinctive, that even after hundreds of years it’s still relevant” Glenn says.
PICTURED: Satu Vänskä
Tipi will come front and centre for Jack Symonds’ arrangement of Debussy’s Sonata for Cello and Piano. “Jack has reworked the delicate and characterful dialogue between the cello and piano in a way that the original cello part stays unchanged, but the piano part is divided into 11 solo string parts. This method highlights the intimacy of the conversation without overorchestrating the original score and thus making it a concertante piece, soloist versus orchestra.” But it is Mendelssohn’s String Quartet arranged for string orchestra that all three soloists agree is the binding force on the program. “I’m excited to revisit this work after performing it numerous times with my quartet in Finland. It’s definitely one of the cornerstones that has, after Haydn and Beethoven, secured this art form’s importance,” said Tipi.
PICTURED: Glenn Christensen
PICTURED: Timo-Veikko Valve
Satu has always wanted to perform this quartet with the full forces of the ACO. “It follows on nicely from the late Beethoven quartets we performed last year. Beethoven’s late quartets were certainly not popular in his lifetime. Mendelssohn’s own father and his peers did not value the strange, internal, complex quartets written by the then fully deaf master. However, the young Mendelssohn was fascinated by them and eagerly studied the scores that had only been published recently. A genius himself, he saw the quality in Beethoven’s works and used them as an inspiration when writing his first mature quartet in A minor. Mendelssohn was ahead of his time in acknowledging the uniqueness of these late Beethoven works. This is a mindset we like to follow at ACO also: forward-thinking and without prejudice.”
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ABOUT THE MUSIC RUTH CRAWFORD SEEGER Born East Liverpool, Ohio, 1901. Died Chevy Chase, Maryland, 1953. ANDANTE FOR STRINGS Composed 1931. Orchestrated by the composer 1938. Raised in Florida, Ruth Crawford Seeger studied at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, where she studied composition and theory with Adolf Weidig. With her first Piano Preludes of 1924, Crawford had already developed her own unique, ‘ultra-modern’ voice. In 1926, Crawford composed her Sonata for Violin and Piano, often performed at modern music concerts in the late twenties; critics remarked that Crawford could ‘sling dissonances like a man’. She was recognised early on as a woman composer who did not fit the sentimental stereotypes.
PICTURED: Ruth Crawford Seeger. 14
‘. . .a study in dissonant dynamics . . . carefully organised to be shaped through single pitches in each instrument. . .’ RUTH CRAWFORD SEEGER By 1930, Ruth Crawford was a force to be reckoned with in American modernism. Stylistically, her work stood out in its uncompromising use of dissonance, contrapuntal ostinato, striking choice of texts and tidy formal construction. In March 1930, Crawford won a Guggenheim Fellowship to travel to Europe; the first woman so honoured. The following year witnessed her most famous work – String Quartet, from which the Andante comes. In 1929, she began studies with Charles Seeger, a key figure in American music as a composer, theorist, and musicologist. They married in 1932, with Ruth assuming responsibility for his children from a previous marriage, including son Pete, soon to become one of America’s best known folksingers. She likewise adopted several of Seeger’s theoretical methods that mark the works of her most productive period, 1930-33. However, her composing came to a virtual standstill after 1934. Among her children with Seeger were daughter Peggy and son Mike, both to become renowned folksingers and teachers in adulthood. In 1936, the Seegers moved to Washington DC to work in folksong collecting for the Library of Congress. PICTURED: Charles Seeger.
As Ruth Crawford Seeger, she published her own pioneering collection, American Folk Songs for Children in 1948. She only returned to serious composition with the Suite for Wind Quintet in 1952. By the time it was completed, she learned she had cancer. She died at the age of 52, ending prematurely a career that had begun with extraordinary promise. Crawford Seeger’s 1931 String Quartet is widely considered to be a masterpiece. She described the slow movement as ‘a study in dissonant dynamics, the waxing and waning of crescendos and diminuendos carefully organised to be shaped through single pitches in each instrument’. She arranged the slow movement for string orchestra in 1938. Describing its concentrated power, music critic Peter Dickinson described her as ‘a kind of American Webern’. Australian Chamber Orchestra © 2017
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ANTONIO VIVALDI Born Venice, 1678. Died Vienna, 1741. CONCERTO FOR TWO VIOLINS AND CELLO IN G MINOR, OP.3, NO.2, RV578 Composed 1711. I. Adagio e spiccato II. Allegro III. Larghetto IV. Allegro Both Antonio Vivaldi and Pietro Locatelli enjoyed careers as violin virtuosos and composers, and both benefited immensely from the developments in printing being made by music publishers in the Netherlands. Vivaldi’s works included some 500 concertos as well as many operas, instrumental sonatas and a large body of sacred music. His playing was clearly prodigious. One contemporary describes how Vivaldi ‘put his fingers but a hair’s breadth from the bow, so that there was scarcely room for the bow’. Vivaldi pioneered technical advances, such as using the highest register of the strings, which were unknown at the time. PICTURED: Antonio Vivaldi.
In 1711, Vivaldi met the Amsterdam-based printer Estienne Roger, who had revolutionised music printing. Instead of moveable type, Roger engraved plates, and used beams to link shorter notes like quavers and semiquavers. The music could therefore be printed as often as needed, and it had the great virtue of being much more legible. Vivaldi’s Opus 3, or L’estro armonico (The harmonious fancy), a collection of 12 concertos for a variety of instrumental combinations appeared in Roger’s edition in 1711. Roger was so impressed at the collection’s popularity that he ordered what became Opp. 5, 6 and 7 and engraved them at his own expense. It soon became, as scholar Michael Talbot puts it ‘perhaps the most influential collection of instrumental music to appear during the whole of the 18th century’. L’estro armonico includes four solo concertos and eight concerti grossi where a group of soloists (the concertino) is pitted against the rest of the band (the ripieno). In the G minor work the concertino consists of two violins and cello. Vivaldi’s treatment of the concertino is different from that of older composers in that he treats each member of it as a soloist,
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mixing and matching the solo, duet and trio possibilities it offers. The G minor concerto is also unusual, and slightly oldfashioned, in that it is what was known as concerto da chiesa, or ‘church concerto’. This is not to say that it was used in liturgical contexts, but refers to the fact that it consists of four movements, slow-fast-slow-fast, unlike the concerto da camera, or chamber concerto, that Vivaldi pioneered with its fast-slowfast movement layout. A recent recording of the manuscript version shows the small but significant revisions that Vivaldi made before allowing Roger to publish the piece. PICTURED: 1st Edition title page of L’estro armonico by Etienne Roger, 1711.
The opening consists of those implacable spiky figures that Vivaldi turns to illustrative effect in the ‘Winter’ concerto of the Four Seasons, with the concertino violins only emerging at the end. For much of the following allegro they play ornate figures in rhythmic unison against simple accompaniment, though Vivaldi introduces passages of syncopated motifs against driving fast semiquavers that swap from concertino to orchestra and treble to bass in what is known as invertible counterpoint. There are also substantial duets between first violin and cello. The slow movement, with its use of short motifs dominated by dotted rhythms, cultivates a ceremonial air, its material passed from the orchestra to the concertino trio. This is dispelled by the finale, whose boisterous 12/8 metre suggests a gigue or tarantella. Gordon Kerry © 2017 17
JAMES LEDGER Born Perth, 1966. THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS
world premiere
Composed 2016. The orchestral music of James Ledger is well known to Australian concertgoers. His first work for orchestra, Indian Pacific (1996), is still regularly performed around the country. Ledger has been composer-in-residence with the West Australian, Adelaide and Christchurch (NZ) Symphony Orchestras and at the Australian National Academy of Music, the Australian Festival of Chamber Music (Townsville) and the Four Winds Festival (Bermagui). He has won APRA Art Music Awards for his violin concerto Golden Years and the orchestral work Chronicles.
PICTURED: James Ledger.
Ledger enjoys an ongoing collaboration with songwriter Paul Kelly. Their song-cycle Conversations with Ghosts won an ARIA award in 2013. In 2015 the Sydney and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras simultaneously premiered War Music for choir and orchestra, with text by Kelly. James Ledger is currently lecturer in composition at the School of Music at the University of Western Australia. For more information please visit jamesledger.com 18
CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF SIMON LIBLING Simon Libling’s life is a story of vicissitudes: fortitude, hard work, success followed by disaster, the process repeated over and over. He was born in 1912 in Krakow, which was then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a very wealthy family. His father died before he was born. His mother invested all in debt instruments. The post-WWI hyperinflation reduced her to penury, unable to support her children, so Simon lived with his grandfather. He became a furrier and, despite the Great Depression, established a flourishing business. He supported many members of his family, no matter what their circumstance. Simon was never afraid of work, often working for 20 hours a day, seven days a week for the half-year fur season. In the other six months, he studied philosophy at University, went to the theatre and concerts, and read. Books were real to him. He seemed to think that there were answers to life to be found in philosophy and great literature. He was also a qualified skiing instructor, as well as district figure-skating champion. The German invasion of Poland ended that life. The closing of synagogues led to an unexpected bonus. He visited a friend on the Day of Atonement and there met his future wife Mary, who was by his side for their 46year marriage, until his death in 1987. Mary, now 96, lives in Melbourne. Simon escaped from the Plaszow Concentration Camp. He would never say much about this except for: ‘I did not like it, so I left.’ His life was saved by hiding in a former walk-in wardrobe with so little space that after the war he had to re-learn to walk.
At the end of the war, he and Mary sacrificed a precious stone from a ring in exchange for rucksacks of food which they then walked from Krakow to Prague to exchange for perfume, which they then walked to Vienna, selling it to American soldiers. Now having money, they returned to Krakow and repeated the process. The Czechoslovakian State decorated Simon for saving tens of thousands of lives from starvation. He also made enough money to establish Poland’s largest gumboots and allied shoe wear factory. In 1947, when the Stalinists took over Poland, Simon was classified a class enemy. Not the deadly designation it would have been in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, but it did make life difficult and unpleasant until 1956. During those difficult years, Simon found solace in music, going to concerts in Krakow and Warsaw. He also developed a deep affection for gypsy and piano accordion music, befriending and assisting many of its practitioners. Simon was a devoted father. Virtually every Sunday, Simon took his son for a long walk, during which they talked of everything from anti-semitism to the gold standard. But his son’s independent thinking came at a price: Simon was charged and convicted in 1959 of ‘bringing up an anti-socialist child’. The sentence was five years with hard labour, but he avoided serving the sentence and left Poland. In October 1960, the Liblings arrived in Melbourne with less than $100, some, not entirely suitable, clothing and no knowledge of English. Simon’s legacy of hard work, self-reliance and devotion to doing the right thing lives on through his grandsons.
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The story of Simon Libling’s life reads like a film script.
The composer writes: The Natural Order of Things came about through a commission for the Australian Chamber Orchestra by David and Sandy Libling. I first met them both in January 2015. David sought to commission a piece in celebration of his father, Simon. I asked David if he would write a little about his father just so I could form some ideas for the work. What I received was an account of his father’s truly astounding life. Simon lived in Poland and experienced a great many setbacks – ‘a story of vicissitudes’ as David put it. A life that included time in and escaping from Plaszow concentration camp and having to learn to walk again after hiding in a wardrobe during the war. After the war, he and his wife Mary walked from Krakow to Prague (to exchange food for perfume) and then to Vienna (to exchange perfume for money). He was decorated by the Czechoslovakian State for saving tens of thousands of lives from starvation. The story of Simon’s life reads like a film script. Perhaps the most memorable part for me was how Simon would take David for long walks virtually every Sunday throughout Simon’s boyhood. Here, ‘they talked of everything from antiSemitism to the gold standard’. The thought of ‘passing the baton’ between father and son, down the generations, led to the title, The Natural Order of Things. The work had an incredibly long gestation, and went through many different shapes and forms before settling on its final iteration which consists of five short movements – each having it’s own mood and characteristic: I. Static and serene II. With a sense of burden III. Threatening and agitated IV. Ceremonial V. Calm and resolute The Natural Order of Things was commissioned by David and Sandy Libling in celebration of the life of Simon Libling for the Australian Chamber Orchestra. It was an honour for me to write this work. James Ledger © 2017
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PIETRO ANTONIO LOCATELLI Born Bergamo, 1695. Died Amsterdam, 1764. VIOLIN CONCERTO IN D MAJOR, OP.3, NO.12 THE HARMONIC LABYRINTH
Composed 1733. I. Allegro II. Largo – III. Allegro A generation younger, Locatelli pushed violin technique even further than Vivaldi, devising new positions to play ever higher on the instrument, as well as expanding the role of double- and triple-stopping, and polyphonic playing. His compositions exist largely to demonstrate that prodigious technique, though, curiously, Locatelli avoided the public limelight as his career progressed. He worked largely in Rome until 1723, when his patron, Monsignor Cybo left the papal court, and from then until 1729 seems to have performed in various German cities before settling in Amsterdam. He had had works published by Vivaldi’s publisher, Roger in 1721, but a decade later was granted a monopoly to print his own music (in the days before copyright a composer’s work was fair game). He only gave private weekly concerts to well-heeled music lovers at his home in Amsterdam, where he lived out the rest of his life.
PICTURED: Pietro Antonio Locatelli c. 1733. From a mezzotinto by Cornelis Troost (1696–1750). 21
PICTURED: Dedication page of L’Arte del Violino.
L’arte del violin was published in 1732. It is a series of 12 concertos, in the three-movement design established by Vivaldi, but the fast outer movements have unaccompanied Capriccios grafted onto them. The first movement, nicknamed the ‘harmonic labyrinth’ by the composer, which bears the inscription ‘facilis aditus, difficilis exitus’ (easy to enter, difficult to exit). It is introduced by a simple D major sentence from the cello before the others join in with, soon enough, the soloist playing in extravagant threepart harmony above the fray. The Capriccio acts as a kind of cadenza, that is the unaccompanied, quasi-improvised starturn for the soloist – and is a simple pattern of chords on the page, marked ‘arpeggio’ – thus an opportunity for pyrotechnic display. After a short orchestral introduction, the slow movement, in the relative minor key (a more classical than Baroque practice) begins with a long and ornate melody for the soloist accompanied only by continuo – that is the cello with optional harmony from a keyboard. At its centre the movement has a much faster (presto) section where isolated orchestral chords support a feverish moto perpetuo from the soloist. A version of the opening material acts as a bridge to the finale, a gracious dance in 3/8 metre, that again offsets a brilliant capriccio in driving semiquavers and always in two- or three-part harmony. Gordon Kerry © 2017 22
CLAUDE DEBUSSY Born St Germain-en-Laye 1862. Died Paris 1918. SONATA FOR CELLO AND PIANO Composed 1915. I. Prologue: Lent, sostenuto e molto risoluto II. Sérénade: Modérément animé III. Finale: Animé, léger et nerveux Paris before the outbreak of World War I was a city giddy with the progress of science, industry and art. It was the time of ‘La Belle Epoque’, as we now call it. The good old days . . .
PICTURED: Claude Debussy by Donald Sheridan.
Claude Debussy was witness to the end of these heady days, as Paris and indeed the world prepared for the Great War. This pre-War period saw the rapid decline of his health. As with Mozart, the miserable circumstances in which Debussy found himself during his dying days are not reflected in the music which he composed at the time. In agony from the final stages of cancer, with the First World War at its height with millions of young people going to senseless deaths, and with 23
. . . an example ‘of what a sick man can write in wartime’. CLAUDE DEBUSSY
most of his own musical masterpieces mistakenly interpreted under the label of ‘impressionism’, the composer, in his mid-50s, was close to despair. And yet, even as he felt the dark night closing in around him, he set out to compose a series of six sonatas for various instruments, three of which were completed before he succumbed to the inevitable, and none of which could be described as reflecting his current mental state. True, he described the Sonata for flute, viola and harp as ‘frightfully mournful’, but to the listener, it’s radiant. The Violin Sonata represents a triumphant rediscovery of the Classical style. Its simplicity and structural clarity was a call-to-arms to his countrymen – he wrote ‘I want to work, not so much for myself, but to give proof, however small it may be, that even if there were thirty million Boches, French thought will not be destroyed!’
PICTURED: First page of the Sonata for Cello and Piano by Claude Debussy.
And the Cello Sonata, Debussy described as an example ‘of what a sick man can write in wartime’. It’s almost whimsical in its jaunty good humour and sense of invention and is a picture of musical health. But perhaps most surprising, is Debussy’s decision to use a traditional sonata form structure – one of the rare occasions he did, in fact. He wrote to his publisher Jacques Durand, ‘It’s not for me to judge [the Cello Sonata’s] excellence, but I like its proportions and its almost classical form, in the good sense of the word.’ In this concert, we will be hearing an arrangement for cello and strings by Australian composer Jack Symonds. Australian Chamber Orchestra © 2016
From Jack Symonds: Debussy’s piano writing is as original as it is idiomatic. Transcribing any of his piano music for strings is probably just perverse. However, a string ensemble is greatly flexible beyond the obvious ‘expanded string quartet’ colour often associated with it. I have tried in this arrangement to catch Debussy’s extraordinary sense of attack and decay in detailed mixtures of string soloists. When one plays this Sonata at the piano, there’s a constant sense that the composer is gently guiding your feet on both pedals to conjure a half-lit world beyond the 88 keys and mechanism of the piano. The string colour choices I have made are sometimes quixotically linked to how I like to play this piece, but ultimately I hope they have illuminated the downright strange and dazzling relationship between solo cello and ‘accompaniment’ Debussy originally imagined. 24
FELIX MENDELSSOHN Born Hamburg 1809. Died Leipzig, 1847. STRING QUARTET IN A MINOR, OP.13 (arr. strings) Composed 1827. I. Adagio – Allegro vivace II. Adagio non lento III. Intermezzo: Allegretto con moto – Allegro di molto IV. Presto – Adagio non lento Classicism, in the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, largely came and went in the years between the death of Locatelli and the births, in very different circumstances but within a year of each other, of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Chopin. These, along with the Liszt and Wagner were the Romantic Generation, as Charles Rosen calls them in his book of the same title. Felix Mendelssohn was the eldest, born in 1809 to a wealthy Jewish banker (who later converted to Lutheran Christianity).
PICTURED: Mendelssohn, 1830, aged 21 – from a watercolour by James Warren Childe. 25
PICTURED: Adagio – Adagio vivace opening movement from Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in A minor.
During the Napoleonic wars, the family moved from Hamburg to the safety of Berlin in 1811; the Prussian government’s Emancipation Act of 1812 guaranteed the civil rights of Prussian Jews, and Abraham Mendelssohn’s financing of the war effort had made him a valued member of the community. Felix enthusiastically absorbed the music he heard in Berlin’s concert-halls and opera houses – notably that of Weber, whose Der Freischütz he heard at the newly rebuilt Schauspielhaus. At the age of 10 he began lessons with the esteemed composer Carl Friedrich Zelter, who gave Mendelssohn strict lessons in harmony and counterpoint with particular reference to the music of the 18th century. Mendelssohn’s love of the Baroque and classical periods would have far-reaching effects on his own music and his career as a conductor, and make him seem, misleadingly, the most conservative of the Romantic Generation. We have him largely to thank for the Bach revival, and the resulting revival of other Baroque composers.
PICTURED: Carl Friedrich Zelter – Mendelssohn’s first teacher. 26
Keen to support the musical talents of his children, in 1822 Abraham Mendelssohn initiated a series of Sunday concerts at the family home where Felix and his brilliant sister Fanny would perform with paid members of the Court Orchestra. By 1827, when Mendelssohn was 18, he had already composed a formidable amount of music, including 13 Sinfonias (composed for those Sunday concerts), which established his effortless
Like Beethoven, Mendelssohn is able to create moments of extraordinary grace out of seemingly no material . . . technique in writing for strings. His early masterpiece, the Octet dates from 1825 and one of his most defining works, the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was composed a year later. His later music includes a number of classicising symphonies and sacred oratorios, and as conductor of Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra in later life, he effectively founded the modern practice of performing past masterpieces rather than only new works. The String Quartet Op.13 was written in 1827 during the composer’s summer vacation from the University of Berlin, where his mother hoped he would get an education ‘so rare in musicians’. Beethoven had recently died, and Mendelssohn – despite those accusations of musical conservatism – understood the importance of the late Beethoven quartets more than many of his contemporaries. This work shows a number of subtle influences from Beethoven’s Opp.95, 74, 130 and 132 without, however, sounding derivative. Like Beethoven, Mendelssohn is able to create moments of extraordinary grace out of seemingly no material, and as in late Beethoven there is a fruitful tension between the popular and the ‘learned’. Mendelssohn shows his mastery of fugue, for instance, but can then write the simplest melody and accompaniment as in the Intermezzo, which is itself balanced by a shimmering Trio section that recalls the fairy music from the ‘Dream’ overture. The whole work, more interestingly, is derived from the melody of his song Frage (Question), Op.9 No.1, known also as Ist es wahr? – Is it true?. The first three notes of the song form a characteristic ‘motto’ theme (like Beethoven’s ‘Muss es sein?’ in his Op.135), which is heard, transformed, in all four movements. As Mendelssohn himself put it, ‘you will hear it – with its own notes – in the first and last movements, and in all four movements you will hear its emotions expressed’. The motto appears sometimes as a whole-tone step down followed by a rising third (or the same contour upside down), or by the rhythm of a dotted quaver, semiquaver and longer note as in the urgent main theme of the first movement. The work is further unified by the pensive music sounded at the very beginning and end. Just how Beethovenian the Second Quartet is, was brought home to the composer some years later when he attended a performance of the work in Paris. The man next to him at one point said ‘He has that in one of his symphonies.’ When asked ‘Who?’ the man replied ‘Beethoven, the composer of this quartet’. In a letter home Mendelssohn described it as ‘a very dubious compliment.’ Gordon Kerry © 2017 27
SATU VÄNSK Ä VIOLIN
Satu Vänskä was appointed Assistant Leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 2004. She performs regularly as lead violin and soloist with the Orchestra. She is also curator, vocalist and front woman of the critically acclaimed electro-acoustic ensemble ACO Underground. As a singer and violinist she has collaborated with such distinguished artists as Barry Humphries, Meow Meow, Jonny Greenwood, The Presets, Jim Moginie, Brian Ritchie and Katie Noonan. Satu features in a variety of roles at festivals with the ACO in Australia, Niseko and Maribor. She was presented in recital in July 2012 by the Sydney Opera House as part of their Utzon Room Music Series.
Photo by Mick Bruzzese
Satu was born to a Finnish family in Japan where she took her first violin lessons at the age of three. Her family moved back to Finland in 1989 and she continued her studies with Pertti Sutinen at the Lahti Conservatorium and the Sibelius Academy. From 1997 Satu was a pupil of Ana Chumachenco at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich where she finished her diploma in 2001. This led to performances with the Munich Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, at the Tuusulanjärvi Festival, and at Festivo Aschau. In 1998 Sinfonia Lahti named her ‘young soloist of the year’. In 2000 she was a prize-winner of the ‘Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben’ and from 2001 she played under the auspices of the Live Music Now Foundation founded by Lord Yehudi Menuhin which gave her the opportunity to perform with such musicians as Radu Lupu and Heinrich Schiff. In 2011, she became the custodian of the only Stradivarius violin in Australia – the magnificent 1728/29 violin on loan from the ACO’s Instrument Fund. Chair sponsored by Kay Bryan
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GLENN CHRISTENSEN VIOLIN
Glenn was born and raised in the regional Queensland town of Mackay, where he received his early music education through the Suzuki Method with local teacher Diane Powell. Glenn then studied with Michele Walsh at the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University and graduated in 2011 with a Bachelor of Music, First Class Honours. He was also the first person ever to be awarded the three highest prizes – the Conservatorium Medal, the Music Medal and the University Medal.
Photo by Mick Bruzzese
From 2015, Glenn has been a full-time member of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Prior to this appointment, he held the position of Principal First Violin in the Queensland Symphony Orchestra from 2012. He has also performed as Guest Principal with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, was the Concertmaster of the Australian Youth Orchestra in 2012 and 2013 and was an Australian Chamber Orchestra Emerging Artist in 2012. As a soloist, Glenn has performed with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra on multiple occasions, most recently in July 2015, where he returned as Guest Concertmaster, Director and Soloist for a regional Queensland tour. He has had performances broadcast live on ABC Classic FM, was a finalist in the 2014 ABC Young Performer Awards, and in 2009 won every category in the prestigious Kendall National Violin Competition. Also a keen chamber musician, Glenn is the violinist in the Lyrebird Trio, which won both the audience choice prize and the Piano Trio prize in the 2013 Asia Pacific Chamber Music Competition. Glenn has also appeared at numerous festivals and masterclasses around Australia and internationally. Chair sponsored by Terry Campbell ao & Christine Campbell
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TIMO-VEIKKO VALVE CELLO
Timo-Veikko ‘Tipi’ Valve is one of the most versatile musicians of his generation performing as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader on both modern and period instruments. Tipi studied at the Sibelius Academy in his home town of Helsinki and at the Edsberg Music Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, focusing on solo performance and chamber music in both institutions.
Photo by Jack Saltmiras
Tipi has performed as a soloist with all major orchestras in Finland and as a chamber musician throughout Europe, Asia, Australia and the US. He works closely with a number of Finnish composers and has commissioned new works for the instrument. Most recently, Tipi has premiered concertos by Aulis Sallinen and Olli Virtaperko as well as two new cello concertos written for him by Eero Hämeenniemi and Olli Koskelin. ACO’s 2015 season included the world premiere of an arrangement of Olli Mustonen’s Sonata for cello and chamber orchestra, commissioned by Tipi and the ACO. In 2006, Tipi was appointed Principal Cello of the Australian Chamber Orchestra with whom he frequently appears as soloist. Tipi is a founding member of Jousia Ensemble and Jousia Quartet. Tipi’s instrument is attributed to both Giuseppe Guarneri (filius Andreæ) and Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri (del Gesù) from 1729, kindly donated the Australian Chamber Orchestra by Peter Weiss ao. Chair sponsored by Peter Weiss ao
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AUS TR A LI A N CH A MBER ORCHES TR A Richard Tognetti Artistic Director & Violin Helena Rathbone Principal Violin Satu Vänskä Principal Violin Glenn Christensen Violin Aiko Goto Violin Mark Ingwersen Violin Ilya Isakovich Violin Liisa Pallandi Violin Maja Savnik Violin Ike See Violin Alexandru-Mihai Bota Viola Nicole Divall Viola Timo-Veikko Valve Principal Cello Melissa Barnard Cello Julian Thompson Cello Maxime Bibeau Principal Bass PART-TIME MUSICIANS Zoë Black Violin Thibaud Pavlovic-Hobba Violin Caroline Henbest Viola Daniel Yeadon Cello
‘If there’s a better chamber orchestra in the world today, I haven’t heard it.’ THE GUARDIAN (UK) From its very first concert in November 1975, the Australian Chamber Orchestra has travelled a remarkable road. With inspiring programming, unrivalled virtuosity, energy and individuality, the Orchestra’s performances span popular masterworks, adventurous cross-artform projects and pieces specially commissioned for the ensemble. Founded by the cellist John Painter, the ACO originally comprised just 13 players, who came together for concerts as they were invited. Today, the ACO has grown to 21 players (four part-time), giving more than 100 performances in Australia each year, as well as touring internationally: from red-dust regional centres of Australia to New York night clubs, from Australian capital cities to the world’s most prestigious concert halls, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Birmingham’s Symphony Hall and Frankfurt’s Alte Oper. Since the ACO was formed in 1975, it has toured Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Italy, France, Austria, Switzerland, England, Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, China, Greece, the US, Scotland, Chile, Argentina, Croatia, the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Brazil, Uruguay, New Caledonia, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Spain, Luxembourg, Macau, Taiwan, Estonia, Canada, Poland, Puerto Rico and Ireland. The ACO’s dedication and musicianship has created warm relationships with such celebrated soloists as Emmanuel Pahud, Steven Isserlis, Dawn Upshaw, Imogen Cooper, Christian Lindberg, Joseph Tawadros, Melvyn Tan and Pieter Wispelwey. The ACO is renowned for collaborating with artists from diverse genres, including singers Tim Freedman, Neil Finn, Katie Noonan, Paul Capsis, Danny Spooner and Barry Humphries, and visual artists Michael Leunig, Bill Henson, Shaun Tan and Jon Frank. The ACO has recorded for the world’s top labels. Recent recordings have won three consecutive ARIA Awards, and documentaries featuring the ACO have been shown on television worldwide and won awards at film festivals on four continents.
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MUSICI A NS ON S TAGE
Satu Vänskä 3 Principal Violin
Glenn Christensen Violin
Aiko Goto Violin
Chair sponsored by Kay Bryan
Chair sponsored by Terry Campbell ao & Christine Campbell
Chair sponsored by Anthony & Sharon Lee Foundation
Mark Ingwersen Violin
Ilya Isakovich Violin
Liisa Pallandi Violin
Chair sponsored by Julie Steiner & Judyth Sachs
Chair sponsored by The Humanity Foundation
Chair sponsored by The Melbourne Medical Syndicate
Maja Savnik 2 Violin
Ike See Violin
Zoë Black Violin
Chair sponsored by Alenka Tindale
Chair sponsored by Di Jameson
Thibaud Pavlovic-Hobba Violin
Alexandru-Mihai Bota Viola
Nicole Divall Viola
Chair sponsored by Philip Bacon am
Chair sponsored by Ian Lansdown
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Players dressed by Willow and SABA
Timo-Veikko Valve 3 Principal Cello
Melissa Barnard Cello
Chair sponsored by Peter Weiss ao
Chair sponsored by Martin Dickson am & Susie Dickson
Julian Thompson 4 Cello
Maxime Bibeau 5 Principal Bass
Chair sponsored by The Grist & Stewart Families
Chair sponsored by Darin Cooper Foundation
Jasmine Beams Guest Principal Viola
Esther Kim 6 Guest Principal Harpsichord
Chair sponsored by peckvonhartel architects
1 Satu Vänskä plays a 1728/29 Stradivarius violin kindly on loan from the ACO Instrument Fund. 2 Maja Savnik plays a 1714 Giuseppe Guarneri filius Andreæ violin kindly on loan from the ACO Instrument Fund. 3 Timo-Veikko Valve plays a 1616 Hieronymus and Antonio Amati cello kindly on loan from the ACO Instrument Fund. 4 Julian Thompson plays a 1729 Giuseppe Guarneri filius Andreæ cello with elements of the instrument crafted by his son, Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, kindly donated to the ACO by Peter Weiss ao. 5 Maxime Bibeau plays a late-16th century Gasparo da Salò bass kindly on loan from a private Australian benefactor. 6 Esther Kim plays an Italian Harpsichord after Grimaldi by Carey Beebe, Sydney 1990. This instrument is supplied & prepared by Carey Beebe Harpsichords. In Perth, she plays a French Double Harpsichord by Michael Johnson 1987. This instrument is prepared by Colin van der Lecq. 33
ACO BEHIND T HE S CENE S BOARD Guido Belgiorno-Nettis am Chairman Liz Lewin Deputy Bill Best John Borghetti Judy Crawford John Kench Anthony Lee James Ostroburski Heather Ridout ao Carol Schwartz am Julie Steiner Andrew Stevens John Taberner Nina Walton Peter Yates am Simon Yeo
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Cyrus Meurant Assistant Librarian Joseph Nizeti Multimedia, Music Technology & Artistic Assistant
EDUCATION Phillippa Martin ACO Collective & ACO Virtual Manager
ARTISTIC OPERATIONS Luke Shaw Director of Artistic Operations Anna Melville Artistic Administrator Lisa Mullineux Tour Manager Ross Chapman Touring & Production Coordinator Danielle Asciak Travel Coordinator Bernard Rofe Librarian
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Ann Chen Marketing Coordinator
Chris Griffith Box Office Manager
FINANCE
Dean Watson Customer Relations & Access Manager
Fiona McLeod Chief Financial Officer
Dinuja Kalpani Transaction Accountant
Katie Henebery Executive Assistant to Mr Evans and Mr Tognetti ao & HR Officer
Cristina Maldonado Marketing & Communications Executive
Caitlin Gilmour Education Coordinator
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
Alexandra Cameron-Fraser Chief Operating Officer
Caitlin Benetatos Communications Manager
Hilary Shrubb Publications Editor
Yvonne Morton Financial Accountant & Analyst
Richard Evans Managing Director
Antonia Farrugia Director of Marketing
Vicki Norton Education Manager
Richard Tognetti ao
EXECUTIVE OFFICE
MARKETING
Christina Holland Office Administrator Robin Hall Archival Administrator
DEVELOPMENT Anna McPherson Director of Corporate Partnerships Jill Colvin Director of Philanthropy Yeehwan Yeoh Investor Relations Manager Lillian Armitage Capital Campaign Executive David Herrero Events Manager Tom Carrig Senior Development Executive Sally Crawford Patrons Manager
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
Max Stead Development Executive
By Mail PO Box R21, Royal Exchange NSW 1225
Kay-Yin Teoh Development Coordinator
Telephone (02) 8274 3800 Box Office 1800 444 444
Belinda Partyga Researcher
Email aco@aco.com.au Web aco.com.au
V ENUE SUPP OR T
ADELAIDE TOWN HALL 128 King William Street, Adelaide SA 5000 GPO Box 2252, Adelaide SA 5001 Venue Hire Information Telephone (08) 8203 7590 Email townhall@adelaidecitycouncil.com Web adelaidetownhall.com.au Martin Haese Lord Mayor Mark Goldstone Chief Executive Officer
PERTH CONCERT HALL 5 St Georges Terrace, Perth WA 6000 PO Box 3041, East Perth WA 6892 Telephone (08) 9231 9900 Web perthconcerthall.com.au Brendon Ellmer General Manager
QUEENSLAND PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE Cultural Precinct, Cnr Grey & Melbourne Street, South Bank QLD 4101 PO Box 3567, South Bank QLD 4101 Telephone (07) 3840 7444 Box Office 131 246 Web qpac.com.au
ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE PO Box 7585, St Kilda Road, Melbourne VIC 8004 Telephone (03) 9281 8000 Box Office 1300 182 183 Web artscentremelbourne.com.au Tom Harley President Victorian Arts Centre Trust Claire Spencer Chief Executive Officer
Christopher Freeman am Chair John Kotzas Chief Executive
CITY RECITAL HALL LIMITED Chair, Board of Directors Renata Kaldor ao
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE Bennelong Point
CEO Elaine Chia
GPO Box 4274, Sydney NSW 2001
2–12 Angel Place Sydney NSW 2000
Telephone (02) 9250 7111 Box Office (02) 9250 7777 Email infodesk@sydneyoperahouse.com Web sydneyoperahouse.com
Administration 02 9231 9000 Box Office 02 8256 2222 Website www.cityrecitalhall.com
Nicholas Moore Chair, Sydney Opera House Trust Louise Herron am Chief Executive Officer
WOLLONGONG TOWN HALL Wollongong Town Hall is managed by Merrigong Theatre Company Crown & Kembla Streets, Wollongong NSW 2500 PO Box 786, Wollongong NSW 2520 Telephone (02) 4224 5959 Email info@merrigong.com.au Web wollongongtownhall.com.au
In case of emergencies… Please note, all venues have emergency action plans. You can call ahead of your visit to the venue and ask for details. All Front of House staff at the venues are trained in accordance with each venue’s plan and, in the event of an emergency, you should follow their instructions. You can also use the time before the concert starts to locate the nearest exit to your seat in the venue.
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ACO SOLOISTS TOUR DATES & PRE-CONCERT TALKS Pre-concert talks take place 45 minutes before the start of every concert. Fri 5 May, 6.45pm Wollongong Town Hall Pre-concert talk by Ken Healey am Sun 7 May, 1.45pm Melbourne – Arts Centre Melbourne Pre-concert talk by Lucy Rash Mon 8 May, 6.45pm Melbourne – Arts Centre Melbourne Pre-concert talk by Lucy Rash Tue 9 May, 6.45pm Adelaide Town Hall Pre-concert talk by Vincent Plush
Wed 10 May, 6.45pm Perth Concert Hall Pre-concert talk by Rosalind Appleby Sat 13 May, 6.15pm Sydney – City Recital Hall Pre-concert talk by Ken Healey am Sun 14 May, 1.15pm Sydney Opera House Pre-concert talk by Ken Healey am
Tue 16 May, 7.15pm Sydney – City Recital Hall Pre-concert talk by Ken Healey am Wed 17 May, 6.15pm Sydney – City Recital Hall Pre-concert talk by Ken Healey am Fri 19 May, 12.45pm Sydney – City Recital Hall Pre-concert talk by Ken Healey am
Mon 15 May, 6.15pm Brisbane – QPAC Concert Hall Pre-concert talk by Gordon Hamilton
Pre-concert speakers are subject to change.
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AC O MEDICI PROGR A M 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
CORE CHAIRS
ACO COLLECTIVE
The late Amina Belgiorno-Nettis
VIOLIN
PRINCIPAL CHAIRS
Glenn Christensen Terry Campbell ao & Christine Campbell
Pekka Kuusisto Artistic Director & Lead Violin
Richard Tognetti ao Artistic Director & Lead Violin The late Michael Ball ao & Daria Ball Wendy Edwards Prudence MacLeod Andrew & Andrea Roberts Helena Rathbone Principal Violin
Aiko Goto Anthony & Sharon Lee Foundation Mark Ingwersen Julie Steiner & Judyth Sachs Ilya Isakovich The Humanity Foundation
Kate & Daryl Dixon
Liisa Pallandi The Melbourne Medical Syndicate
Satu Vänskä Principal Violin
Maja Savnik Alenka Tindale
Kay Bryan
Ike See Di Jameson
Principal Viola peckvonhartel architects Timo-Veikko Valve Principal Cello Peter Weiss ao Maxime Bibeau Principal Double Bass Darin Cooper Foundation
Horsey Jameson Bird
GUEST CHAIRS Brian Nixon Principal Timpani Mr Robert Albert ao & Mrs Libby Albert
FRIENDS OF MEDICI Mr R. Bruce Corlett am & Mrs Annie Corlett am
VIOLA Alexandru-Mihai Bota Philip Bacon am Nicole Divall Ian Lansdown CELLO Melissa Barnard Martin Dickson am & Susie Dickson Julian Thompson The Grist & Stewart Families
ACO L IF E PAT RONS IBM Mr Robert Albert ao & Mrs Libby Albert Mr Guido Belgiorno-Nettis am Mrs Barbara Blackman ao
Mrs Roxane Clayton Mr David Constable am Mr Martin Dickson am & Mrs Susie Dickson Dr John Harvey ao
Mrs Alexandra Martin Mrs Faye Parker Mr John Taberner & Mr Grant Lang Mr Peter Weiss ao
ACO BEQ UE S T PAT RONS The ACO would like to thank the following people, who remembered the Orchestra in their wills. Please consider supporting the future of the ACO with a gift in your will. For more information on making a bequest, please call Jill Colvin, Philanthropy Manager, on 02 8274 3835. The late Charles Ross Adamson The late Kerstin Lillemor Andersen The late Mrs Sybil Baer The Estate of Prof. Janet Carr The late Mrs Moya Crane The late Colin Enderby
The late Neil Patrick Gillies The late John Nigel Holman The late Dr S W Jeffrey am The Estate of Pauline Marie Johnston The late Mr Geoff Lee am oam The late Shirley Miller
The late Josephine Paech The late Richard Ponder The late Mr Geoffrey Francis Scharer The Estate of Scott Spencer
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AC O CON T INUO CIRCL E The ACO would like to thank the following people who are generously remembering the ACO in their wills. If you are interested in finding out more about making such a bequest, please contact Jill Colvin, Philanthropy Manager, on 02 8274 3835 for more information. Every gift makes a difference. Steven Bardy Ruth Bell David Beswick Sandra Cassell Mrs Sandra Dent Peter Evans
Carol Farlow Suzanne Gleeson Lachie Hill David & Sue Hobbs Penelope Hughes Toni Kilsby & Mark McDonald
Mrs Judy Lee Selwyn M Owen Michael Ryan & Wendy Mead Ian & Joan Scott Cheri Stevenson Leslie C Thiess
G.C. & R. Weir Margaret & Ron Wright Mark Young Anonymous (13)
ACO R ECONCIL I AT ION CIRCL E Contributions to the ACO Reconciliation Circle directly support ACO music education activities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, with the aim to build positive and effective partnerships between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the broader Australian community. To find out more about becoming a member of the Circle, please contact Jill Colvin, Philanthropy Manager Manager, on 02 8274 3835. Colin & Debbie Golvan Peter & Ruth McMullin Sam Ricketson & Rosie Ayton
ACO E XCEL L ENCE F UND PAT RONS ACO Excellence Fund Patrons assist with the ACO’s general operating costs. Their contributions enhance both our artistic vitality and ongoing sustainability. For more information, please call Sally Crawford, Patrons Manager, on 02 8274 3830. K Chisholm Dr Jane Cook Paul & Roslyn Espie M Generowicz Dr Roy & Gail Geronemus The Hadfield Family
Paul & Gail Harris Doug Hooley Mike & Stephanie Hutchinson Geoff & Denise Illing Professor Anne Kelso ao
Macquarie Group Foundation Kevin & Deidre McCann Baillieu Myer ac Gina Olayiwola Elisabeth & Doug Scott
David Shannon J Skinner Christina Scala & David Studdy Dr Jason Wenderoth Anonymous (5)
ACO NE X T ACO Next is an exciting philanthropic program for young supporters, engaging with Australia’s next generation of great musicians while offering unique musical and networking experiences. For more information, please call Sally Crawford, Patrons Manager, on 02 8274 3830. MEMBERS Clare Ainsworth Herschell Lucinda Bradshaw Justine Clarke Este Darin-Cooper & Chris Burgess Amy Denmeade Catherine & Sean Denney Jenni Deslandes & Hugh Morrow Mandy Drury 38
Anthony Frith & Amanda Lucas-Frith Alexandra Gill Rebecca Gilsenan & Grant Marjoribanks Adrian Giuffre & Monica Ion John & Lara James Aaron Levine & Daniela Gavshon Royston Lim
Gabriel Lopata Rachael McVean Carina Martin Barry Mowzsowski Paris Neilson & Todd Buncombe James Ostroburski Nicole Pedler & Henry Durack Michael Radovnikovic Jessica Read
Louise & Andrew Sharpe Emile & Caroline Sherman Michael Southwell Helen Telfer Karen & Peter Tompkins Joanna Walton Nina Walton & Zeb Rice Peter Wilson & James Emmett John Winning Jr.
ACO T RUS T S & F OUNDAT IONS
Holmes à Court Family Foundation
The Ross Trust
ACO INS T RUMEN T F UND 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. The Fund’s second asset is the 1714 Joseph Guarneri filius Andreæ violin, the ‘ex Isolde Menges’, now on loan to Violinist Maja Savnik. The Fund’s third asset is the 1616 ‘ex-Fleming’ Antonio and Hieronymus Amati Cello, played in this concert by Principal Cello Timo-Veikko Valve. For more information, please call Yeehwan Yeoh, Investor Relations Manager on 02 8274 3878. Peter Weiss ao PATRON, ACO Instrument Fund BOARD MEMBERS Bill Best (Chairman) Jessica Block John Leece am
SONATA $25,000 – $49,999
INVESTORS
ENSEMBLE $10,000 – $24,999
Stephen & Sophie Allen
Leslie & Ginny Green
John & Deborah Balderstone
Peter J Boxall ao & Karen Chester
Guido & Michelle Belgiorno-Nettis
Leslie C. Thiess
Bill Best Benjamin Brady
SOLO $5,000 – $9,999
Sam Burshtein & Galina Kaseko
PATRON $500 – $4,999
Carla Zampatti Foundation
PATRONS
Michael Bennett & Patti Simpson
Sally Collier
Leith & Darrel Conybeare
Michael Cowen & Sharon Nathani
VISIONARY $1m+
Dr Jane Cook
Marco D’Orsogna
Peter Weiss ao
Geoff & Denise Illing
Dr William Downey
LEADER $500,000 – $999,999
Luana & Kelvin King
Garry & Susan Farrell
Jane Kunstler
Gammell Family
John Landers & Linda Sweeny
Edward Gilmartin
Genevieve Lansell
Tom & Julie Goudkamp
Bronwyn & Andrew Lumsden
Philip Hartog
OCTET $100,000 – $199,999
Patricia McGregor
Peter & Helen Hearl
John Taberner
Trevor Parkin
Brendan Hopkins
QUARTET $50,000 – $99,999
Elizabeth Pender
Angus & Sarah James
John Leece am & Anne Leece
Robyn Tamke
Daniel & Jacqueline Phillips
Anonymous
Anonymous (2)
Ryan Cooper Family Foundation
Andrew Stevens John Taberner
CONCERTO $200,000 – $499,999 The late Amina Belgiorno-Nettis Naomi Milgrom ao
Andrew & Philippa Stevens Dr Lesley Treleaven Ian Wallace & Kay Freedman 39
ACO SPECI A L PRO JE C T S SPECIAL COMMISSIONS PATRONS
Janet Holmes à Court Bruce & Jenny Lane
MELBOURNE HEBREW CONGREGATION PATRONS
Peter & Cathy Aird
Delysia Lawson
LEAD PATRONS
Gerard Byrne & Donna O’Sullivan
John Leece
Marc Besen ac & Eva Besen ao
Mirek Generowicz
Julianne Maxwell
Peter & Valerie Gerrand
Jim & Averill Minto
G Graham
Alf Moufarrige
Anthony & Conny Harris
Angela Roberts
Rohan Haslam
Friends of Jon & Caro Stewart
John Griffiths & Beth Jackson
Mike Thompson
Lionel & Judy King
Peter Weiss ao
Bruce Lane David & Sandy Libling Tony Jones & Julian Liga Robert & Nancy Pallin Deborah Pearson Alison Reeve Dr Suzanne M Trist Team Schmoopy
MOUNTAIN PRODUCERS’ SYNDICATE Executive Producer Martyn Myer AO Major Producers Janet Holmes à Court Warwick & Ann Johnson
Rebecca Zoppetti Laubi
Producers
Anonymous (1)
Richard Caldwell
INTERNATIONAL TOUR PATRONS The ACO would like to pay tribute to the following donors who support our international touring activities:
Warren & Linda Coli Anna Dudek & Brad Banducci
SUPPORTER Leo & Mina Fink Fund
EMANUEL SYNAGOGUE PATRONS CORPORATE PARTNERS Adina Apartment Hotels Meriton Group LEAD PATRON The Narev Family PATRONS David Gonski ac Leslie & Ginny Green The Sherman Foundation Justin Phillips & Louise Thurgood-Phillips
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ACO COLLECTIVE QUEENSLAND REGIONAL TOUR
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Lead Patrons
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Patrons
Stephen & Jenny Charles
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Supporters
Yvonne von Hartel am & Robert Peck am
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peckvonhartel architects
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Friends
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Supporters
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The Penn Foundation The Rossi Foundation Kim Williams AM Peter Yates Anonymous (1)
40
ACO UK SUPPORTERS
ACO N AT ION A L EDUC AT ION PROGR A M The ACO pays tribute to all of our generous donors who have contributed to our National Education Program, which focuses on the development of young Australian musicians. This initiative is 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. If you would like to make a donation or bequest to the ACO, or would like to direct your support in other ways, please contact Jill Colvin on (02) 8274 3835 or jill.colvin@aco.com.au Donor list current as at 7 February 2017. PATRONS
Jim & Averill Minto
Bridget Faye am
Marc Besen ac & Eva Besen
Louise & Martyn Myer Foundation
JoAnna Fisher & Geoff Weir
Janet Holmes á Court ac
Jennie & Ivor Orchard
Kay Giorgetta
Bruce & Joy Reid Trust
Louise Gourlay oam
Andrew & Andrea Roberts
Warren Green
Mr Robert Albert ao & Mrs Libby Albert
Mark & Anne Robertson
Tony & Michelle Grist
Geoff Alder
Margie Seale & David Hardy
Liz Harbison
Australian Communities Foundation
Rosy Seaton & Seumas Dawes
Kerry Harmanis
– Ballandry Fund
Tony Shepherd ao
Steven Bardy & Andrew Patterson
Anthony Strachan
The Belalberi Foundation
Leslie C. Thiess
Anita & Luca Belgiorno-Nettis Foundation
David & Julia Turner
Guido Belgiorno-Nettis am & Michelle
Libby & Nick Wright
EMERGING ARTISTS & EDUCATION PATRONS $10,000 +
Belgiorno-Nettis Helen Breekveldt Rod Cameron & Margaret Gibbs Michael & Helen Carapiet
E Xipell Peter Yates am & Susan Yates Peter Young am & Susan Young Anonymous (3)
Stephen & Jenny Charles
Dr John Harvey ao & Mrs Yvonne Harvey Annie Hawker Insurance Group Australia Limited I Kallinikos Anthony & Sharon Lee Foundation In memory of Dr Peter Lewin Lorraine Logan Macquarie Group Foundation David Maloney & Erin Flaherty
Rowena Danziger am & Ken Coles am
DIRETTORE $5,000 – $9,999
P J Miller
Irina Kuzminsky & Mark Delaney
The Abercrombie Family Foundation
James Ostroburski & Leo Ostroburski
Mr Bruce Fink
Jon & Cheyenne Adgemis
QVB
Dr Ian Frazer ac & Mrs Caroline Frazer
Geoff Ainsworth & Jo Featherstone
John Rickard
Ann Gamble Myer
Peter Atkinson
Paul Schoff & Stephanie Smee
Daniel & Helen Gauchat
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& Friends
Kimberley Holden
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Greg Shalit & Miriam Faine
Di Jameson
Veronika & Joseph Butta
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John & Lisa Kench
Caroline & Robert Clemente
Sky News Australia
Miss Nancy Kimpton
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Anthony & Suzanne Maple-Brown
Suellen Enestrom
Simon & Amanda Whiston 41
Shemara Wikramanayake
Dr Mark & Mrs Anna Yates
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Hamilton Wilson
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M Generowicz
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Anonymous (4)
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MAESTRO $2,500 – $4,999
VIRTUOSO $1,000 – $2,499
Jennifer Aaron
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Horsburgh
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Jessica Block
Merilyn & David Howorth
Mr & Mrs Daniel Besen
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Penelope Hughes
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In memory of Peter Boros
Professor Andrea Hull ao
The Hon Alex Chernov ac qc &
Brian Bothwell
Sue Hunt
Vicki Brooke
John Griffiths & Beth Jackson
Diana Brookes
Owen James
Dr Catherine Brown-Watt psm &
Anthony Jones & Julian Liga
Mrs Elizabeth Chernov Carol & Andrew Crawford Anne & Tom Dowling Ari & Lisa Droga Maggie & Lachlan Drummond Cass George John & Jenny Green Nereda Hanlon & Michael Hanlon am Peter & Helen Hearl Ros Johnson Peter Lovell Jennifer Senior & Jenny McGee Jane Morley Nola Nettheim Jenny Nicol OneVentures Sandra & Michael Paul Endowment Patricia H Reid Endowment Pty Ltd Ralph & Ruth Renard Mrs Tiffany Rensen Fe and Don Ross D N Sanders Petrina Slaytor Howard & Hilary Stack John & Josephine Strutt Nicky Tindill Ralph Ward-Ambler am & Barbara Ward-Ambler Westpac Group 42
Mr Derek Watt Sally Bufé Terry Campbell ao & Christine Campbell Ray Carless & Jill Keyte Ann Cebon-Glass Patrick Charles Dr Peter Clifton Andrew Clouston
Jennifer Hershon Lachie Hill Christopher Holmes Doug Hooley Michael Horsburgh am & Beverley
Brian Jones Bronwen L Jones Mrs Angela Karpin Josephine Key & Ian Breden Airdrie Lloyd Gabriel Lopata Diana Lungren Garth Mansfield OAM & Margaret
Angela & John Compton
Mansfield OAM
R & J Corney
Mr & Mrs Greg & Jan Marsh
John Curotta
Jane Tham & Philip Maxwell
Peter & Penny Curry
Kevin & Deidre McCann
Ian Davis & Sandrine Barouh
Ian & Pam McGaw
Michael & Wendy Davis
In memory of Rosario Razon Garcia
Martin Dolan
Helen & Phil Meddings
Dr William F Downey
Michelle Mitchell
Pamela Duncan
Barry Novy & Susan Selwyn
Emeritus Professor Dexter Dunphy am
Paul O’Donnell
Wendy Edwards
L Parsonage
Dr Linda English
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Peter Evans
Dr S M Richards am & Mrs M R Richards
Julie Ewington
Em Prof A W Roberts am
Elizabeth Finnegan
Julia Champtaloup & Andrew Rothery
Michael Fogarty
Richard & Sandra Royle
Don & Marie Forrest
J Sanderson
In Memory of H. St. P. Scarlett
Sally Collier
Louise Miller
Lucille Seale
P Cornwell & Cecilia Rice
Justine Munsie & Rick Kalowski
Mr John Sheahan qc
Annabel Crabb
G & A Nelson
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In memory of Dr Warwick Steele
In memory of Raymond Dudley
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Kay Vernon
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Garry E Scarf & Morgie Blaxill
Jason Wenderoth
Hamiltons Commercial Interiors
Carol Schwartz am & Alan Schwartz am
M White
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The Sherman Foundation
Don & Mary Ann Yeats
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In memory of Dr Aubrey Sweet
Rebecca Zoppetti Laubi
Gaye Headlam
Gabrielle Tagg
Anonymous (16)
Kingsley Herbert
Simon Thornton
Dr Penny Herbert
TWF Slee & Lee Chartered Accountants
CONCERTINO $500 – $999
in memory of Dunstan Herbert
Elsa Atkin am
Dr Marian Hill
Ms Rita Avdiev
Sue & David Hobbs
A & M Barnes
Chloe Hooper
In memory of Hatto Beck
Dr & Mrs Michael Hunter
Mrs Kathrine Becker
Margaret & Vernon Ireland
Robin Beech
Robert & Margaret Jackson
Ruth Bell
Barry Johnson & Davina Johnson oam
Max and Lynne Booth
Caroline Jones
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H and R McGlashan
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ClearFresh Water
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Dr Ed & Mrs Julie van Beem Denise Wadley Joy Wearne GC & R Weir Sally Willis Sir Robert Woods cbe Michael Zimmerman Brian Zulaikha Anonymous (31)
43
AC O CH A IR M A N’S COUNCIL The Chairman’s Council is a limited membership association which supports the ACO’s international touring program and enjoys private events in the company of Richard Tognetti and the Orchestra. Mr Guido Belgiorno-Nettis am Chairman, Australian Chamber Orchestra
Mr Daniel Gauchat Principal, The Adelante Group
Mr Ian Narev Chief Executive Officer Commonwealth Bank
Mr Matthew Allchurch Partner,
Mr James Gibson Chief Executive Officer, Australia & New Zealand BNP Paribas
Ms Gretel Packer
Johnson Winter & Slattery Mr Philip Bacon am Director, Philip Bacon Galleries Mr David Baffsky ao Mr Marc Besen ac & Mrs Eva Besen ao Mr John Borghetti Chief Executive Officer, Virgin Australia Mr Craig Caesar Mrs Nerida Caesar CEO, Veda Mr Michael & Mrs Helen Carapiet Mr John Casella Managing Director, Casella Family Brands (Peter Lehmann Wines) Mr Michael Chaney ao Chairman, Wesfarmers Mr & Mrs Robin Crawford am Rowena Danziger am & Kenneth G. Coles am Mr David Evans Executive Chairman, Evans & Partners Mr Bruce Fink Executive Chairman, Executive Channel International Mr Angelos Frangopoulos Chief Executive Officer, Australian News Channel
44
Mr John Grill ao Chairman, WorleyParsons Mr Grant Harrod Chief Executive Officer, LJ Hooker Mrs Janet Holmes à Court ac Mr Simon & Mrs Katrina Holmes à Court Observant Mr Andrew Low Mr David Mathlin Ms Julianne Maxwell Mr Michael Maxwell Ms Naomi Milgrom ao Ms Jan Minchin Director, Tolarno Galleries Mr Jim & Mrs Averill Minto Mr Alf Moufarrige ao Chief Executive Officer, Servcorp Mr John P Mullen Chairman, Telstra
Mr Robert Peck am & Ms Yvonne von Hartel am peckvonhartel architects Mr Mark Robertson oam & Mrs Anne Robertson Mrs Carol Schwartz am Ms Margie Seale & Mr David Hardy Mr Glen Sealey Chief Operating Officer, Maserati Australasia & South Africa Mr Tony Shepherd ao Mr Peter Shorthouse Senior Partner, Crestone Wealth Management Mr Noriyuki (Robert) Tsubonuma Managing Director & CEO, Mitsubishi Australia Ltd The Hon Malcolm Turnbull mp & Ms Lucy Turnbull ao Ms Vanessa Wallace & Mr Alan Liddle Mr Peter Yates am Deputy Chairman, Myer Family Investments Ltd & Director, AIA Ltd Mr Peter Young am & Mrs Susan Young
AC O GOV ER NMEN T PA R T NER S THE ACO THANKS OUR GOVERNMENT PARTNERS FOR THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT
The ACO is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The ACO is supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW.
AC O COMMI T T EE S SYDNEY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE Jason Li Chairman, Vantage Group Asia
Heather Ridout ao (Chair) Director, Reserve Bank of Australia Guido Belgiorno-Nettis am Chairman, ACO
Mark Stanbridge Partner, Ashurst Paul Sumner Chief Executive Officer, Mossgreen
Jennie Orchard Peter Shorthouse Senior Partner, Crestone Wealth Management
Maggie Drummond John Kench Johnson Winter & Slattery
Alden Toevs Group Chief Risk Officer, CBA Nina Walton
MELBOURNE DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL Peter Yates am (Chair) Deputy Chairman, Myer Family Investments Ltd & Director, AIA Ltd
Colin Golvan qc Peter McMullin Chairman, McMullin Group
Paul Cochrane Investment Advisor, Bell Potter Securities
Paul Sumner Chief Executive Officer, Mossgreen Susan Thacore
James Ostroburski
DISABILITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE Morwenna Collett CEO, Accessible Arts
Ebru Sumaktas Senior HR Officer, Department of Family and Community Services
Paul Nunnari Manager, Event Access & Inclusion NSW Government
Alexandra Cameron-Fraser Chief Operating Officer, ACO
Sally Crawford Patrons Manager, ACO Vicki Norton Education Manager, ACO Dean Watson Customer Relations & Access Manager, ACO
EVENT COMMITTEES SYDNEY Liz Lewin (Chair) Jane Adams Lillian Armitage Lucinda Cowdroy Sandra Ferman JoAnna Fisher Eleanor Gammell Fay Geddes
Deb Hopper Lisa Kench Karissa Mayo Elizabeth McDonald Rany Moran John Taberner Lynne Testoni
BRISBANE Philip Bacon Kay Bryan Andrew Clouston Dr Ian Frazer ac & Mrs Caroline Frazer Cass George
Wayne Kratzmann Shay O’Hara-Smith Marie-Louise Theile Beverley Trivett
PEER R E V IE W PA NEL S EDUCATION PEER REVIEW PANEL Zoe Arthur John Benson
Helen Champion Jane Davidson
Jared Furtado Theo Kotzas
Lyn Williams oam
Marshall McGuire Katie Noonan John Painter
Anthony Peluso Mary Vallentine ao Lyn Williams oam
ARTISTIC PEER REVIEW PANEL Yarmila Alfonzetti Elaine Armstrong Toby Chadd Jane Davidson
Alan Dodge Jim Koehne Siobhan Lenihan
45
AC O PA S S ACO PAR RT NER T NER
WE THANK OUR PARTNERS FOR THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT
WE THANK OUR CORPORATE PARTNERS FOR THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT
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46
EVENT PARTNERS
2018 CANADA & ALASKA
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AC O NE W S ACO INSPIRE QUARTE T In March the ACO’s dedicated Education Quartet, the ACO Inspire Quartet, returned to Cairns to continue their work with the Gondwana Cairns Indigenous Children’s Choir at the Choir’s annual choir camp in the Atherton Tablelands. Whilst in Far North Queensland, they also returned to Djarragun College, a school in Gordonvale that is comprised almost exclusively of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, to run some live ACO Music & Art classes – our primary school online curriculum delivered via video conferencing.
PICTURED: ACO Inspire with Gimuy Yidinji elder, Gudju Gudju (Seith Fourmile), in the Atherton Tablelands. PICTURED RIGHT: ACO Inspire with the Gondwana Cairns Indigenous Children’s Choir. Photos by Lyn Williams
In Victoria, ACO Inspire visited Worawa Aboriginal College in Healesville. They worked with from the new Performing Arts stream at the school, and performed with them during a special concert for their classmates. The ACO is proud to acknowledge National Reconciliation Week 2017 and notes the special place, cultures and contributions of the first Australians. 48
ACO INSTRUMENT FUND ACQUIRES ITS FIRST CELLO The ACO Instrument Fund is pleased to announce its latest acquisition, a 401-year old cello by the influential makers, Antonio and Hieronymus Amati. The ‘ex-Fleming’ 1616 Amati will be the first cello and third instrument acquired by the Fund, after the 1728/29 Stradivarius and 1714 Guarneri filius Andreæ violins. It also joins other rare historical instruments played by the Orchestra, including the 1743 Guarneri del Gesù violin played by Artistic Director Richard Tognetti, the 1759 Guadagnini violin on loan from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, a 1610 Maggini viola and a 1585 da Salò double bass, both owned by a private benefactor. It is also a stunning complement to the Weiss cello, a 1729 Guarneri recently gifted to the ACO by Peter Weiss, Patron of the Instrument Fund. ‘The Amati’s brilliant voice will complement the darker resonance of the Weiss cello, a 1729 Guarneri recently given to the ACO by Instrument Fund founding Patron, Peter Weiss,’ said ACO Managing Director Richard Evans. ‘The Amati will mean a tremendous new level of amplification and tonal range for the ACO.’ The ACO Instrument Fund is an unregistered Australian unit trust for wholesale investors only, which invites investors and patrons to participate in the ownership of a bank of fine instruments.
PICTURED: The ‘ex-Fleming’ 1616 Amati cello, the ACO Instrument Fund’s latest acquisition.
To find out more about the ACO Instrument Fund, please contact Yeehwan Yeoh, Investor Relations Manager at yeehwan.yeoh@aco.com.au.
PICTURED: ACO Principal Cello Timo-Veikko Valve unveils the Amati cello in ACO Soloists.
49
ACO NE W S FARE WELL CHRIS Chris Griffith, the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s Box Office Manager, the voice many of you speak to on a regular basis, is retiring. He first walked into the ACO Offices on Monday 9 May 1994. ‘One of the greatest parts of the ACO is the youth and vitality of the players. They kind of force you to keep a young perspective on things,’ Chris said. ‘I’m really going to miss that.’ ‘The Orchestra is so friendly. I suppose I grew up with lots of them. I’ve known Richard, Aiko, Helena, so many of them, since the beginning. I remember Max walking into a plate glass door and getting that scar on his head. It has been an amazing journey.’ PICTURED: Chris Griffith
During the course of his time with the Orchestra, Chris has seen literally hundreds of ACO performances, so coming up with favourites or highlights was difficult. ‘When we did Handel’s Messiah years and years ago with ACO Voices, it was spectacular, and Bach’s Magnificat was just fabulous. I loved the concert last year with Synergy Percussion, Cinemusica. I wasn’t sure about it when I saw it on paper, but for me, it was the best concert in five years.’
PICTURED: There is no way to calculate how many calls Chris has answered during the course of his 23 years with the ACO, but it has been many thousands.
‘Really, there have been hundreds and hundreds of concerts I could listen to over and over again. You see I was a subscriber myself before I started working here. I used to come in the early 1980s with a group of friends. We’d sit in row M or N at the Opera House. It was one of those great social occasions where you’d see the same people at the concerts from year to year. And I’d go into the Green Room afterwards. I was working at the Sydney Symphony at the time. There wasn’t the same security as there is now. There was just a book and I’d sign everyone in: it was like the RSL. We’d hang out and rub shoulders with the players and see people like Joan Sutherland walk through.’ ‘I’m really going to miss the subscribers, some of whom I have known for the whole time I’ve been here. I’ve seen so many lovely people come and go over the years.’ ‘I’m also really going to miss going to concerts and knowing that I had something to do with the planning that put the concert together. That’s the thing: people often think that it is all the Orchestra. But they wouldn’t be on stage if it weren’t for us. And we wouldn’t be down in our basement office if it weren’t for them. It’s a symbiotic relationship: they need us and we need them. I will really miss all of it.’
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“TOGNETTI GIVES THE ACO ETERNAL YOUTHFULNESS, AND MOZART IS THE ELIXIR” SYDNEY MORNING HER ALD
Pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout joins Richard Tognetti and an intimate ACO ensemble for a program featuring Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.13 and Schumann’s Piano Quintet. “BEZUIDENHOUT IS A REVELATION” THE INDEPENDENT
24 JUNE – 9 JULY ADELAIDE, CANBERRA , MELBOURNE, NEWCASTLE, PERTH, SYDNEY, WOLLONGONG
TICKETS FROM $59 ACO.COM. AU | 1800 444 444 (MON–FRI , 9AM–5PM AEST ) Transaction fees apply. Subject to availability.
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