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Event Emporium. Making beautiful music with the ACO as official event partner.p: 02 9955 7107 | w: www.eventemporium.com.au | e: [email protected]
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SOL GABETTA
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“Wit, aristocratic poise and elegance;mercurial shifts of mood, intensity and lightness of touch in near miraculous balance.” – THE HERALD
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WE DANCE TOA DIFFERENTTUNE.Event Emporiumorchestrates events like no other. From gala dinners and corporate parties to conferences and product launches, our repertoire is original, daring and different, inspiring audiences to engage, celebrate, applaud and delight.
Event Emporium. Making beautiful music with the ACO as official event partner.p: 02 9955 7107 | w: www.eventemporium.com.au | e: [email protected]
Pictured: ACO Gala Dinner Fundraiser, Paris in the Spring
SOL GABETTA
www.sonymusic.com.auwww.solgabetta.com
“Wit, aristocratic poise and elegance;mercurial shifts of mood, intensity and lightness of touch in near miraculous balance.” – THE HERALD
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Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Camerata Academica Salzburg perform Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.1
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FIND YOUR ARTThe best in fine music performance every weeknight at 8.30PM AEST
Anne-Sophie Mutter and the Camerata Academica Salzburg perform Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.1
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The Australian Chamber Orchestra is extremely proud to welcome the Basel Chamber Orchestra for its very first appearances in Australia. For those of us who live in the world of chamber orchestras, the Basel Chamber Orchestra is one of the most important institutions in our world for its remarkable contribution to the expansion of the repertoire.
This was especially true under the leadership and vision of its founder, the great Swiss conductor and philanthropist Paul Sacher. It is thanks to Sacher’s commitment to the repertoire of chamber orchestras that we have some of the greatest music written for our ensemble, by such 20th-century legends as Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, Witold Lutosławski and especially Béla Bartók, who wrote the Divertimento for Strings and Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta for Sacher and his Orchestra.
The Basel Chamber Orchestra’s appearances in Australia this month are the antipodean side of an international exchange which will see the ACO performing in Switzerland in July next year. Thanks to this collaboration, Richard Tognetti and the ACO will give concerts in the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin Festival in Gstaad – a festival made even more significant by the 2016 celebration of Menuhin’s birth. These Swiss concerts form the foundation stone of the ACO’s extensive July/August tour which will include performances in some of the most significant music festivals in Europe and North America.
While our guest orchestra, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, performs in the ACO’s subscription seasons in Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney, the ACO is returning from an extraordinary week-long residency in Hong Kong which included performances in partnership with the Sydney Dance Company, ACO Underground (at the funky new Hong Kong creative hub PMQ), an installation of ACO VIRTUAL and a side-by-side workshop with students of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts on Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony.
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M E S S A G E F R O M T H E C H A I R M A N
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E N G A G E W I T H U S
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S O L G A B E T TA B A S E L C H A M B E R O R C H E S T R A
The Australian Chamber Orchestra reserves the right to alter scheduled artists and programs as necessary.
Program 1 (22, 25, 27, 29 November)
FAURÉ (arr. Herzog) Après un rêve, Op.7 No.1, for cello
and small orchestra
SAINT-SAËNS (arr. Walter) Cello Concerto No.1 in A minor, Op.33
INTERVAL
HEINZ HOLLIGER Meta Arca
BARTÓK Divertimento for Strings
Approximate durations (minutes): 4 – 22 – INTERVAL – 9 – 23
The concert will last approximately one hour and 30 minutes, including a 20-minute interval.
Program 2 (23 November)
BOCCHERINI Cello Concerto No.10 in D major, G.483
HAYDN Symphony No.59 in A major ‘Fire’
INTERVAL
PĒTERIS VASKS Cello Concerto No.2 ‘Presence’
Approximate durations (minutes): 18 – 22 – INTERVAL – 34
The concert will last approximately one hour and 40 minutes, including a 20-minute interval.
Yuki Kasai Director and Violin
Sol Gabetta Cello
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A B O U T T H E M U S I C
P R O G R A M O N E (22, 25, 27, 29 November)
‘Time and place’ might be a good subtext for the first program in this tour by the Basel Chamber Orchestra. The music of Fauré and Saint-Saëns is expressive of a certain French sensibility of the 1870s; Swiss identity is one of Heinz Holliger’s concerns though he profits more from contemporary music’s technical experimentation; Bartók, the Hungarian composer of the Divertimento looked to the music of his own region, Eastern Europe, as a means to modernise Western classical music in the 20th century.
Fauré and Saint-Saëns knew each other well. Saint-Saëns had become Fauré’s piano teacher in 1861, and had mentored Fauré’s path into Paris society, introducing him, for example, to the salon of Pauline Viardot in 1872. Though Fauré’s harmonic language would pave the way for later French composers such as Debussy and Ravel, Fauré and Saint-Saëns shared a similar harmonic sensibility – an eschewal of the German chromatic intensification of cadence – in the 1870s when this work was composed.
Après un rêve started life as a song. Its text comes from a Tuscan poem translated by Romain Bussine, a member of Viardot’s circle.
PICTURED: Gabriel Fauré, 1875.
APRÈS UN RÊVE, OP. 7 NO.1, FOR CELLO AND SMALL ORCHESTRA arr. Thomas Herzog
(Composed 1877)
GABRIEL FAURÉ Born Pamiers 1845. Died Paris 1924.
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It describes a flight with a lover ‘towards the light’. But this sensation is a dream and, on waking, the subject longs to return to the consolations of ‘mysterious night’.
The music reflects the text’s arc. Its long cantilena emerging from pulsing or throbbing C minor chords ‘unfolds organically from beginning to end’, according to Fauré expert Graham Johnson, and climaxes and returns to that C minor pulse. No small part of the song’s intoxicating effect is the effectiveness of its harmony (that wonderful ninth chord so soon after the opening!).
Tuscan folk poetry was particularly enjoyed by Pauline Viardot. As well, she loved Schumann and that might explain the similarity of Fauré’s repeated chords to Schumann’s accompaniment for ‘Ich grolle nicht’.
Performance of this song tonight in an instrumental arrangement proves that the song’s cumulative power lies in its melody. Lack of literary merit in the text may explain why the novelist Marcel Proust, an admirer of other Fauré songs, considered this one ‘a dud’. But Pablo Casals’ cello version became a hit in 1910 and the song has been popular in various arrangements ever since.
CELLO CONCERTO NO.1 IN A MINOR, OP.33 arr. David Walter
(Composed 1872)
I. Allegro non troppo – II. Allegretto con moto – III. Tempo primo
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS Born Paris 1835. Died Algiers 1921.
Unpretentiously beguiling, tightly constructed, and subtly orchestrated, this concerto reveals many of Saint-Saëns’ most endearing qualities as a composer. Its composition was one of the activities Saint-Saëns threw himself into following the death of his beloved great-aunt in January 1872. At the same time – as ‘Phémius’ – he began writing a newspaper column promoting French music (composers such as Rameau, Gounod and Bizet) as a way of bolstering French national pride after losing the Franco-Prussian War.
The concerto was first performed on 19 January 1873 by the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra with its principal cellist Auguste Tolbecque as soloist. Saint-Saëns’ biographer James Harding says, it ‘gives the instrument an excellent opportunity to display its resources without straining after needless virtuosity.’
The work begins with one sharp chord from the orchestra, immediately ushering in a swirling theme from the solo cello, which will form the main thematic material for the movement. This material is repeated, varied, played on the woodwinds behind long notes on the solo cello and extended. Eventually the cello
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PICTURED: Camille Saint-Saëns. plays an attractive romantic melody that is dovetailed into cadential material by the swirling theme in the accompaniment. A new sequence continues to work on the swirling figure, first making use of the half-tone rise and fall of its tailpiece.
A developmental extension of the romantic melody leads us imperceptibly into the minuet-like second movement. Saint-Saëns’ structural fluency has been revealed by the clever way in which this movement was introduced, almost as if it were merely another phase of the first movement. (This work will sound as if three movements have been rolled into one.) A dance-like figure is transformed into an orchestral accompaniment for a ruminative cello melody. There is a slightly darker, more lilting middle section, followed by cadenza-like runs in the cello solo which lead to a reprise of the dancing figure over a cello trill.
The movement winds down, and then the cello line forms the link to the final, and longest, movement. The oboe retrieves the first movement’s swirling figure. After a dramatic development, the cello finally takes back the swirling figure. The cello now introduces a new aria-like theme, built on the rise-and-fall idea of the opening melody. Now, at last, the cello part begins to become more virtuosic, and in the slower section ends up in the instrumental stratosphere, with high harmonics. The music resumes speed after a reprise of the aria-like melody, and with an exciting pick-up, the movement and the concerto come to a close.
. . . it ‘gives the instrument an excellent opportunity to display its resources without straining after needless virtuosity.’ JAMES HARDING
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META ARCA
(Composed 2012)
HEINZ HOLLIGER Born Langenthal 1939.
The Swiss musician Heinz Holliger has been known for five decades as an oboist. As critic Tom Huizenga, reviewing a Bach recording in 2011, said, ‘They say the cello can pull at the heartstrings . . . but you should hear what Heinz Holliger can do with an oboe.’
But Holliger is also an important composer. He studied composition with Pierre Boulez (in Berne) and with Sándor Veress, a pupil of Bartók who had migrated to Switzerland in 1949. Holliger’s own works express a concern with Swiss identity, the past (Schumann is an important anchor for this thought), and also a desire to push the technical envelope. Works contemplating the frontiers of existence might push the music to the edge of the physically possible. There is a distillation of expression to its essentials that may remind the listener of Anton von Webern or even, in stage-works, the playwright Samuel Beckett. Since the 1980s, Holliger has moved away from thoughtful pre-composition to more direct expression. But as critic Paul Griffiths has said, ‘Mr. Holliger’s music profits from his practical and imaginative experience of what were once marginal effects.’
Meta arca was written for another Swiss chamber orchestra, the Camerata Bern. A mini concerto for violin and 13 or 15 string instruments, it makes great use of the possibilities of sound emission in string technique – harmonics, alla chitarra (played in the manner of a guitar), the thumb beating against the body of the instrument . . . Where is the unity? The universe that contains this music is huge. One is reminded that Holliger admires Schumann’s ‘labyrinthine imagination’ and unending ‘associative thinking process’. On the other hand the work is sequential in the sense of being six tone-portraits in a row of former concertmasters of the Berne orchestra. Their names are given in the score:
Alexander van Wijnkoop Thomas Fůri Ana Chumachenko Thomas Zehetmair Erich Höbarth Antje Weithaas
PICTURED: Heinz Holliger.
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Paul Sacher, founder of an earlier incarnation of the Basel Chamber Orchestra, played an important role in commissioning music in the 20th century. Bartók had already written him the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste and the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion when, in November 1938, Sacher asked Bartók for another work for his Basel orchestra.
Times were difficult. In Budapest, Bartók felt uneasy about the European political situation. But he confirmed his acceptance in March 1939.
One might expect music of this period to be unrelievedly harrowing or gloomy. But Bartók would end up writing a Divertimento, a musical form that in the 18th century denoted musical entertainment. He wrote to Sacher on 1 June: ‘. . . my idea is a kind of concerto grosso alternating with concertino’ – that is with a solo group of instruments who appear against a background of the rest of the ensemble. He asked Sacher ‘whether you have the right people for the solo-string quartet in your orchestra.’ He would bring to the work the expertise in string technique he had honed in string quartets from No.3 on.
Bartók was clearly thinking of very traditional Western forms. His early career had seen an immersion in the folk music of Eastern Europe (and Central Asia and North Africa). Now he was seeking to blend Eastern melos and Western traditional forms, not only
PICTURED: Béla Bartók.
DIVERTIMENTO FOR STRINGS
(Composed 1939)
I. Allegro non troppo II. Molto adagio III. Allegro assai
BÉLA BARTÓK Born Nagyszentmiklós 1881. Died New York 1945.
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PICTURED: Béla Bartók using a gramophone to record folk songs sung by peasants in what is now Slovakia.
“. . . my idea is a kind of concerto grosso alternating with concertino . . .” BARTÓK
‘because of the geographical position of [my] country ...’ but, also, because it was a demonstration of ‘universal brotherhood’.
The Divertimento contains many of the recognisable features of the synthesis that has come to be considered typical of the mature Bartók. The first movement may begin with what sounds like Eastern European asymmetrical dance rhythms (the dance in mind was the verbunkos, a Hungarian recruiting dance), but Western contrapuntal techniques, particularly canon and other types of imitation, soon arise as the means of developing the material which,
in typical Bartók fashion, grows while remaining recognisable in its broader shape.
The sombre, muted atmosphere of the Second movement has been likened by some to funeral music. The tremolos and ‘shrieks’ are similar to sound bursts to be heard in music Bartók elsewhere associated with night-time, but it is also hard to ignore a presentiment of war. The third movement could be considered a rondo but Bartók’s creative instincts are too organic to allow for straightforward ‘repetition’ of the recurring sections. A ‘polka’ toward the end shows how far he can extend his material.
Bartók completed this work in 15 days as a guest at the Sachers’ house at Saanen (Bern canton) in August. The atmosphere was exceptionally genial. He said he felt like ‘a musician of olden times, the invited guest of a patron of the arts’. But the German-Russian Non-Aggression Pact was announced while he was part way through his next commission, the Sixth String Quartet, and he hurriedly returned to Budapest. In the next harrowing months, Bartók’s attention was on ‘a race against time’ to get works published before communications between Hungary and Britain were broken off. On 16 December his mother died. Bartók kept working, virtually without respite, until April when he boarded a boat for New York, where plans would be made for a return to the US that would become permanent.
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P R O G R A M T W O (23 November)
The music in this concert has been composed away from what would once have been considered the major centres of Western music. Boccherini spent much of his working life in Spain. Haydn was forced to become innovative while serving at remote Esterházy family estates. Pēteris Vasks is from Latvia and only recently has our orchestral repertoire been enriched by music from the Baltic States.
PICTURED: Pencil drawing of Luigi Boccherini by Etienne Mazas after a portrait bust.
Born in Lucca, Italy, Boccherini was first taught by his father who assumed the customary initial responsibility for his son’s musical education. Neither the Italian cities nor Vienna, where Boccherini had gone in 1758, could offer a cello virtuoso of the time the means to make a living purely as a soloist. So Boccherini went to Paris (in 1767). There he made a fateful decision. At the end of six months, instead of going to England as intended, he went to Madrid, where he was to remain under the patronage of the Infante Luis Antonio for the rest of Don Luis’ life, living with him even in ‘exile’ at Arenas de San Pedro, a little town in the Gredos mountains (no-one could tell Haydn in Esterhaza where it was). There, and in Candeleda, Boccherini wrote many of his most famous works.
Like Heinz Holliger (heard in Basel’s first program), Boccherini was an expert on his chosen instrument, but his chosen instrument is more important in his compositional output. Tonight’s cello concerto is one of 11 Boccherini wrote for the instrument.
The broad orchestral opening promises a work on a grand scale. An interesting feature established from the outset of the soloist’s exposition is a dialogic relationship, even cameraderie, between the solo cello and the two oboes, echoed to a lesser extent by the
CELLO CONCERTO NO.10 IN D, G.483
(Composed 1782)
I. Allegro moderato II. Andante lentarello III. Allegro e con moto
LUIGI BOCCHERINI Born Lucca 1743. Died Madrid 1805.
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two horns, of the ensemble. One of music history’s great melodists, Boccherini’s skill in this regard is on display in the Andante lentarello. The plaintive melody of the opening is first announced by orchestral strings. That Boccherini refreshingly explores subtly-shifting relationships between the instruments is highlighted by the way the solo cellist’s entry in this movement is so cunningly surreptitious, concealed underneath the winds’ repetition of the strings’ melody. Horn calls, echoed this time by oboes, break the atmosphere of dignified ceremonial dance for a vigorous Allegro finale.
‘Haydn’s wife’ is what Boccherini was called by one 18th-century musician, referring disparagingly perhaps to the charm and gentleness of his style. In 1783 both composers were the subject of a debate between two musical enthusiasts.
‘. . . when Boccherini is at his best, there is a force of serious expression, a pathos, that is not so much Haydn’s forté . . .’ wrote Thomas Twining, son of the famous tea merchant, to music historian Charles Burney in July. Burney replied on 6 Sep: ‘I love Boccherini . . . but I think I shall live to make you eat your words about his pathetic being superior to Haydn’s . . .’ In October, Twining shot back: . . . eat my words? . . . I think I am yet upon firm ground; for I do not say . . . that Haydn was never pathetic . . . but only that, in his general cast & manner, Boccherini is a more serious, earnest composer . . .’ He went on: ‘I am so far from meaning to disparage Haydn, that were I obliged to give up him, or Boccherini, I do believe I shou’d turn to Haydn in preference. His wonderful variety, & intarissable fancy wd turn the scale.’
SYMPHONY NO.59 IN A MAJOR ‘FIRE’
(Composed 1769)
I. Presto II. Andante più tosto Allegretto III. Menuetto e Trio IV. Allegro assai
JOSEPH HAYDN Born Rohrau 1732. Died Vienna 1809.
‘Intarissable’? It means ‘inexhaustible’. And what a stunningly appropriate word to describe Haydn’s compositional imagination! It’s certainly on show in this work.
The Symphony No.59 is a superb product of that period in Haydn’s composing career known as Sturm und Drang, a term used to describe a German literary movement in the 18th century in which extremes of emotion and drama (‘storm and stress’) were given free reign in accordance with a subjective emotionality that bucked the era’s rationalism.
But perhaps Haydn’s innovative musical thinking stemmed less from adherence to literary movements than from a desire not to be hobbled by isolation. Haydn had been recruited as a musician by the noble Esterházy family in 1761 and become their kapellmeister PICTURED: Joseph Haydn.
“. . . when Boccherini is at his best, there is a force of serious expression . . .” THOMAS TWINING
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CELLO CONCERTO NO.2 ‘PRESENCE’
(Composed 2012)
I. Cadenza – Andante cantabile II. Allegro moderato III. Adagio
PĒTERIS VASKS Born Aizpute 1946.
According to US radio presenter Daniel Stephen Johnson, ‘the rough outlines of Pēteris Vasks’ work and career might have a familiar ring to them: born in Soviet Latvia, Vasks endured government repression not only for his aesthetics but for his Christian faith, and emerged in the late 1970s with a pared-down compositional style
in 1766, two or three years before the composition of this symphony. As kapellmeister he was responsible for all the musical activity on the Esterházy estates, from composing an endless stream of symphonies and church and chamber music, to running the Orchestra and managing the opera house at Eszterháza. No doubt this was the job of a lifetime for a composer who sought continually to perfect his art, but the remoteness of the Esterházy estates, especially Eszterháza carved out of the Hungarian marshlands must have niggled sometimes.
This work may also have later been used as incidental music for a play, Feuerbrunst. Haydn was certainly writing, rehearsing and supervising a lot of opera at Eszterháza at this time. Whether that experience also explains the almost theatrical daring of this work, the Symphony No.59 is a typical example of Haydn’s middle-period symphonies with their unexpected turns of harmony or structure, range of contrasting gesture and breathless tempos.
Like many another Haydn symphony, this piece gives the lie to any idea that form is ever a rigid paradigm. The first movement is recognisably a classical sonata, but the return of the opening material in the development section is actually a feint. Development resumes until the recapitulation proper, which in itself is a variation of the opening music. The movement ends not with a bang, but with a tapering-off (if not a whimper), proving large-scale consequences for the strange sort of dissipation of energy characteristic of the very opening.
The second movement has a formal dance-like aspect, dour if you consider the minor mode, but just when you think its repeats are straightforward there are surprises – a late turn to the major that blooms with the addition of horns and oboes, a sudden militant tattoo on the horns . . .
The surprise in the minuet and trio is the evocation of the same melody that began the slow movement. It has been noted that the finale (Allegro assai) carries the listener along at such breakneck speed that one almost doesn’t notice the absence of tunes. Even in this, not one of Haydn’s best known works, you see the fertile genius at work.
PICTURED: Schloss Esterházy [detail] by Albert Christoph Dies.
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heavily influenced by sacred themes.’ Endurance of the human spirit against the brutality of a monolithic oppressor might describe the Symphony No.1; later works sometimes put us in mind of the sacred music of Estonian Arvo Pärt. Vasks’ later works are concerned with broader questions of the soul (he is the son of a clergyman). Some works are offered almost as artefacts of faith that we can escape the self-annihilation inherent in our hostile relationship with nature. The following statement of Vasks’ can be found on his publisher Schott’s website: Most people today no longer possess beliefs, love and ideals. The spiritual dimension has been lost. My intention is to provide food for the soul and this is what I preach in my works.
Vasks has written a number of works for string ensemble, exploring different timbres and tunings, but this is his first for cello and string orchestra alone (his first cello concerto was for solo cello and large orchestra). The Concerto No.2 was commissioned by this program’s soloist, Sol Gabetta who premiered the work with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and its conductor, Candida Thompson on 25 October 2012.
We shall see now whether, in Tom Huizenga’s words referred to earlier, ‘the cello can pull at the heartstrings . . .’ Certainly it is an appropriate instrument to carry the singing style through which Vasks admits he expresses his ideals.
The concerto begins with the merest material, a low C played col legno (with the wood of the bow) by the soloist. Gradually, principally through tonal alteration, the solo music increases in expression to form a lengthy cadenza. No mere technical display, this cadenza is more like a long rumination – as the soloist’s wide-ranging melody moves in and out of a double-stopped chordal texture. The rest of the strings now enter for the Andante cantabile and Vasks gives full rein to his undulating lyricism.
An almost violent rhythmic dance begins the second movement. The soloist beats out a repeated note across two strings before sparring with the orchestra. There are several obvious markers defining the form – a lugubrious 5/4 waltz that sounds like an urgent changing of the gears, returns of the more lyrical Andante music. These also frame a second, chromatically and technically more intense cadenza.
The works ends with a 12-minute slow movement, with echoes of the first movement. Where a build-up in intensity in the second movement might have called forth the lugubrious waltz, Vasks just ‘ups’ the pitch of lyrical outpouring here. How much further can it go?
What does the subtitle mean in the context of such an intense piece? How seriously do we take Vasks’ spiritual side? Perhaps the hymn-like surprise at the end is a clue.
This piece is a world away from the other contemporary music on this tour. But both Holliger and Vasks show us poles of contemporary thought in the midst of repertoire which over the Basel orchestra’s two programs has given us a whole geography of chamber music.
Gordon Kalton Williams © 2015
PICTURED: Pēteris Vasks.
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S O L G A B E T TA C E L L O
Sol Gabetta achieved international acclaim upon winning the Crédit Suisse Young Artist Award in 2004 and making her debut with the Wiener Philharmoniker and Valery Gergiev. Born in Argentina, Gabetta won her first competition at the age of 10, soon followed by the Natalia Gutman Award as well as commendations at Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition and the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. A Grammy Award nominee, she received the Gramophone Young Artist of the Year Award in 2010 and the Würth-Preis of the Jeunesses Musicales in 2012.
Following her highly acclaimed debuts with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival in 2014 and at Mostly Mozart in New York in August 2015, this season sees Gabetta debut with Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and Houston Symphony. She will also perform with Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and St Petersburg Philharmonic and will tour with Orchestre de Paris, Il Giardino Armonico, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dresdner Philharmonie with whom she is Artist in Residence this season. Brussels’ Palais des Beaux Arts will also welcome her as their resident artist. To conclude 2015/16, Gabetta will join the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam on a European Tour with performances at Lucerne Festival, Grafenegg Festival as well as Salzburger Festspiele.
Sol Gabetta maintains an intensive chamber music activity, performing worldwide in venues such as Wigmore Hall in London, Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, with distinguished partners including Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Bertrand Chamayou. Her passion for chamber music is evident in the Festival ‘Solsberg’ which she founded in Switzerland.
Photo by Marco Borggreve
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Y U K I K A S A I D I R E C T O R A N D V I O L I N
Yuki Kasai was born in Basel in 1979 and began violin lessons at the age of five. She was a student of Rafael Oleg at the Basel Music Academy and was a post-graduate student of Antje Weithaas at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin. Other important influences were violinist Sandor Zöldy, along with chamber music lessons with Gerard Wyss and Hatto Beyerle, and masterclasses with Lorand Fenyves and Ferenc Rados.
Yuki Kasai has received many prizes, including the Hans Huber Foundation Basel (2002) and the Migros-Kulturprozent Scholarship (2003 and 2004). In 2002 she was a prize winner of the 8th International Mozart Competition in Salzburg. Standing in for the regular violinist of the Trio Castell, in 2004 she won the chamber music competition at the Alice Samter Foundation.
A passionate chamber musician, Yuki Kasai has appeared at many music festivals, including Mecklenburg-Vorpommern; Rheingau; Ultraschall Festival for New Music in Berlin; Forget in Quebec; Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad; International Musicians Seminar, Prussia Cove. She has appeared in concerts at the Wigmore Hall, performing with such musicians as Stephen Isserlis, Pekka Kuusisto and Joshua Bell. With the Italian bassoonist Sergio Azzolini, who introduced her to the variety and vivacity of performing Baroque music on period instruments, she has appeared in concerts in Germany, Switzerland and Italy.
In 2006, Yuki Kasai was appointed Leader of the Kammerakademie Potsdam and the Ensemble Oriol Berlin. She also regularly plays with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and is often Guest Leader of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Ensemble Resonanz in Hamburg and Camerata Bern.
She has been leader of the Basel Chamber Orchestra since 2011.
Photo by Giorgia Bertazzi
24
B A S E L C H A M B E R O R C H E S T R A
In the 30 years of its existence, the Basel Chamber Orchestra – in 2015 receiving its 3rd ECHO Klassik award – has developed into one of the leading chamber orchestras on the international music scene. Nowadays invitations to the most important concert arenas and festivals of the European classical music scene are just as much part of the schedule as the orchestra’s own subscription concerts in Basel. Diverse CD recordings with famous labels like Sony, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Warner Classics and OehmsClassics are evidence of the excellent quality of the orchestra.
The Basel Chamber Orchestra has a predilection for playing under the musical direction of its own concertmaster. The orchestra’s collaboration with its principal guest conductor Giovanni Antonini is especially fruitful. The highpoint of its collaboration with Antonini is the Beethoven Cycle. Symphonies 1–8 have already been recorded by Sony; the recording of Symphonies 3 and 4 received the Ensemble of the Year 2008 award at the ECHO Klassik Awards. Between now and 2032, the Basel Chamber Orchestra under Giovanni Antonini’s direction, together with the Italian ensemble
Photo by Christian Flierl
25
“One of the most exciting formations to be touring on the international orchestra scene.” FONO FORUM
‘Il Giardino Armonico’, will take turns at performing all of Joseph Haydn’s 107 symphonies and recording them on CD.
In addition, the Orchestra has a close relationship with conductors such as Trevor Pinnock, Heinz Holliger, Paul Goodwin and Mario Venzago. The list of soloists who have performed together with the orchestra is renowned: Emmanuel Pahud, Sol Gabetta, Andreas Scholl, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Matthias Goerne, Sabine Meyer, Angela Hewitt, Renaud Capuçon, Thomas Zehetmair, Sandrine Piau and many more.
The 2015/2016 season kicked off with performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream under the baton of Trevor Pinnock, with Klaus Maria Brandauer as guest narrator, amongst other places at the Dresden Frauenkirche and the Lucerne Festival. The orchestra will go on concert tours with Sir András Schiff and Heinz Holliger to the renowned George Enescu Festival in Bucharest and with Daniel Hope to South America.
Since 2013 Clariant International Ltd. has been presenting sponsor of the Basel Chamber Orchestra.
The Basel Chamber Orchestra is supported by Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council.
26
M U S I C I A N S O N S TA G E
Violin 1
Mirjam Steymans-Brenner Matthias Müller Barbara Bolliger Yukiko Tezuka Betina Pasteknik
Violin 2
Anna Faber Valentina Giusti Tamàs Vásárhelyi Cordelia Fankhauser Vincent Durand
Viola
Mariana Doughty Bodo Friedrich Robert Woodward Anne-Françoise Guezingar
Cello
Martin Zeller Georg Dettweiler Hristo Kouzmanov
Double BassSophie Luecke Kristof Attila Zambo
Oboe
Matthias Arter Mirjam Hüttner
Horn
Konstantin Timokhine Mark Gebhart
Concertmaster and Leader Yuki Kasai
B A S E L C H A M B E R O R C H E S T R A
27
A C O B E H I N D T H E S C E N E S
BOARD
Guido Belgiorno-Nettis am Chairman
Angus James Deputy
Bill Best John Borghetti Liz Cacciottolo Judith Crompton John Grill ao Heather Ridout ao Andrew Stevens John Taberner Peter Yates am Simon Yeo
Richard Tognetti ao Artistic Director
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
EXECUTIVE OFFICE
Jessica Block Deputy General Manager
Alexandra Cameron-Fraser Strategic Development Manager
Helen Maxwell Executive Assistant to Mr Tognetti ao
ARTISTIC & OPERATIONS
Luke Shaw Head of Operations & Artistic Planning
Anna Melville Artistic Administrator
Megan Russell Tour Manager
Lisa Mullineux Assistant Tour Manager
Danielle Asciak Travel Coordinator
Bernard Rofe Librarian
Cyrus Meurant Assistant Librarian
Joseph Nizeti Multimedia, Music Technology & Artistic Assistant
EDUCATION
Phillippa Martin AcO2 & ACO VIRTUAL Manager
Zoe Arthur Acting Education Manager
Caitlin Gilmour Education Assistant
FINANCE
Maria Pastroudis Chief Financial Officer
Steve Davidson Corporate Services Manager
Yvonne Morton Accountant
Shyleja Paul Assistant Accountant
DEVELOPMENT
Rebecca Noonan Development Manager
Jill Colvin Philanthropy Manager
Penelope Loane Investor Relations Manager
Tom Tansey Events Manager
Tom Carrig Senior Development Executive
Ali Brosnan Patrons Manager
Sally Crawford Development Coordinator
MARKETING
Derek Gilchrist Marketing Manager
Mary Stielow National Publicist
Hilary Shrubb Publications Editor
Leo Messias Marketing Coordinator
Cristina Maldonaldo Communications Coordinator
Chris Griffith Box Office Manager
Dean Watson Customer Relations Manager
Deyel Dalziel-Charlier Box Office & CRM Database Assistant
Christina Holland Office Administrator
Robin Hall Subscriptions Coordinator
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Ken McSwain Systems & Technology Manager
Emmanuel Espinas Network Infrastructure Engineer
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 Box Office 1800 444 444
Email [email protected] Web aco.com.au
28
V E N U E S U P P O R T
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.
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
Christopher Freeman am Chair
John Kotzas Chief Executive
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE
Bennelong Point,
GPO Box 4274, Sydney NSW 2001
Telephone (02) 9250 7111
Box Office (02) 9250 7777
Web sydneyoperahouse.com
Nicholas Moore
Chair, Sydney Opera House Trust
Louise Herron am
Chief Executive Officer
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Llewellyn Hall School of Music
William Herbert Place
(off Childers Street), Acton,
Canberra
VENUE HIRE INFORMATION
Telephone (02) 6125 2527
Email [email protected]
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
29
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S O L G A B E T TA B A S E L C H A M B E R O R C H E S T R A T O U R D AT E S & P R E- C O N C E R T TA L K S
Sun 22 Nov, 2.30pm Melbourne Arts Centre
Pre-concert talk by Caroline Almonte
Mon 23 Nov, 8pm Melbourne Arts Centre
Pre-concert talk by Caroline Almonte
Wed 25 Nov, 8pm Brisbane QPAC Concert Hall
Pre-concert talk by Gillian Wills
Fri 27 Nov, 8pm Canberra Llewellyn Hall
Pre-concert talk by Ken Healey am
Sun 29 Nov, 2pm Sydney Opera House
Pre-concert talk by Ken Healey am
The foyer fanfare for this concert is Skyscrapers, composed by John Rotar (age 19) from the University of Queensland. This is a youth creativity project by the Sydney Opera House and Artology.
Pre-concert talks take place 45 minutes before the start of every concert.
Pre-concert speakers are subject to change.
30
MEDICI PATRON
The late AMINA BELGIORNO-NETTIS
PRINCIPAL CHAIRS
Richard Tognetti ao
Artistic Director & Lead Violin
Michael Ball am & Daria Ball
Wendy Edwards
Prudence MacLeod
Andrew & Andrea Roberts
Helena Rathbone
Principal Violin
Kate & Daryl Dixon
Satu Vänskä
Principal Violin
Kay Bryan
Christopher Moore
Principal Viola
peckvonhartel architects
Timo-Veikko Valve
Principal Cello
Peter Weiss ao
Maxime Bibeau
Principal Double Bass
Darin Cooper Foundation
CORE CHAIRS
VIOLIN
Glenn Christensen
Terry Campbell ao & Christine Campbell
Aiko Goto
Anthony & Sharon Lee Foundation
Mark Ingwersen
Ian Wallace & Kay Freedman
Ilya Isakovich
The Humanity Foundation
Liisa Pallandi
The Melbourne Medical Syndicate
Ike See
Di Jameson
VIOLA
Alexandru-Mihai Bota
Philip Bacon am
Nicole Divall
Ian Lansdown
CELLO
Melissa Barnard
Martin Dickson am & Susie Dickson
Julian Thompson
The Clayton Family
GUEST CHAIRS
Brian Nixon
Principal Timpani
Mr Robert Albert ao & Mrs Libby Albert
FRIENDS OF MEDICI
Mr R. Bruce Corlett am & Mrs Ann Corlett
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.
A C O M E D I C I P R O G R A M
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
A C O L I F E P AT R O N S
31
A C O B E Q U E S T P AT R O N S
The late Charles Ross Adamson
The late Kerstin Lillemor Andersen
The late Mrs Sybil Baer
Steven Bardy
Dave Beswick
Ruth Bell
The Estate of Prof Janet Carr
Sandra Cassell
The late Mrs Moya Crane
Mrs Sandra Dent
Leigh Emmett
The late Colin Enderby
Peter Evans
Carol Farlow
Suzanne Gleeson
Lachie Hill
The late John Nigel Holman
Penelope Hughes
The late Dr S W Jeffrey am
Estate of Pauline Marie Johnston
The late Mr Geoff Lee am oam
Mrs Judy Lee
The late Shirley Miller
Selwyn M Owen
The late Josephine Paech
The late Richard Ponder
Ian & Joan Scott
The late Mr Geoffrey Francis Scharer
The Estate of Scott Spencer
Leslie C Thiess
G.C. & R. Weir
Margaret & Ron Wright
Mark Young
Anonymous (12)
For more information on making a bequest, please call Jill Colvin, Philanthropy Manager, on 02 8274 3835.
Clare Ainsworth Herschell
Justine Clarke
Este Darin-Cooper & Chris Burgess
Catherine & Sean Denney
Alexandra Gill
Rebecca Gilsenan & Grant Marjoribanks
Adrian Giuffre & Monica Ion
Aaron Levine
Royston Lim
William Manning
Rachael McVean
Barry Mowzsowski
Paris Neilson & Todd Buncombe
James Ostroburski
Nicole Pedler
Michael Radovnikovic
Jessica Read
Louise & Andrew Sharpe
Emile & Caroline Sherman
Michael Southwell
Karen & Peter Tompkins
Joanna Walton & Alex Phoon
Nina Walton & Zeb Rice
Peter Wilson & James Emmett
ACO Next is an exciting new philanthropic program for young supporters, engaging with Australia’s next generation of great musicians while offering a unique musical and networking experience. For more information, please call Ali Brosnan, Patrons Manager, on 02 8274 3830.
MEMBERS
A C O N E X T
A C O G E N E R A L P U R P O S E P AT R O N S
Andrew Andersons
John & Lynnly Chalk
Dr Jane Cook
Paul & Roslyn Espie
Jennifer Hershon
Peter & Edwina Holbeach
Michael Horsburgh am & Beverley Horsburgh
Penelope Hughes
Mike & Stephanie Hutchinson
Professor Anne Kelso ao
Douglas & Elisabeth Scott
Jeanne-Claude Strong
Dr Jason Wenderoth
Brian Zulaikha
Anonymous (2)
ACO General Purpose Patrons support the ACO’s general operating costs. Their contributions enhance both our artistic vitality and ongoing sustainability. For more information, please call Ali Brosnan, Patrons Manager on 02 8274 3830
32
Peter Weiss ao
PATRON, ACO Instrument Fund
BOARD MEMBERS
Bill Best (Chairman)
Jessica Block
John Leece am
Andrew Stevens
John Taberner
PATRONS
VISIONARY $1m+
Peter Weiss ao
LEADER $500,000 – $999,999
CONCERTO $200,000 – $499,999
The late Amina Belgiorno-Nettis
Naomi Milgrom ao
OCTET $100,000 – $199,999
John Taberner
QUARTET $50,000 – $99,999
John Leece am & Anne Leece
Anonymous
SONATA $25,000 – $49,999
ENSEMBLE $10,000 – $24,999
Lesley & Ginny Green
Peter J Boxall ao & Karen Chester
SOLO $5,000 – $9,999
PATRON $500 – $4,999
Michael Bennett & Patti Simpson
Leith & Darrel Conybeare
Dr Jane Cook
Geoff & Denise Illing
Luana & Kelvin King
Jane Kunstler
John Landers & Linda Sweeny
Genevieve Lansell
Bronwyn & Andrew Lumsden
Patricia McGregor
Trevor Parkin
Elizabeth Pender
Robyn Tamke
Anonymous (2)
INVESTORS
Stephen & Sophie Allen
John & Deborah Balderstone
Guido & Michelle Belgiorno-Nettis
Bill Best
Benjamin Brady
Sam Burshtein & Galina Kaseko
Carla Zampatti Foundation
Sally Collier
Michael Cowen & Sharon Nathani
Marco D’Orsogna
Garry & Susan Farrell
Gammell Family
Edward Gilmartin
Tom & Julie Goudkamp
Philip Hartog
Brendan Hopkins
Angus & Sarah James
Daniel and Jacqueline Phillips
Ryan Cooper Family Foundation
Andrew & Philippa Stevens
Dr Lesley Treleaven
Ian Wallace & Kay Freedman
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 Mark Ingwersen. For more information, please call Penelope Loane, Investor Relations Manager on 02 8274 3878.
A C O I N S T R U M E N T F U N D
Holmes à Court Family Foundation The Neilson Foundation The Ross Trust
A C O T R U S T S & F O U N D AT I O N S
33
SPECIAL COMMISSIONS PATRONS
Peter & Cathy Aird
Gerard Byrne & Donna O’Sullivan
Mirek Generowicz
Peter & Valerie Gerrand
G Graham
Anthony & Conny Harris
Rohan Haslam
John Griffiths & Beth Jackson
Andrew & Fiona Johnston
Lionel & Judy King
David & Sandy Libling
Tony Jones & Julian Liga
Robert & Nancy Pallin
Deborah Pearson
Alison Reeve
Augusta Supple
Dr Suzanne M Trist
Team Schmoopy
Rebecca Zoppetti Laubi
Anonymous (1)
INTERNATIONAL TOUR PATRONS
The ACO would like to pay tribute to
the following donors who support our
international touring activities in 2015:
Linda & Graeme Beveridge
Jan Bowen
Bee & Brendan Hopkins
Delysia Lawson
Mike Thompson
THE REEF NEW YORK PRODUCERS’
SYNDICATE
Executive Producers
Tony & Michelle Grist
Lead Producers
Jon & Caro Stewart Foundation
Major Producers
Danielle & Daniel Besen Foundation
Janet Holmes à Court ac
Charlie & Olivia Lanchester
Producers
Richard Caldwell
Warren & Linda Coli
Graham & Treffina Dowland
Steve Duchen & Polly Hemphill
Wendy Edwards
Gilbert George
Tony & Camilla Gill
Max Gundy (board member ACO US) & Shelagh Gundy
Patrick Loftus-Hills (board member ACO US) & Konnin Tam
Sally & Steve Paridis(board members ACO US)
Peter & Victoria Shorthouse
Alden Toevs & Judi Wolf
Major Partner
Corporate Partner
Manikay Partners
ACO ACADEMY BRISBANE
LEAD PATRONS
Philip Bacon ao
Kay Bryan
Dr Ian Frazer ac & Mrs Caroline Frazer
Dr Edward Gray
Wayne Kratzmann
Bruce & Jocelyn Wolfe
PATRONS
Andrew Clouston
Michael Forrest & Angie Ryan
Ian & Cass George
Professor Peter Høj
Helen McVay
Shay O’Hara-Smith
Brendan Ostwald
Marie-Louise Theile
Beverley Trivett
MELBOURNE HEBREW CONGREGATION
PATRONS
LEAD PATRONS
PATRONS
Marc Besen ac & Eva Besen ao
Leo & Mina Fink Fund
Drs Victor & Karen Wayne
EMANUEL SYNAGOGUE PATRONS
CORPORATE PARTNERS
Adina Apartment Hotels
Meriton Group
LEAD PATRON
The Narev Family
PATRONS
David Gonski ac
Lesley & Ginny Green
The Sherman Foundation
Justin Phillips & Louise Thurgood-Phillips
A C O S P E C I A L C O M M I S S I O N S & S P E C I A L P R O J E C T S
34
PATRONS
Marc Besen ac & Eva Besen ao
Janet Holmes à Court ac
EMERGING ARTISTS
& EDUCATION PATRONS $10,000+
Mr Robert Albert ao & Mrs Libby Albert
Australian Communities Foundation –
Annamila Fund
Australian Communities Foundation –
Ballandry Fund
Daria & Michael Ball
Steven Bardy & Andrew Patterson
The Belalberi Foundation
Guido Belgiorno-Nettis am
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis am
Andre Biet
Leigh & Christina Birtles
Liz Cacciottolo & Walter Lewin
Rod Cameron & Margaret Gibbs
Mark Carnegie
Stephen & Jenny Charles
The Cooper Foundation
Rowena Danziger am & Ken Coles am
Irina Kuzminsky & Mark Delaney
Ann Gamble Myer
Daniel & Helen Gauchat
Andrea Govaert & Wik Farwerck
Dr Edward C. Gray
Kimberley Holden
Angus & Sarah James
PJ Jopling am qc
Miss Nancy Kimpton
Bruce & Jenny Lane
Prudence MacLeod
Anthony & Suzanne Maple-Brown
Alf Moufarrige
Jim & Averill Minto
Louise & Martyn Myer Foundation
Jennie & Ivor Orchard
Bruce & Joy Reid Trust
Mark & Anne Robertson
Margie Seale & David Hardy
Tony Shepherd ao
Peter & Victoria Shorthouse
Anthony Strachan
John Taberner & Grant Lang
Leslie C. Thiess
Alden Toevs & Judi Wolf
The Hon Malcolm Turnbull mp
& Ms Lucy Turnbull ao
David & Julia Turner
E Xipell
Peter Yates am & Susan Yates
Peter Young am & Susan Young
Anonymous (2)
DIRETTORE $5,000 – $9,999
The Abercrombie Family Foundation
Geoff Ainsworth & Jo Featherstone
Geoff Alder
Bill & Marissa Best
Veronika & Joseph Butta
Elizabeth Chernov
Clockwork Theatre Inc
Victor & Chrissy Comino
Leith & Darrel Conybeare
David Craig
Liz Dibbs
Ellis Family
Bridget Faye am
Ian & Caroline Frazer
Chris & Tony Froggatt
Kay Giorgetta
Tony & Michelle Grist
Liz Harbison
Kerry Harmanis
Annie Hawker
Fraser Hopkins
Dr Wendy Hughes
I Kallinikos
Keith & Maureen Kerridge
Mrs Judy Lee
Lorraine Logan
Macquarie Group Foundation
David Maloney & Erin Flaherty
Julianne Maxwell
Pam & Ian McDougall
Brian & Helen McFadyen
P J Miller
The Myer Foundation
peckvonhartel architects
Elizabeth Pender
John Rickard
Andrew Roberts
Paul Schoff & Stephanie Smee
Greg Shalit & Miriam Faine
Jann Skinner
Joyce Sproat & Janet Cooke
Jon & Caro Stewart
Mary-Anne Sutherland
John Vallance & Sydney Grammar School
Westpac Group
Shemara Wikramanayake
Cameron Williams
Anonymous (8)
MAESTRO $2,500 – $4,999
Michael Ahrens
David & Rae Allen
Ralph Ashton
A C O N AT I O N A L E D U C AT I O N P R O G R A MThe 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 Ali Brosnan on (02) 8274 3830 or [email protected]
Donor list current as at 9 October 2015
35
Will & Dorothy Bailey Charitable Gift
Doug & Alison Battersby
The Beeren Foundation
Berg Family Foundation
Jenny Bryant
Neil & Jane Burley
Gilbert Burton
Kathryn Chiba
Caroline & Robert Clemente
Alan Fraser Cooper
Robert & Jeanette Corney
Kate & Daryl Dixon
Anne & Thomas Dowling
Suellen & Ron Enestrom
Euroz Securities Limited
Jane & Richard Freudenstein
John Gandel ao & Pauline Gandel
Megan Grace
Warren Green
Nereda Hanlon & Michael Hanlon am
Reg Hobbs & Louise Carbines
Gavin & Christine Holman
Simon & Katrina Holmes à Court
Mark Johnson
Ros Johnson
John Karkar qc
The Alexandra & Lloyd Martin Family
Foundation
Peter Mason am & Kate Mason
Paul & Elizabeth McClintock
Jane Morley
Sandra & Michael Paul Endowment
Patricia H Reid Endowment Pty Ltd
Ralph & Ruth Renard
The Sandgropers
D N Sanders
Jennifer Senior & Jenny McGee
Petrina Slaytor
John & Josephine Strutt
Ralph Ward-Ambler am & Barbara
Ward-Ambler
Simon Whiston
Anna & Mark Yates
Anonymous (3)
VIRTUOSO $1,000 – $2,499
Jennifer Aaron
AJ Ackermann
Aberfoyle Partners
Alceon Group
Annette Adair
Lind Addy
Samantha & Aris Allegos
Jane Allen
Matt Allen
Lyn Baker & John Bevan
Adrienne Basser
Barry Batson
Ruth Bell
David & Anne Bolzonello
Brian Bothwell
Michael & Tina Brand
Vicki Brooke
Diana Brookes
Dr Catherine Brown-Watt psm
Jasmine Brunner
Sally Bufé
Gerard Byrne & Donna O’Sullivan
Ivan Camens
Terry Campbell ao & Christine Campbell
Ray Carless & Jill Keyte
Roslyn Carter
Andrew Chamberlain
Julia Champtaloup & Andrew Rothery
Patrick Charles
Angela and John Compton
Laurie & Julie Ann Cox
Carol & Andrew Crawford
Judith Crompton
J & P Curotta
Ian Davis
Michael & Wendy Davis
Stephen Davis
Defiance Gallery
Martin Dolan
Dr William F Downey
Emeritus Professor Dexter Dunphy am
Leigh Emmett
Peter Evans
Julie Ewington
Elizabeth Finnegan
Bill Fleming
Elizabeth Flynn
Don & Marie Forrest
Anne & Justin Gardener
Kerry Gardner
Matthew Gilmour
Colin Golvan qc
Fay Grear
In memory of José Gutierrez
Gail Harris
Bettina Hemmes
Michael Horsburgh am & Beverley Horsburgh
Monique D’Arcy Irvine & Anthony Hourigan
Merilyn & David Howorth
Penelope Hughes
Launa & Howard Inman
Colin Isaac & Jenni Seton
Phillip Isaacs oam
Will & Chrissie Jephcott
Brian Jones
Bronwen L Jones
Josephine Key & Ian Breden
In memory of Graham Lang
Airdrie Lloyd
Robin & Peter Lumley
Diana Lungren
Magellan Logistics Pty Ltd
Greg & Jan Marsh
Janet Matton
Kevin & Deidre McCann
Ian & Pam McGaw
J A McKernan
Diana McLaurin
Phil & Helen Meddings
Roslyn Morgan
Suzanne Morgan
Glenn Murcutt ao
Baillieu Myer ac
Dennis & Fairlie Nassau
Nola Nettheim
Anthony Niardone
Paul O’Donnell
Ilse O’Reilly
James Ostroburski & Leo Ostroburski
Anne & Christopher Page
Prof David Penington ac
G. V. Pincus
Lady Primrose Potter ac
Beverley Price
Mark Renehan
Mrs Tiffany Rensen
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37
Mr Guido Belgiorno-Nettis am
Chairman,
Australian Chamber Orchestra
& Executive Director,
Transfield Holdings
Aurizon Holdings Limited
Mr Philip Bacon am
Director,
Philip Bacon Galleries
Mr David Baffsky ao
Mr Marc Besen ac & Mrs Eva Besen ao
Mr Leigh Birtles & Mr Peter Shorthouse
UBS Wealth Management
Mr John Borghetti
Chief Executive Officer,
Virgin Australia
Mr Matt Byrne
Director,
ROVA Media
Mr Michael & Mrs Helen Carapiet
Mr John Casella
Managing Director,
Casella Family Brands
(Peter Lehmann Wines)
Mr Stephen & Mrs Jenny Charles
Mr & Mrs Robin Crawford
Rowena Danziger am
& Kenneth G. Coles am
Mr David Evans
Executive Chairman,
Evans & Partners
Dr Bob Every ao
Chairman,
Wesfarmers
Ms Tracey Fellows
Chief Executive Officer,
REA Group
Mr Bruce Fink
Executive Chairman,
Executive Channel Network
Mr Angelos Frangopoulos
Chief Executive Officer,
Australian News Channel
Mr Richard Freudenstein
Chief Executive Officer,
FOXTEL
Ms Ann Gamble Myer
Mr Daniel Gauchat
Principal,
The Adelante Group
Mr James Gibson
Chief Executive Officer,
Australia & New Zealand
BNP Paribas
Mr John Grill ao
Chairman,
WorleyParsons
Mr Grant Harrod
Chief Executive Officer,
LJ Hooker
Mr Richard Herring
Chief Executive Officer,
APN Outdoor
Mrs Janet Holmes à Court ac
Mr Simon & Mrs Katrina Holmes à Court
Observant
Mr John Kench
Chairman,
Johnson Winter & Slattery
Ms Catherine Livingstone ao
Chairman, Telstra
Mr Andrew Low
Mr David Mathlin
Ms Julianne Maxwell
Mr Michael Maxwell
Mr Andrew McDonald
& Ms Janie Wittey
Westpac Institutional Bank
Ms Naomi Milgrom ao
Ms Jan Minchin
Director,
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Mr Alf Moufarrige
Chief Executive Officer,
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& Ms Yvonne von Hartel am
peckvonhartel architects
Mr Mark Robertson oam
& Mrs Anne Robertson
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General Manager,
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Mr Tony Shepherd ao
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Chief Executive Officer,
Georg Jensen
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Chief Executive Officer,
Mossgreen Pty Ltd
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Managing Director & CEO,
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The Hon Malcolm Turnbull mp
& Ms Lucy Turnbull ao
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Deputy Chairman,
Myer Family Investments Ltd
& Director, AIA Ltd
Mr Peter Young am & Mrs Susan Young
A C O C H A I R M A N ’ S C O U N C I L
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.
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SYDNEY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE
Heather Ridout ao (Chair)
Director,
Reserve Bank of Australia
Guido Belgiorno-Nettis am
Chairman ACO & Executive Director,
Transfield Holdings
Bill Best
Maggie Drummond
Tony Gill
Andrea Govaert
John Kench
Chairman,
Johnson Winter & Slattery
Jennie Orchard
Tony O’Sullivan
Peter Shorthouse
UBS Wealth Management
Mark Stanbridge
Partner, Ashurst
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
Debbie Brady
Paul Cochrane
Investment Advisor,
Bell Potter Securities
Ann Gamble-Myer
Colin Golvan qc
Shelley Meagher
Director,
Do it on the Roof
James Ostroburski
Director,
Grimsey Wealth
Joanna Szabo
Simon Thornton
Partner,
McKinsey & Co.
DISABILITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Amanda Tink
Independent Consultant,
Amanda Tink Consultancy
Morwenna Collett
Manager,
Project Controls & Risk Disability
Coordinator,
Australia Council for the Arts
EVENT COMMITTEES
SYDNEY
John Taberner (Chair)
Lillian Armitage
Judy Anne Edwards
Sandra Ferman
Fay Geddes
Julie Goudkamp
Elizabeth Harbison
Lisa Kench
Julianne Maxwell
Elizabeth McDonald
Catherine Powell
Nicola Sinclair
Lynne Testoni
Liz Williams
Judi Wolf
BRISBANE
Philip Bacon
Kay Bryan
Andrew Clouston
Ian & Caroline Frazer
Cass George
Edward Gray
Wayne Kratzmann
Helen McVay
Shay O’Hara-Smith
Marie-Lousie Theile
Beverley Trivett
Bruce and Jocelyn Wolfe
A C O C O M M I T T E E S
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.
QUEENSLAND REGIONAL TOURING PARTNER
The ACO’s Queensland regional touring is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, part of the Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts.
THE ACO THANKS ITS GOVERNMENT PARTNERS FOR THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT
A C O G O V E R N M E N T P A R T N E R S
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A C O P A R T N E R S
FOUNDING PARTNER
FOUNDING PARTNER: ACO VIRTUAL
OFFICIAL PARTNERS CONCERT AND SERIES PARTNERS
WE THANK OUR PARTNERS FOR THEIR GENEROUS SUPPORT
PRINCIPAL PARTNER
NATIONAL TOUR PARTNERS
PERTH SERIES ANDWA REGIONAL TOUR
PARTNER
ASSOCIATE PARTNER:ACO VIRTUAL
MEDIA PARTNERS EVENT PARTNERS
40
A C O N E W S
PICTURED:
BELOW: Monica Ion and Adrian Giuffre.
BELOW RIGHT: Nicole Pedler and Este Darin-Cooper.
BOTTOM: The ACO
Photos by Fiora Sacco
A C O N E X T C O C K TA I L PA R T YOn Tuesday, 13 October we were thrilled to hold our first special private performance for members of ACO Next, our new program especially geared for young philanthropists and music lovers.
Forty guests were treated to an intimate performance by 11 ACO musicians, led by Richard Tognetti, in the home of ACO supporters Beau Neilson and Jeffrey Simpson. The music was intense and exhilarating, and included the second movement of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden as well as a very energetic set of excerpts from Project Rameau. Following the performance, guests remained to mingle with Richard and the musicians.
Our thanks to Beau and Jeffrey for so generously opening up their extraordinary home for such a wonderful event.
ACO Next members directly support ACO Collective and our Emerging Artists’ Program. To find out more about joining, or to find out how to give a membership as a gift, please contact Ali Brosnan, Patrons Manager on 02 8274 3830 or [email protected]
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PICTURED:
ABOVE: Todd Buscombe, Paris Neilson and Peter Wilson.
RIGHT: Catherine Denney, Aaron Levine and Royston Lim.
Photos by Fiora Sacco
PICTURED:
LEFT: Philip Georgiou, Ian Belgiorno-Zegna, Beau Neilson and Richard Tognetti.
Photo by Fiora Sacco
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A C O N E W S
A C O AT E M A N U E L S Y N A G O G U EOn Monday, 19 October 2015, the ACO performed at Emanuel Synagogue in Woollahra for the first time. Led by Ilya Isakovich, ACO violinist, talented young string players from Emanuel School played Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances alongside ACO musicians at the start of the concert. Then Richard Tognetti ao took the stage, to lead a beautiful program featuring works by CPE Bach, Schubert and Tchaikovsky, finishing with a haunting rendition of Ravel’s Kaddish. The audience was thrilled to hear the Orchestra in such elegant, intimate surroundings and the applause was rapturous and prolonged.
The ACO’s appearance was made possible through the generous support of Lead Patron: The Narev Family, Corporate Partners: Adina Apartment Hotels and Meriton Group and Patrons: David Gonski ac, Leslie and Ginny Green, The Sherman Foundation and Justin Phillips and Louise Thurgood-Phillips. At David Gonski’s particular request, the concert was dedicated to the wonderful work of Rabbi Kamins over more than 27 years and Rabbi Ninio for more than 17 years, both for the Synagogue and the broader community. All ticket income from the concert went to Emanuel Synagogue, for its far-reaching community programs.
We thank our Patrons and the Synagogue most warmly for their generous support of the first of what we hope will be many concerts in the years to come – we are already working on a date for 2016!
PICTURED:
ABOVE: Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins and Richard Tognetti ao.RIGHT: Richard Tognetti and the ACO.
Photos by David Gross
PICTURED: ABOVE TOP LEFT: Allan Vidor.ABOVE TOP RIGHT: Rabbi Jacqueline Ninio.ABOVE MIDDLE: Louise Thurgood-Phillips, Kate Abrahams, Kate Narev.ABOVE: Jessica Block, David Gonski ac, Prof. Gus Lehrer, Richard Tognetti ao.RIGHT: Ilya Isakovich and students from Emanuel School.
Photos by David Gross
2013 ANNUAL REPORT 5
A R T I S T I C D I R E C T O R ’ SR E P O R T
In many ways, 2013 brought together every diverse element which makes the ACO defy the word ‘chamber’ in our name, while remaining true to the essential qualities of intricate musical collaboration which lie at the heart of chamber music.
Performing Brahms’ Fourth Symphony on gut strings with wind and brass instruments from the late-19th century is almost as far as one could stray from the conventional idea of what a chamber orchestra is, amassing more than 50 musicians on stage. By using the same string numbers as Brahms’ own performance of this remarkable symphony with the Meiningen Orchestra, we sought to understand this familiar music from a fresh timbral and textural perspective.
By contrast, Brahms’ Piano Quintet gave four of us the memorable opportunity to collaborate for the first time with the superb American pianist Jeremy Denk – an artist whose musical instincts provide both a complement and a refreshing challenge to our own approach to this exhilarating music.
Among the long-standing friends of the ACO who returned to us in 2013 were Swedish clarinettist Martin Fröst, British cellist Steven Isserlis, German cellist Daniel Müller-Schott, Moldovan violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and post-Edna Barry Humphries who led us all into new musical territory with his fascinating, touching and delightful exploration of the lost music of the Weimar Republic. Barry Humphries’ Weimar Cabaret also brought the outrageously irrepressible cabaret artiste Meow Meow into our lives, an experience from which we are all still recovering!
While we were greatly disappointed that Sir John Eliot Gardiner had to cancel his planned visit to Australia with the Monteverdi Choir, the opportunity to bring the Choir of London to Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne for performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio proved to be one of the year’s most memorable events. This ensemble of Britain’s finest consort singers was something of a vocal doppelganger to the ACO, with individuals from within the ensemble stepping forward to take the extremely demanding solo parts in this baroque masterwork, before returning seamlessly to the Choir.
It was a great pleasure for me to perform Brett Dean’s Electric Preludes for electric violin and strings in a full national tour at the beginning of the year, Tognetti’s Mozart. This major new work was the result of Brett’s distinctive musical voice meeting the challenge of an instrument with seemingly limitless tonal possibilities, harnessed with tremendous skill by sound engineer Bob Scott. I am very grateful not only to Brett for his openness to this musical and technological collaboration but also to our generous, long-term supporter Jan Minchin who commissioned the piece.
Another new work which attracted wonderful audience reactions all over the country was Brenton Broadstock’s evocative Never Truly Lost, which was fittingly commissioned by Rob and Nancy Pallin in memory of Rob’s father, the legendary adventurer Paddy Pallin and received its premiere in the Mozart Clarinet Concerto program.
Within the Orchestra, we warmly welcomed our newest recruit, the Romanian violist Alexandru-Mihai Bota. Sascha has quickly become one of the Orchestra’s most recognisable personalities. We also welcomed the ACO’s oldest member – an astonishingly wonderful double bass made by Gasparo da Salò in the 1590s, on loan to the ACO from one of our most generous and enlightened benefactors. The double bass joins a growing family of extraordinary instruments which are played by our musicians thanks to wonderful individuals, such as Peter Weiss, visionary sponsors, like the Commonwealth Bank, and the ACO Instrument Fund.
Playing a major part in the development of the next generation of Australian string players has been an increasing role for us all in the ACO, and in 2013 our emerging artists and regional touring ensemble AcO2 came of age, undertaking a full, 12-concert national tour of all major concert halls as part of our 2013 national concert season. It was exciting for me to lead this group of fine young musicians, and immensely reassuring to know that the country’s musical future is in such talented hands.
My colleagues in the Orchestra rose to the challenge of every program, tour, premiere and collaboration with their signature commitment and exceptional artistry, and I am deeply grateful to all of them for making the life of this Artistic Director so musically rewarding. While the ACO remains an evenly matched ensemble of musicians, I cannot sign off 2013 without thanking some specific individuals who showed special leadership in 2013, especially our two Principal Violins Helena Rathbone and Satu Vänskä who led full national tours, Aiko Goto who brought her tireless spirit and energy to our newly formed youth orchestra – the ACO Academy, and to Timo-Veikko Valve who curated an intimate series of chamber concerts in Pier 2/3 at Walsh Bay.
RICHARD TOGNETTI aoArtistic Director
S UP P OR T OUR F U T UR EI N S P I R E T H E N E X T G E N E R AT I O N O F M U S I C I A N S
We celebrate the 10th anniversary of our National Education Program this year and are committed to providing immersive music education opportunities for children and young musicians across the country. Thanks to you, our supporters, we are nurturing the future of Australian music.
It is my vision to continue delivering and expanding our important programs, introducing more young people to the joys and benefits of music.
Please join us by supporting our National Education Program.
Richard Tognetti AO
Artistic Director
To donate please visit ACO.COM.AU/SUPPORT/DONATE For more information please phone Ali Brosnan on (02) 8274 3830 or email [email protected]
Image: Students and ACO musicians participating in a workshop at Sunshine Harvester School, presented in partnership with the Australian Children’s Music Foundation. Image © Lee Te Hira
