Download romantic symphony

ROMANTIC
SYMPHONY
—
2010
N AT I O N A L
CONCERT
SEASON
ASSOCIATE TOUR PARTNER
ASSOCIATE
TOUR PARTNER
Transfield began life over half a century ago and
although its activities were in the realm of construction,
its founder, my father Franco, saw no distinction
between the creative process of artists and engineers.
The company began supporting the arts when it
founded the Transfield Art Prize in 1960. This
initiative quickly established itself as the premier
contemporary prize for art in Australia. In 1973 the
company founded the Biennale of Sydney and remains
its founding partner.
Continuing our history of supporting cutting-edge,
contemporary culture, Transfield celebrates over a
decade of support for the ACO. This year we are proud
to announce a new vehicle, the Transfield Foundation,
which will continue this patronage.
As Chairman of the ACO, few activities have given
me more pleasure and a greater sense of pride than
seeing this home-grown orchestra reach and capture
the imagination of local and international audiences.
Under the direction of Richard Tognetti the orchestra
continues to demonstrate breathtaking creativity and
the performance of Romantic Symphony you are about
to experience will be no exception.
ASSOCIATE TOUR PARTNER
GUIDO BELGIORNO-NETTIS AM
JOINT MANAGING DIRECTOR,
TRANSFIELD HOLDINGS
TOUR FOUR
ROMANTIC SYMPHONY
RICHARD TOGNETTI Artistic Director
SPEED READ
Jonny Greenwood leads a
double life as rock guitarist (with
Radiohead) and burgeoning
classical composer, with awards
both for his concert works
and film soundtracks. Popcorn
Superhet Receiver distils his
many influences, particularly
Messiaen and Penderecki, into
what Alex Ross dubs “avant-garde
Romanticism”: a luxuriantly
sonorous — but thoroughly
modern — take on both the lush
and jagged potentialities of
massed strings.
Schubert’s Eighth Symphony, even
though incomplete (we have only
two of a projected four movements)
has been described by Donald
Tovey as “the most perfect of
his large instrumental works”.
As radical a departure from
Schubert’s previous orchestral
works as was Beethoven’s “Eroica”
from his, the “Unfinished” — even
as a frustrating torso — remains
one of Schubert’s best-loved
compositions. (Interestingly,
Tovey thought that the Rondo
Brilliante — which the ACO is
playing around the country in
September and October — would
be perfect material for the neverwritten finale.)
Borges likened Brahms’ music
to “fire and crystal”, and as
a description of the radiant,
dramatic First Symphony it is
completely apt. Schumann had
hailed the young Brahms a genius
and urged him to assume the
mantle of Beethoven, but as a
symphonist Brahms was slow to
mature. His perfectionism and
his struggle with the example
of Beethoven proved hard to
overcome. For its troubled
genesis, however, the First is a
hugely ambitious and dignified
work, and a four-movement
journey from tragedy to triumph.
GREENWOOD
Popcorn Superhet Receiver
[Australian premiere]
SCHUBERT
Symphony No.8, “Unfinished”
INTERVAL
BRAHMS
Symphony No.1
Approximate durations (minutes):
18 • 25 • INTERVAL • 45
The concert will last approximately two hours including interval.
SYDNEY
Angel Place
Sat 29 May 8pm, Tue 1 Jun 8pm, Wed 2 Jun 7pm
SYDNEY
Opera House
Sun 30 May 2.30pm
Meet Richard Tognetti, signing his new CD
Richard Tognetti will sign copies of his new recording of Dvořák’s
Violin Concerto (BISCD1708) in the Sydney Opera House foyer after
the concert on Sunday 30 May. To listen to excerpts and watch footage
from the recording session, visit savd.com.au/ecards/tognetti.
MELBOURNE
Hamer Hall
Sun 6 Jun 2.30pm, Mon 7 Jun 8pm
The Australian Chamber Orchestra reserves the right to alter scheduled
programs or artists as necessary.
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 3
MESSAGE FROM
THE GENERAL MANAGER
FREE PROGRAMS
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ask that you share one program
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possible.
PREPARE IN ADVANCE
Read the program before the
concert. A PDF version of the
program will be available at
aco.com.au one week before
each tour begins, together with
music clips and podcasts.
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Spreading our wings to encompass the full symphonic
sweep of Brahms, the ACO combines forces with ACO2
in our year’s biggest orchestral concert – Romantic
Symphony. Richard Tognetti and the musicians of the
ACO have scaled the heights of several Beethoven
symphonies in past seasons, but now the border between
Classical and Romantic is decisively crossed and we get
the chance to hear Schubert and Brahms brought to life
with the verve and vigour which has illuminated the
ACO’s performances of earlier symphonies.
For a chamber orchestra, such a huge undertaking would
be impossible to imagine without the generous and
sustained support of The Transfield Foundation, our
Associate Tour Partner for these concerts in Sydney and
Melbourne. Richard and I sincerely thank The Transfield
Foundation for supporting the ACO’s vision and enabling
us to turn it into reality.
Final arrangements are being made for the ACO’s TransAtlantic tour in August and September. An impressive
series of invitations has formed into a wonderful series of
concerts in both North America and Europe, including
the prestigious Tanglewood Festival, the summer home
of the Boston Symphony, and Aldeburgh’s Snape Proms
in the UK. The tour will culminate in two concerts in the
enchanting city of Maribor in Slovenia where Richard is
the Artistic Director of Festival Maribor. While we’re on
tour, you can track the Orchestra’s progress on aco.com.au
or our Facebook page.
TIMOTHY CALNIN
GENERAL MANAGER, ACO
ACO ON THE RADIO
2MBS FM
Wed 7 July 12pm
Interview with a musician from
the Barefoot Fiddler tour.
NEXT TOUR
BAREFOOT FIDDLER
8—22 July
LONDON CONCERT
Please let friends in London know that the ACO will
perform at Cadogan Hall on Tuesday 31 August at 7pm.
The program includes Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 and
Piano Concerto No.4 with soloist Dejan Lazić and the UK
premiere of Vasks’ Vox Amoris with Richard Tognetti as
soloist. Tickets may be booked at the Cadogan Hall Box
Office at cadoganhall.com or +44 020 7730 4500.
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 5
ABOUT THE MUSIC
GREENWOOD
Popcorn Superhet Receiver
(Composed 2005, revised 2007)
About the composer:
Jonny Greenwood
(born Oxford, England, 1971)
Jonny Greenwood is lead
guitarist of the band Radiohead.
Alongside their phenomenal
success over the past decade —
multi-platinum album sales and
an ever-growing international
fanbase — Greenwood has
been building a career as an
orchestral composer, both in
film soundtracks (Bodysong,
Norwegian Wood, There Will Be
Blood) and through an ongoing
association with the BBC
Concert Orchestra.
ACO Performance History
Unlike the symphonies of
Schubert, the ACO has never
played any of Brahms’ four
symphonies. So, along with
Jonny Greenwood’s Popcorn
Superhet Receiver, which is an
Australian premiere, Brahms’
First Symphony is an ACO
premiere!
Schubert’s music fits well with
a chamber orchestra and his
early symphonies 2, 5 & 6 have
been played in a number of
ACO concerts. The “Unfinished”
has also been performed
previously, in 1986 and again
in 2002.
Jonny Greenwood is no stranger to classical music. His
early musical interests included Messiaen and Ligeti
and he started out as a viola player. He plays several
other instruments too, including piano, organ, banjo,
glockenspiel and harmonica, and he has a particular
love for the ondes martenot. His first published classical
composition was smear (for two ondes martenots and
ensemble), which was commissioned by the FuseLeeds
Festival and premiered there in 2004 by the London
Sinfonietta. In 2005 Greenwood was Featured Composer
at the South Bank Centre’s cutting-edge Ether Festival,
where the revised version of smear was performed by the
London Sinfonietta in the Royal Festival Hall, one of its
two sell-out concerts there. Piano for Children, a new
commission for John Constable and the London
Sinfonietta, was also in the program, which included
music by Dutilleux, Penderecki, Ligeti, Messiaen and
Mohammed Abdel Wahab. smear was later released
on CD on the London Sinfonietta Label as part of their
Jerwood Series.
In 2004 Greenwood was made Composer in Residence
with the BBC Concert Orchestra. The first fruit of
this association was Popcorn Superhet Receiver, a BBC
commission, premiered by the BBC Concert Orchestra
in 2005. The piece was inspired by radio static and
the extended, dissonant chords of Polish composer
Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima.
Popcorn Superhet Receiver won the BBC Radio 3 Listeners’
Award at the 2006 British Composer Awards and, as
part of the award, Greenwood received funding from
the PRS Foundation towards the commission of a new
orchestral work, Doghouse, which was premiered in
February this year.
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 7
About the music:
glissando to move from one
note to another by sliding (best
achieved by a string player
dragging a finger up the string,
or by a trombonist extending
or contracting the slide, while
playing a continuous note).
tremolo trembling or shaky.
transient an acoustical term,
used here to describe a note
which consists of more attack
than follow-through; for
example, the sound of a bow
hitting the string but releasing
before a fixed tone has started
to vibrate.
Further Reading and
Listening
A feature article on Jonny
Greenwood by Alex Ross of
The New Yorker can be read
at tinyurl.com/ross-greenwood,
while several of Greenwood’s
key compositional influences
are discussed in highly
readable form in Andrew Ford’s
Illegal Harmonies: Music in
the 20th Century (ABC Books,
2002). Those whose listening
lives have gone on so far
unencumbered by Radiohead
could commence the remedy
with their 1997 international
breakthrough release, OK
Computer (Parlophone 509996-95462-8).
A superhet (superheterodyne) receiver generates a fixed
tone as a result of the frequency difference between two
carrier waves – in the early days of wireless transmission,
this was a frequency equivalent to a note at the very top of
the violin’s range. Popcorn is a low-fat, high-fibre, maize
foodstuff.
When Jonny Greenwood was a child, he listened to
cassettes of music in the family car. When the cassettes
came to an end, Greenwood writes that he “used to listen
to the engine noise, and found that if I concentrated hard
enough I could hear the music from the cassettes still
playing somewhere in the background”. Popcorn Superhet
Receiver promotes precisely that kind of listening. The
denser string textures obscure fragments of tunes and
their implied harmonies, while other clearly audible
melodic strands combine (in superhet fashion) to create
further eerie melodies. The score is a maze (or maybe
maize) of glissandos and tremolos, punctuated by
slapped, plucked, and bowed syncopated transients, with
a distinctly rock-influenced section that prefaces the work’s
recapitulation.
Although he has achieved international fame as the
guitarist of the British pop band Radiohead, Greenwood’s
musical education was a formal one. Upon leaving
Abingdon School in Oxfordshire, Greenwood studied
at Oxford Brookes University before a tour with his
band lured him into the commercial marketplace. As a
teenager, Jonny was mesmerised by the music of Olivier
Messiaen and Krzysztof Penderecki, and since a period as
Composer in Residence for the BBC Concert Orchestra in
2005, Greenwood has reinvented himself as a distinctive
(if partially derivative) voice in the landscape of classical
music.
Popcorn Superhet Receiver grew out of workshops with
the BBC Concert Orchestra – a certain amount of trial
and error was inherent in the work’s genesis – and in 2006
the piece won the Radio 3 Listeners’ Award at the British
Composer Awards. The music was subsequently adapted
for Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film There Will Be Blood,
and the revised version of Popcorn Superhet Receiver
toured America in 2008 and received its BBC Proms
premiere in August 2009.
The rhythmic drone of a car engine, the white noise
generated by a pre-digital radio, ephemeral snatches of
half-remembered tunes, echoes of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-
8 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
ostinato literally “obstinate”,
relates to a persistently
repeated musical rhythm or
phrase, usually in the bass line.
Bartók pizzicato a specific
kind of snapped or slapped
plucking, where the string is
plucked so hard it rebounds
onto the fingerboard, causing
a hard percussive noise.
Symphonie and Penderecki’s Threnody ‘To the Victims
of Hiroshima’, exponential crescendos, Stravinskian
ostinato, Bartók pizzicato, and chromatic, modal, and
quasi-pentatonic scales are combined to form a collaged
but coherent work built around the notes F# and C (the
pivotal notes of the opening of Benjamin Britten’s War
Requiem). Popcorn’s coating is both saline and sugary, and
its superhet reception veers from finely-tuned to aleatoric
at the twist of a dial.
chromatic derived from
the Greek work for colour
(chromos) the chromatic scale
ascends in half-steps (that is,
all the black and white notes on
a piano).
modal authentic modal scales
can be recreated by playing
the white notes on a piano in
an 8-note ascending scale,
with a starting point of D, E, F
or G (the difference relating
not to the starting point but
to the different combination
of major and minor intervals
as the scale ascends). Modal
scales form the basis of much
early music (ecclesiastical
plainchant in particular) and
have achieved new prominence
in 20th-century composition
and in jazz (exemplified by
many of the compositions and
improvisations on Miles Davis’
classic album Kind of Blue).
pentatonic from the Greek for
“five” (pente), a scale often
found in folk music which uses
only five notes, and which can
be represented by playing only
the black notes on a piano
(starting on F sharp) or by a
rendition of Auld lang syne.
aleatoric music that is
essentially unpredictable as
it is composed or performed
by chance (from the Greek,
alea = dice).
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 9
SCHUBERT
Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D759, “Unfinished”
(Composed 1822)
Allegro moderato
Andante con moto
Schubert was fourteen years old when he first attempted
to write a symphony. That early experiment totalled thirty
bars and comprised only a slow introduction followed by a
sprightly opening theme, the latter closely resembling the
first subject of Beethoven’s Symphony No.2.
Franz Schubert
(b. Vienna, 1797 — d. Vienna,
1828)
Schubert transformed our
understanding of the art song,
but in life he was considered
largely a domestic composer;
indeed, he was a master of
all forms of chamber music.
His fame increased after his
premature death, however,
and he is now one of the most
highly-regarded composers.
Eleven years later, in October 1822, when Schubert began
work on his B-minor Symphony, he clearly intended to
finish the work. That said, this was by now the eleventh
time that Schubert had set out to compose a symphony,
and with only six completed symphonies to his name,
one might conclude that the odds of Schubert finishing
the B-minor were 6/4 at best. In the event, a Viennese
bookmaker would have breathed a sigh of relief when
only the first two movements were copied out in full
score – although the third movement (a Scherzo and
Trio) survives in a near-complete piano sketch. Why did
Schubert stop when he did? Martin Chusid has suggested
that the similarity of the Trio’s theme to that of the Trio in
Beethoven’s Second Symphony (again, Beethoven No.2)
caused Schubert to doubt his powers of invention. As it
was, the “Unfinished” had to wait until 17 December 1865
before being heard in a public (and, by then, distinctly
posthumous) performance. Given the musical significance
of the two surviving movements, few would now suggest
that the work should not be performed because it is
incomplete. Indeed, there is something poignant about
a piece that so obviously ends prematurely – with a slow
movement and in a different key to the one in which the
work began – given that Schubert died at so young an age.
Schubert’s symphonies did not excite the same interest
in Vienna as did his other music. Salieri, for instance,
famously declared Schubert a genius (“he can write
anything: songs, masses, string quartets”), without making
reference to Schubert’s facility as an orchestral composer.
Indeed, no Schubert symphony was published before the
“Unfinished” (as it was by then dubbed) in 1867, by which
time Schubert had been dead for approaching forty years.
This now strikes us as extraordinary and short-sighted. The
elegance of the Third Symphony, the memorability of the
10 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Schubert made a
stylistic leap that was
as groundbreaking
as that between
Beethoven’s Second
and Third (“Eroica”)
Symphonies.
Posthumous engraving of Schubert from a lithograph by J. Kriebuber, 1846
tuneful Fifth, and the unorthodox nature of the “Tragic”
Sixth Symphony would, on their own, be enough to
guarantee Schubert a significant mention in any discussion
of the symphony. But with the Eighth Symphony, Schubert
made a stylistic leap that was as groundbreaking as
that between Beethoven’s Second and Third (“Eroica”)
Symphonies. Maybe he was disappointed when his
imagination turned the clock back two decades for his
inspiration for the third movement. So Schubert shelved
the project, in the hope that his creative genius would
resurface. In the event, when the symphonic muse did
reappear, it spawned the monumental Ninth Symphony
(the “Great” C major), at which point No.8 was destined to
remain the truncated essay that we know today.
The first movement of the “Unfinished” opens with
the first subject played by the lowest strings; on first
hearing this might be mistaken for a slow introduction.
Yet this dark thread is fundamental to the unfolding of
the sonata-form narrative. The chilling material that
immediately follows – sinister scrubbing violins overlaid
with a haunting woodwind melody – is so dramatically
arresting (Tchaikovsky’s darkest ballet music is no more
unsettling) that it is difficult to hear it as a secondary
theme. The second subject (in G major) is much more selfcontained and carefree. The cellos pass the theme to the
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 11
violins, but the theme is interrupted before its final note;
the uncomfortable silence that follows is shattered by a
powerfully threatening harmony that burgeons, with truly
symphonic power, to a passage that fractures the second
subject and passes it between the upper and lower strings.
The mood for the turbulent development section and
unconventional recapitulation is set. This is a Romantic
symphony in both mood and style. Pre-echoes of Sibelius’s
bleak landscape and Dvořák’s pastoral soundscape rub
shoulders with Beethovenian portent. Because this
symphony is so well known to modern audiences, it is easy
to forget how original it was for its time, and what a giant
step Schubert took with its composition.
Further Reading and
Listening
The best overviews of 19thcentury composition (which
was, to an extent, bookended
by Schubert and Brahms) are
Jim Samson’s measured and
encyclopaedic The Cambridge
History of Nineteenth-Century
Music (Cambridge UP, 2001)
and Richard Taruskin’s more
idiosyncratic Music in the
Nineteenth Century (Oxford
UP, 2009). Schubert’s
“Unfinished” is dealt with in
broad brush-strokes in D. Kern
Holoman’s The NineteenthCentury Symphony (Schirmer,
1997) and in more detailed
fashion in Brian Newbould’s
Schubert and the Symphony:
a new perspective (Toccata
Press, 1992). Among the many
available recordings of the
“Unfinished” is one which
features Brian Newbould’s
completion of the work.
Whatever your opinion of
that, it’s still a tremendous
performance, with Sir Charles
Mackerras conducting the
Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment (Virgin Veritas
5618062).
The scoring of the opening of the symphony’s second
movement is soporifically comforting – horns and
bassoons overlay a descending plucked figure played by
the double basses (without cellos). For all Schubert’s
artistry and passion, he was also a pragmatist. The lowest
note on the double bass of Schubert’s orchestra was an
E, and that dictates the range of this cavernous sevennote figure, and hence the key of the whole movement
(E major is not the most obvious choice of key for the slow
movement of a B-minor symphony). What happens next
is concisely expressed by the pianist Alfred Brendel: “In his
larger forms, Schubert is a wanderer. He likes to move at
the edge of the precipice, and does so with the assurance
of a sleepwalker. To wander is the Romantic condition;
one yields to it enraptured, or is driven and plagued by the
terror of finding no escape. More often than not, happiness
is but the surface of despair.”
Robert Schumann’s assertion that “in every child there
is a wondrous depth” is nowhere more true than in
this symphony. Schubert’s naiveté engenders profound
utterance. To be sure, the slow movement is conciliatory,
but in a disturbing way. Schubert sleepwalks his way
backwards to Mozart and forwards to Brahms. The
woodwind melodies are peculiarly remarkable – poised
and admirably concise – and the orchestra’s dynamic range
(from pianississimo to fortissimo) is wider than in any of
Schubert’s previous symphonic movements. Inevitably we
feel disappointment that the B-minor Symphony remained
unfinished, but there is a superficial serenity at the end of
the slow movement that makes this curtailed symphonic
ending emotionally bearable, if only just.
12 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
BRAHMS
Symphony No.1 in C minor, Op.68
(Composed 1876)
Un poco sostenuto – Allegro
Andante sostenuto
Un poco Allegretto e grazioso
Adagio – Più Andante – Allegro non troppo,
ma con brio
What is worth waiting twenty years for? The love of one’s
life? Emotional security? Or the completion of one’s first
symphony? Brahms achieved the last of these, if neither of
the former.
Johannes Brahms
(b. Hamburg, 1833 — d. Vienna,
1897)
One of the great Romantics,
Brahms wrote masterpieces
in every form of composition
except opera. He was a
dedicated student of earlier
music, but was a true innovator
as well as a nostalgist, and he
proved highly influential well
into the 20th century.
The 19th century lionised Beethoven – Beethoven’s
oeuvre set the agenda for a century of Austro-German
musical supremacy. Specifically, the legacy of Beethoven’s
nine symphonies ensured that Brahms’s first symphonic
utterance took two decades to write. The oft-repeated
description of Brahms’s First Symphony as Beethoven’s
Tenth is harsh but, to some extent, fair. Musical life in
Germany changed radically in the 1830s. The requirement
of audiences to hear new symphonies was replaced by
a desire to formulate a symphonic canon, and thereby
to ascribe greatness to a small corpus of putative
masterpieces. Upon Beethoven’s death, the number of
newly-composed symphonies decreased dramatically.
In 1863, an anonymous German critic asked “Has the
symphony made ‘progress’ since Beethoven? Has the
formal aspect of this genre been expanded? Has the
content been made greater, more significant in the sense
that we can say Beethoven did in relation to Mozart? All
things considered – including everything subjectively new
and therefore epoch-making that Schubert, Mendelssohn
and Schumann have created – the answer to this question
is no.” With the benefit of hindsight, what was most
remarkable about Brahms’s First Symphony was not its
long incubation, but the very fact that it was written at all.
Brahms was a lover of the past. His adoration of 16thcentury polyphony, of the music of Bach, and of the artistic
creations of his 19th-century predecessors was second
to none. Consequently, Brahms was branded a musical
conservative. That term is often misunderstood. Empathy
with (and profound understanding of ) the past may indeed
warrant the label conservatism, but that moniker should
neither imply paucity of imagination nor lack of invention.
14 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
True, there is an antique flavour to much of Brahms’s
Symphony No.1 – the grandiloquent Beethovenian tune
of the last movement and the monumental quasi-chorale
fragment that prefaces the symphony’s ending are clearly
audible examples. But equally, the authoritative, technically
assured and aurally arresting opening of the symphony
places the work firmly at the gateway to the last quarter
of the 19th century. As Bayreuth witnessed the 1876
premiere of Wagner’s Ring Cycle – the work with which
Wagner attempted to prove that music-drama was the
legitimate successor to the choral finale of Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony – Brahms finished his First Symphony
and presented it as purely instrumental competition.
chromatic see page 9.
pizzicato played with plucked
(rather than bowed) strings.
arpeggiation refers to the
playing of a chord not as a solid
block of notes but one after the
other, in a moving line up and
down the notes of the chord
(the Italian word arpeggiare
means “to play on a harp”).
coda (literally ‘tail’) the
passage at the end of a
movement. It can be very short
or extremely drawn-out.
The opening of the symphony’s first movement is grave
and fecund. Everything grows from this potent start,
with its rising chromatic line (the “fate motif ”) carved
by violins and cellos over a three-octave range, while the
woodwinds simultaneously descend and the kettledrum
hammers out its insistent rhythm. If ever a composer
wished to broadcast the revitalisation of a decadent
musical form, then this would be the way. The symphony
lives, and its thoroughly orchestral nature and narrative
power is unquestionable. The introduction progresses
via quietly intrusive pizzicato moments and placatory
swelling phrases, and culminates in an elastic oboe tune
which heralds the end of the introduction. The energetic
first subject is announced by a hammer-blow drum beat
and an impatient statement of the fate theme; thereafter,
the argument oscillates between wide arpeggiations
and unrelenting chromatic figures. The second subject,
even though it is in the relative major, provides little
release of tension since it, too, is another incarnation
of the fate theme, albeit clothed in lush and verdant
orchestration. A stormy end to the exposition heralds the
cloudy development section, although there is sunshine
of a sort when a new, hymn-like figure bursts through
the dark skies, thereby providing momentary relief from
the aggressive forward momentum. The transition from
development to recapitulation is so invisibly sewn that
(for all its regularity) the recapitulation merely serves to
heighten the dramatic tension. Similarly, the coda grows
logically out of the preceding material, although the
major-key ending does, at last, provide a mollifying end
to this genuinely tragic movement.
After the premiere of the First Symphony, Brahms was
criticised for the brevity of its two inner movements.
While it is true that, taken together, they are roughly the
same length as each of the outer movements, they are
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 15
coda see page 15.
A Brahms symphony by a
“chamber” orchestra?
Brahms lived in a time when
orchestral forces were
rapidly changing and were
not uniformly the same.
The orchestra of the Leipzig
Gewandhaus, for example,
had about 50 players in the
1840s but the number had
risen to 98 by 1890. Yet in
1864 the Düsseldorf orchestra
numbered just 34, and the
Meiningen orchestra in 1884
had 48 players (while the
Vienna Philharmonic at the
same period had 90). So,
while Brahms was writing the
First Symphony, there was no
consensus on the subject of
what actually constituted a
symphony orchestra.
The premiere of the First
Symphony was by the Karlsrühe
orchestra of only 49 players
(with string numbers of 9 first
violins, 9 second violins, 4
violas, 4 cellos and 4 double
basses) — actually fewer than
the number of musicians on
stage with the ACO for this
performance. (By contrast, in
1878 Brahms conducted his
Second Symphony with string
numbers of 25–22–16-14–10!)
in no way insubstantial. The second movement begins
in a distant key (E major) with apparent appeasement,
but within seconds the fate motif makes an appearance.
The oboe again makes its sinuous presence felt, and is
joined at one point by a duplicitous clarinet whose unique
contribution supplies the most quietly disconcerting
few bars of the whole symphony – the archetypal wolf
in sheep’s clothing. The pastoral undercurrent of this
Andante is never allowed to dominate; the writing is
too urbane for that. But the introduction of a solo violin
towards the end of the movement brings some romantic
glamour to Brahms’s dark mood.
The clarinet opens the third movement (in the further
distant key of A-flat major) in a much more candid
manner than on its previous appearance, with a ravishingly
undulating melody that leads to a gently danced section for
the orchestra, dominated by flutes. But the clarinet – once
again in disruptive garb – quickly leads the music into a
short passage of Eastern burlesque. The music grows to a
climax, underlined by resolute brass timbres, and it falls to
the clarinet to reintroduce the opening theme, this time in
the middle of the texture rather than at the top. Eventually,
the short coda takes the music to a pulsating celestial
close, yet this brief moment of repose is destined to be
shattered by the opening of the final movement back in the
symphony’s home key of C minor.
The start of the fourth movement is the defining moment
of the symphony. In the words of Donald Tovey, Brahms
here composed “the most dramatic introduction that has
been heard since that to the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony… he brings all the future materials forth in
a magnificent cloudy procession.” The skies eventually
clear, C major is established, a horn call alerts us to the
significance of what is to come, a brass chorale reminds
us of the almost ecclesiastical devotion that Brahms felt
towards his calling as a symphonist, and the ground is
prepared for one of the greatest and most memorable
tunes in the history of the symphony. This broad and
majestic song is clearly inspired by Beethoven. Indeed,
when it was suggested to Brahms that Beethoven
was the model for this grand gesture, Brahms testily
responded, “Any ass can see that!” Indeed, any ass can
see the historical progression – from Beethoven through
Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann – that led to
the composition of this 19th-century masterpiece. It is
wholly Germanic, wholly Romantic and, ultimately, wholly
Brahmsian. Historically-aware yet innovative; tragic yet
redemptive. Again, in the words of Tovey, “It is the special
16 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Further Reading and
Listening
David Brodbeck’s chapter on
Brahms in D. Kern Holoman’s The
Nineteenth-Century Symphony
(Schirmer, 1997) is a good
starting point for thinking about
this symphony. If that goes not
far enough, Brodbeck expanded
his thoughts in Brahms:
Symphony No.1 (Cambridge
UP, 1997). Two recent, radically
different, live recordings of
Brahms No.1 capture some
extraordinary music-making on
disc: John Eliot Gardiner and
the Orchestra Révolutionnaire
et Romantique on instruments
of Brahms’ time (Soli Deo
Gloria SDG702) and Vladimir
Jurowski and the London
Philharmonic Orchestra’s
magisterial reading (LPO Live
LPO0043). Interestingly, both
these recordings are of live
performances in London’s
Royal Festival Hall (in 2007
and 2008 respectively).
privilege of the classical forms of instrumental music
that they can thus bring within the compass of a single
work something more than a tragedy; a work that ends
in triumph, not because the world has been stopped in
its course in order to spare our feelings, but because our
feelings are carried through and beyond the tragedy to
something higher.”
PROGRAM NOTES BY JEREMY SUMMERLY © 2010
Jeremy Summerly is a conductor and broadcaster, and the
Sterndale Bennett Lecturer in Music at the Royal Academy of
Music, London.
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 17
THE ART
OF BOWMAKING
Everyone has heard of Stradivari violins and most
Australians have heard of Guarneri because of the
violin Richard Tognetti plays. We also know about their
stratospheric price tags. There are scores of old Italian
makers whose instruments beg upwards of half a million
dollars. When you buy one of these houses that you place
under your chin and string with the gut of a sheep, they
come with a bow. Right? Wrong!
The bow is a completely separate entity; made by a
completely separate person. Generally, violinmakers don’t
make bows, and bowmakers don’t make violins. The violin
world has Stradivari, Guarneri and others – mostly Italian;
the bow world has Tourte, Peccatte, Pajeot and others –
mostly French.
ACO Principal Cellist
Timo-Viekko Valve’s
Pernambuco cello bow
made by Michael Maurushat.
In the latter half of the 18th century, Francois Xavier
Tourte created the modern bow, which to this day is
basically unchanged. The frog, which holds the hair at the
hand end, is made most commonly of ebony, sometimes
of ivory, and in the past, sometimes of tortoise shell.
There is a gold or silver and ebony adjuster to tighten the
horsehair along the length of the stick. The stick itself
(such an ignominious word for such an important tool)
is made of Pernambuco or Pau-Brasil (Caesalpinia
echinata).
18 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Pernambuco is a coastal hardwood that grows in Brazil. In
fact, Brazil was named for this wood – not the other way
around. Tourte had access to Pernambuco because it was
imported into France as a textile dye – though the wood
is orange in colour, it produces a rich violet/purple.
With the advent of aniline dyes in the mid 19th century
the only people left interested in the trees were archetiers,
or bowmakers. So why is it listed by CITES (Convention
on International Trade of Endangered Species) as illegal
to trade?
Pernambuco is endangered not because archetiers are
ransacking Brazil and pillaging the forest, but because of
its unfortunate predilection for coastal locations. It has
been decimated to provide pasture for cattle and razed to
make way for coastal highway systems.
The violin world has
Stradivari, Guarneri and
others… the bow world
has Tourte, Peccatte,
Pajeot…
Bowmakers around the world have organised to save
Pernambuco through IPCI (International Pernambuco
Conservation Initiative). There are plantations as well
as contracts with cacao growers, as cacao plants require
shade and the Pernambuco tree provides that shade. This
is not going to be an immediate solution: Pernambuco
trees must be at least 30 years of age before providing
usable wood. So we’re left to wait and see. Hopefully the
usable stocks of Pernambuco in the hands of modern day
archetiers don’t run out before the newly planted trees can
provide a new generation of bows. Otherwise we could see
the necessity of generous benefactors providing bows as
well as instruments.
For further reading visit russrymer.com or ipci-usa.org.
MICHAEL MAURASHAT
Bowmaker Michael Maurashat made Timo-Veikko Valve’s
new bow and visits the ACO’s rehearsal studio weekly to
maintain the ACO’s bows. Michael will explain more about
the art of bowmaking in future programs.
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 19
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER
ORCHESTRA
RICHARD TOGNETTI AO ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
“You’d have to scour the
universe hard to find
another band like the ACO.”
THE TIMES, UK
“The energy and vibe
of a rock band with the
ability of a crack classical
chamber group.”
WASHINGTON POST
Select Discography
Bach Violin Concertos
ABC 476 5691
Vivaldi Flute Concertos
with Emmanuel Pahud
EMI 3 47212 2
Bach Keyboard Concertos
with Angela Hewitt
Hyperion SACDA 67307/08
Tango Jam
with James Crabb
Mulberry Hill MHR C001
Song of the Angel
Music of Astor Piazzolla
with James Crabb
Chandos Chan 10163
Sculthorpe: works for string
orchestra including Irkanda I, Djilile
and Cello Dreaming
Chandos Chan 10063
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 four centuries and a vitality and energy 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 crossartform 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.
Several of the ACO’s principal musicians perform with
spectacularly fine instruments. Tognetti performs on a
priceless 1743 Guarneri del Gesù, on loan to him from an
anonymous Australian benefactor. Principal Cello TimoVeikko Valve plays on a 1729 Giuseppe Guarneri Filius
Andreae cello, also on loan from an anonymous benefactor,
and Assistant Leader Satu Vänskä plays a 1759 J.B. Guadagnini
violin on loan from the Commonwealth Bank Group.
Forty 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.
These and more ACO recordings
are available from our online shop:
aco.com.au/shop or by calling
1800 444 444.
The ACO has made acclaimed recordings for labels including
ABC Classics, Sony, Channel Classics, Hyperion, EMI,
Chandos and Orfeo 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 Vivaldi Concertos with
Emmanuel Pahud. The ACO appears in the television series
Classical Destinations II and the award-winning film Musica
Surfica, both available on DVD and CD.
To be kept up to date with ACO
tours and recordings, register
for the free e-newsletter at
aco.com.au.
In 2005, the ACO inaugurated an ambitious national education
program, which includes outreach activities and mentoring
of outstanding young musicians, including the formation of
AC O2, an elite training orchestra which tours regional centres.
Giuliani Guitar Concerto
with John Williams
Sony SK 63385
20 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
RICHARD TOGNETTI AO
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND LEADER
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
‘Richard Tognetti is one
of the most characterful,
incisive and impassioned
violinists to be heard today.’
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (UK)
2006
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.
Australian violinist and conductor Richard Tognetti has
established an international reputation for his compelling
performances and artistic individualism. He studied at the
Sydney Conservatorium with Alice Waten and in his home
town of Wollongong with William Primrose, and at the
Bern Conservatory (Switzerland) with Igor Ozim, where he
was awarded the Tschumi Prize as the top graduate soloist
in 1989. Later that year he led several performances of the
ACO, and was appointed Leader. He was subsequently
appointed Artistic Director of the Orchestra.
Tognetti performs on period, modern and electric
instruments. His numerous arrangements, compositions
and transcriptions have expanded the chamber orchestra
repertoire and have been performed throughout the world.
Highlights of his career as director, soloist or chamber
music partner include the Sydney Festival (as conductor of
Mozart’s Mitridate); and appearances with the Handel &
Haydn Society (Boston), Hong Kong Philharmonic, Camerata
Salzburg, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Irish Chamber Orchestra and
the Nordic Chamber Orchestra. He is Artistic Director of the
Maribor Festival in Slovenia.
As soloist Richard Tognetti has appeared with the ACO and
the major Australian symphonies, including the Australian
premiere of Ligeti’s Violin Concerto with the Sydney Symphony.
He has collaborated with colleagues from various art forms,
including Joseph Tawadros, Dawn Upshaw, James Crabb,
Emmanuel Pahud, Neil Finn, Tim Freedman, Paul Capsis, Bill
Henson and Michael Leunig. In 2003, Richard 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 be heard performing on the award-winning soundtrack.
In 2005, with Michael Yezerski, he co-composed the soundtrack
to Tom Carroll’s surf film Horrorscopes and, in 2008, created
The Red Tree.
Richard Tognetti 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.
Alongside numerous recordings with the ACO, Richard
Tognetti has recorded Bach’s solo violin repertoire, winning
three consecutive ARIA Awards for Best Classical Album
(2006–8) and the Dvořák Violin Concerto.
Richard Tognetti holds honorary doctorates from three Australian
universities and, was made a National Living Treasure in 1999
and in 2010 was awarded an Order of Australia. He performs
on a 1743 Guarneri del Gesù, made available exclusively to
him by an anonymous Australian private benefactor.
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 21
MUSICIANS
Photos: Tanja Ahola, Helen White
RICHARD TOGNETTI AO SATU VÄNSKÄ*
MADELEINE BOUD
ALICE EVANS
Artistic Director and Lead Violin
Chair sponsored by Michael Ball AM
& Daria Ball, Joan Clemenger, Wendy
Edwards, and Prudence MacLeod
Violin
Chair sponsored by Terry
Campbell AO & Christine Campbell
Violin
Chair sponsored by Jan Bowen,
Jo McKenzie & Scott Davies, and
The Sandgropers
Assistant Leader
Violin
Chair sponsored by Robert &
Kay Bryan
AIKO GOTO
MARK INGWERSEN
ILYA ISAKOVICH
CHRISTOPHER MOORE
Violin
Chair sponsored by Andrew &
Hiroko Gwinnett
Violin
Chair sponsored by Runge
Violin
Chair sponsored by Melbourne
Community Foundation – Connie
& Craig Kimberley Fund
Principal Viola
Chair sponsored by Tony Shepherd
NICOLE DIVALL
STEPHEN KING
TIMOVEIKKO VALVE
Viola
Chair sponsored by Ian & Nina
Lansdown
Viola
Principal Cello
Chair sponsored by Philip Bacon AM Chair Sponsored by Mr Peter
Weiss AM
MELISSA BARNARD
Cello
Chair sponsored by The Bruce &
Joy Reid Foundation
Players dressed by
AKIRA ISOGAWA
JULIAN THOMPSON
DANIEL YEADON
Cello
Cello
Chair sponsored by John Leece OAM
& Anne Leece
MAXIME BIBEAU
Principal Bass
Chair sponsored by John Taberner
& Grant Lang
* Satu Vänskä plays a 1759 J.B. Guadagnini violin on loan from the Commonwealth Bank Group.
22 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
MUSICIANS
MAGNUS JOHNSTON
ALISSA SMITH
ANDREW BARNES^^
BRETT PAGE***
Guest Principal 2nd Violin
Viola
Principal Bassoon
Principal Bass Trombone
ZOË BLACK
MOLLY KADARAUCH
ANTHONY GRIMM
BRIAN NIXON
Violin
Cello
Bassoon
Principal Timpani
*
REBECCA CHAN
EVE SILVER##
BROCK IMISON**
Violin
Cello
Principal Contrabassoon
SARAH CURRO**
DAVID CAMPBELL^
Violin
Bass
LIN JIANG◊
Principal Horn
KATHERINE LUKEY
STEPHEN NEWTON**
ANTON SCHROEDER
Violin
^
#
Bass
Principal 3rd Horn
^^
AIRENA NAKAMURA***
ALISON MITCHELL*
RACHEL SILVER##
**
Violin
Principal Flute
Horn
HOLLY PICCOLI
Violin
LAMORNA
NIGHTINGALE
Horn
KAREN SEGAL
Flute
DAVID ELTON##
Violin
SHEFALI PRYOR^
Principal Trumpet
YI WANG^^^
Principal Oboe
GREGORY FLYNN≠
Violin
HUW JONES
Trumpet
CHARLOTTE
BURBROOK DE VERE
Oboe
Viola
Principal Clarinet
ROSEMARY CURTIN
NIGEL CROCKER
MARGERY SMITH
Trombone
Viola
Clarinet
FRANKIE LO SURDO
SCOTT KINMONT^
CATHERINE McCORKILL#
##
^^^
***
◊
Principal Trombone
≠
Appears courtesy of Scottish
Chamber Orchestra
Appears courtesy of Sydney
Symphony
Appears courtesy of Australia
Ensemble
Appears courtesy of Sydney
Conservatorium of Music
Appears courtesy of
Melbourne Symphony
Orchestra
Appears courtesy of
West Australian
Symphony Orchestra
Appears courtesy of
Orchestra Victoria
Appears courtesy of
Australian Opera and Ballet
Orchestra
Appears courtesy of
Malaysian Philharmonic
Orchestra
Appears courtesy of
St Gallen Symphony
Orchestra, Switzerland
Expanding the orchestra for this program allows us the opportunity to invite AC O2 alumni to join the ACO on tour. These include Charlotte
Burbrook de Vere, Stephen Newton, Holly Piccoli and Eve Silver, as well as Madeleine Boud (now a full-time member of the ACO) and
Rebecca Chan (currently on trial for a full-time position with the Orchestra).
Additionally, we acknowledge the following as alumni of the Australian National Academy of Music: Madeleine Boud, Rebecca Chan,
Katherine Lukey, Holly Piccoli, Eve Silver and Stephen Newton.
BEHIND THE SCENES
BOARD
Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM
(Chairman)
Angus James
(Deputy Chairman)
Ken Allen AM
Bill Best
Glen Boreham
Liz Cacciottolo
Chris Froggatt
Janet Holmes à Court AC
Brendan Hopkins
Tony Shepherd
John Taberner
Peter Yates
MANAGEMENT
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
Richard Tognetti AO
Artistic Director
Michael Stevens
Artistic Administrator
FINANCE
Steve Davidson
Chief Financial Officer
Shyleja Paul
Assistant Accountant
DEVELOPMENT
Kate Bilson
Events Manager
Tom Carrig
Senior Development
Executive
Vanessa Jenkins
Senior Development
Executive
Lillian Armitage
Patrons Manager
Helen Margolis
Grants Program
Manager
Liz D’Olier
Development
Coordinator
OPERATIONS
Damien Low
Artistic Operations
Manager
Gabriel van Aalst
Orchestra Manager
Erin McNamara
Deputy Orchestra
Manager
Vicki Stanley
Education and
Emerging
Artists Manager
Sarah Conolan
Education and
Operations Assistant
Jennifer Collins
Librarian
INFORMATION
SYSTEMS
Martin Keen
Systems and Technology
Manager
Emmanuel Espinas
Network Infrastructure
Engineer
MARKETING
Georgia Rivers
Marketing Manager
ARCHIVES
Rosie Rothery
Marketing Executive
John Harper
Archivist
Chris Griffith
Box Office Manager
Mary Stielow
National Publicist
Dean Watson
Customer Relations
Manager
Olivia Artigas
Office Administrator
and Marketing Assistant
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: [email protected] Website: aco.com.au
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 23
ACO PARTNERS
The ACO receives around 50% of its income from the box office, 35% from the business
community and private donors and less than 15% from government sources. The private
sector plays a key role in the continued growth and artistic development of the Orchestra.
We are proud of the relationships we have developed with each of our partners and would like
to acknowledge their generous support.
FOUNDING PARTNER
NATIONAL TOUR PARTNERS
PRINCIPAL INNOVATION PARTNER
OFFICIAL PARTNERS
PERTH SERIES AND
WA REGIONAL TOUR PARTNER
QLD/NSW REGIONAL
TOUR PARTNER
CONCERT AND SERIES PARTNERS
GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
ACCOMMODATION AND EVENT SUPPORT
Department of the Arts,
Sport and Recreation
BILSON’S RESTAURANT BAR CUPOLA
SWEENEY RESEARCH
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 33
STACCATO: ACO NEWS
DONOR PROFILE: PETER WEISS AM
Peter was brought up in a musical
family and from childhood had a
passion for playing the cello; he
remembers boarding a ship to
London aged 21, cello under his
arm, ready to “ravish the world”. His
passion for musical performance has
inspired his generosity towards the
ACO, as a donor, ambassador and
loyal friend for over 20 years.
Peter has supported the ACO in so
many ways. From his past service
on the ACO Board through to his concert
sponsorships, his most generous bequest and
his patronage of our Principal Cello TimoVeikko Valve’s Medici Chair, he has been and
continues to be a passionately dedicated Patron.
He fostered music performance in churches in
Sydney through his support for
the ACO’s hugely popular Bach
Inspired concerts, and made
possible the ACO’s award winning
recordings of all Bach’s repertoire
for solo violin. Peter also
collaborated with Margaret Olley
to sponsor the reprisal of Luminous,
one of the most breathtaking
concerts in the ACO’s history. In
2006, the ACO Board recognised
Peter’s extraordinary contribution by
honouring him as a Life Patron of the Orchestra.
Peter says his philanthropy comes from “doing
what something inside me leads me to do”.
His visionary ideas have been a vital part of the
ACO’s success and we are privileged to have
his support.
For more information about donating to the ACO, please phone Lillian Armitage on
(02) 8274 3835 or email [email protected].
EDUCATION NEWS
The Emerging Artists have just
completed their second Intensive
Period of chamber music workshops
and masterclasses. The focus was on
spontaneity and the musicians worked
on improvisation, ensemble playing
and balance. As part of ACO2 they
performed alongside ACO musicians
in concerts for the Blue Mountains
Concert Society in Springwood and
in the House Music series at Sydney’s
Government House. The next
education event will be a tour to far
north Queensland with a quartet of
ACO musicians. This tour will include
performances, Combined Schools
Workshops and Schools Concerts in
Bundaberg, Cairns and Rockhampton.
Top: Melissa Barnard (right) and Aiko Goto
(front) rehearse with Emerging Artist
Christopher Cartlidge.
Bottom: Caroline Henbest (back left) works with
Emerging Artists Michael Brooks-Reid (left) and
Eleanor Betts (right).
34 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
STACCATO: ACO EVENTS
ANNUAL ACO CHAIRMAN’S COUNCIL AND
MAJOR PATRONS COCKTAIL PARTIES
In March, the ACO hosted its annual Chairman’s
Council and Major Patrons Cocktail Parties in
Sydney and Melbourne.
On Wednesday 3 March, a warm Sydney evening
played host to an intimate performance by an
ACO quartet, followed by drinks and canapés
at the stunning harbour-side home of David
and Stephanie Murray. On Tuesday 30 March,
Melbourne Chairman’s Council member Simon
Holmes à Court and wife Katrina opened
their beautiful home to the ACO’s Melbourne
Chairman’s Council and Major Patrons.
The ACO’s annual Chairman’s Council and Major
Patrons Cocktail Parties are opportunities for
Chairman’s Council members and Major Patrons
to enjoy world-class chamber music in a private
and relaxed setting.
The ACO hosts exclusive events of this nature
to thank Chairman’s Council members, Medici
Patrons and lead International and Education
Patrons for their valued contribution to the
Orchestra.
For more information on the ACO’s Chairman’s
Council, please contact Tom Carrig on
02 8274 3810 or email [email protected].
For more information about donating to the ACO,
please phone Lillian Armitage on 02 8274 3835
or email [email protected].
Below: Janet Holmes à Court AC and
Satu Vänskä (Sydney).
Above: Katrina Holmes à Court, David McLeish, Peter Cresswell, Carolyn
Cresswell and Sue McLeish (Melbourne).
Above: Christopher Moore, Simon Holmes à Court and
Timo-Veikko Valve (Melbourne).
Left: Michelle Belgiorno-Nettis with Rosie and John Grill
(Sydney).
AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 35