Chopin Program

2012 NATIONAL CONCERT SEASON CHOPIN & MENDELSSOHN’S OCTET

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ROLL UP FOR THE WHISTLESTOP TOUR Margaret Throsby on tour with the ACO in Europe, 2011 “You people make my job redundant!” Neil Mules, the Australian ambassador to The Netherlands, is backstage at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and his mock indignation is directed at Richard Tognetti following his ensemble’s triumphant concert.

that do it superlatively well. The ACO is undoubtedly one of them.”

At the conclusion of the performance, the audience, including our ambassador, leapt to its feet, roaring with delight and demanding encores.

I am travelling with the ACO on the first hectic week of its anticipated tour. It is a whirlwind schedule.

The Guardian’s Andrew Clements said simply: “If there’s a better chamber orchestra in the world today, I haven’t heard it.”

Mules’s notion of Tognetti and his ACO being cultural ambassadors for this country is not new, but it is much in evidence on this whistlestop pre-Christmas tour to Britain and the Continent, with the ensemble securing capacity audiences and superlative reviews.

We begin on a Sunday afternoon in Birmingham at the Symphony Hall. London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall is next. The concert sold out a week ahead, and the rapturous reviews from Birmingham seem to have only heightened expectation. Audience members do not leave disappointed.

“Top dogs from Down Under” is how critic Ivan Hewett of London’s The Telegraph described the ACO. “Balancing the demands of orchestra precision and soloistic delicacy is a difficult art,” he wrote. “And around the world there are just a handful of orchestras

In each city the orchestra plays there is a rehearsal before the concert. It’s fascinating to watch Tognetti at work with his ensemble.

He is intense, focused, demanding, working sometimes phrase by phrase, note by note, sometimes slowing a passage down to

Martin Fröst and the ACO during rehearsal in Basel 6 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

quarter time, over and over, so that every note is burnished and perfect.

To witness this process during rehearsal, then to hear it executed precisely as Tognetti has planned in concert, is a revelation. Works that may have been thoroughly rehearsed the previous day are again taken apart and practised for the following night’s concert, as if Tognetti is continually striving for something almost out of reach, something akin to perfection. The ACO works, and is worked, incredibly hard.

The intensity of the tour goes up a few notches after the London concert. We are due to fly to Vienna the following morning, but a public sector strike is forecast to bring Heathrow to a standstill. ACO general manager Tim Calnin and ever-resourceful and unflappable tour manager Erin McNamara come to the rescue: they hastily arrange a charter flight, which takes off from Biggin Hill airport, south of London.

The large instruments, including double bass and cellos, plus wardrobe and music, are loaded into a large road transport vehicle, which is headed for the Channel Tunnel, en route to Vienna.

The Austrian capital is home to the Musikverein concert hall, regarded as one of the top three classical music venues in the world. I sit in the empty hall and listen to the rehearsal of the clarinet concerto by Copland with Martin Fröst, and I am transported: the sound is out of this world.

Incredibly, cellists Timo-Veikko Valve, Melissa Barnard and Julian Thompson and bass player Maxime Bibeau have been rehearsing on borrowed instruments because the freight transport truck is held up en route to Vienna, the victim of bad weather and heavy traffic. But there is no drama.

I have learned the ACO is made up of incredibly cool and composed musicians, immensely seasoned travellers, professional to their bootstraps.

Fortunately, the truck appears at 7pm, arriving just a half hour before the concert is due to begin.

Early the next morning, we are flying to Munich for a concert at the large Gasteig Philharmonie.

The tour is so hectic, I am beginning to wonder how the orchestra members keep up the pace. Bronwen Ackermann is the orchestra’s physiotherapist. It’s her job to ease away the aches and pains that come with playing and travelling. She seems to soak up any anxieties or minor meltdowns.

These musicians treasure their positions in the orchestra and meet challenges with aplomb.

Aboard two buses travelling in tandem down a freeway to Belgium, everything seems to be going smoothly until Fröst stands up to announce he has left his clarinet in the hotel in Amsterdam. But again there is no fuss. The orchestra members pile into one bus while the other returns to retrieve the instrument, the latter arriving in Antwerp with a half hour to spare.

After the midnight dash, the ACO members, seemingly fresh as daisies, stride on to the platform at the Concertgebouw for a morning concert that brings the house down.

It is a sensational conclusion to my stint travelling and recording with the orchestra, but in many ways they are only just warming up.

Concerts in Basel, Wilhelmshaven, Luxembourg and Paris will follow, with a grand finale back where it all began, in London, at St James’s Palace.

Edited from a longer version. Original article

by Margaret Throsby, first published in The Australian, December 2011.

Margaret Throsby travelled courtesy of the ACO and the ABC.

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TOUR ONE CHOPIN & MENDELSSOHN’S OCTET SPEED READ Caprice … a whim, a fancy, something “fantastic” (from the realms of fantasy), bizarre…

The ne plus ultra of violin wizardry, Paganini’s diabolical caprices are the subject of Richard Tognetti’s new Caprice on Caprices (DEVA). Richard takes Paganini’s originals, and reimagines them for a supernatural multistring divinity, the ACO channelling devas, deities, and deviance.

A latter-day addition to the rich patrimony of Italian string music, from Vivaldi and Paganini onwards, the Esercizi is a concert score from the late 20th-century movie maestro Enrico Morricone. Morricone sets himself an intellectual challenge: deconstructing an aria by Verdi to create an entirely new sound world.

Chopin’s First Piano Concerto was one of the last works he completed (at the age of 21) before war in his native Poland forced him into permanent exile. Chopin himself performed the concerto both with regular full-orchestra accompaniment, and in chamber format with strings. Rarely heard today, this authorised alternative is a perfect showcase for the ACO’s historic instruments.

“Wybryk”… a caprice! That’s how another Polish patriot, Henryk Górecki, described his short but spectacular Piano Concerto.

Composed in 1980, this minimalist masterpiece channels Bach and Gregorian Chant.

Finally, aged just 16, Mendelssohn begins to redraw the future boundaries for 19th-century music in his miraculous Octet, composed in 1825. Chamberscaled yet orchestral in impetus, determinedly rational one moment, yet capricious the next, it captures the dual spirits of industry and imagination that awakened Europe and mobilised the globe. © Graeme Skinner 2012

RICHARD TOGNETTI Director and Lead Violin POLINA LESCHENKO Piano

PAGANINI/TOGNETTI Caprice on Caprices (DEVA) (Caprices Nos. 20 in D major, and 17 in E flat major)

MORRICONE Esercizi (Exercises) for 10 strings No.1

CHOPIN Piano Concerto No.1 in E minor, Op.11 (arr. Hofmann) (with string accompaniment) I N T E R VA L

GÓRECKI Piano Concerto, Op.40

MENDELSSOHN Octet for strings in E flat major, Op.20 Approximate durations (minutes): 7 – 8 – 39 – INTERVAL – 8 – 33 The concert will last approximately two hours including a 20-minute interval.

ADELAIDE

NEWCASTLE

Town Hall Tue 21 Feb 8pm

City Hall Thu 16 Feb 7.30pm

BRISBANE

PERTH

QPAC Mon 13 Feb 8pm

Concert Hall Wed 22 Feb 7.30pm

CANBERRA

SYDNEY

Llewellyn Hall Sat 18 Feb 8pm

City Recital Hall Angel Place Sat 11 Feb 7pm Tue 14 Feb 8pm Wed 15 Feb 7pm

MELBOURNE Town Hall Sun 19 Feb 2.30pm Mon 20 Feb 8pm

SYDNEY Opera House Sun 12 Feb 2pm

The Australian Chamber Orchestra reserves the right to alter scheduled artists or programs as necessary.

Cover photo: Julian Thompson © Jon Frank

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MESSAGE FROM THE GENERAL MANAGER A very warm welcome to a great year of music with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

ACO.COM.AU VISIT THE WEBSITE TO: Prepare in advance A PDF and e-reader version of the program are available at aco.com.au and on the ACO iPhone app one week before each tour begins, together with music clips, videos and podcasts.

Have your say Let us know what you thought about this concert at aco.com.au/yoursay or email aco@aco.com.au.

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ACO ON THE RADIO ABC CLASSIC FM: Wed 15 Feb 7pm Direct to air: Chopin & Mendelssohn’s Octet concert

NEXT TOUR The Hilliard Ensemble

It seems as if the final chord of the ACO’s last 2011 concert is still resounding as we embark on the 2012 season. It was a huge year, culminating in a wonderfully successful tour in Europe, a private concert for His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales at St James’s Palace in London, standing ovations and rave reviews. As The Guardian’s music critic commented, “If there is a better chamber orchestra in the world today, I haven’t heard it!”

It is a great pleasure to welcome back the superb Russian pianist Polina Leschenko following her memorable debut performances with the ACO in 2006. This time, in addition to a full national tour, we are making a CD with Polina for release on the BIS label. The ACO’s recordings on BIS have been greeted with great acclaim, include Limelight Magazine’s Classical Recording of the Year 2011 for Volume 2 of the Mozart Violin Concertos.

2012 sees the ACO reaching the entire country through our extensive national and regional touring programs.

This year, we present concerts in all states and territories, with ACO2 performing in the Northern Territory, Western Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania while the ACO continues to present full subscription series in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Newcastle, Perth, Sydney and Wollongong. Internationally, the Orchestra has a huge North American tour in April, including concerts in Symphony Hall, Chicago and Carnegie Hall, New York and returns to Europe in August and September for concerts in London and at the Edinburgh Festival and a residency at the Maribor Festival.

I look forward to seeing you at ACO concerts throughout 2012 and wish you an uplifting season of great music.

TIMOTHY CALNIN GENERAL MANAGER AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

10—22 March 2012

FREE PROGRAMS To save trees and money, we ask that you please share one program between two people where possible.

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Vale Nina Lansdown In November, the ACO lost one of its long-standing and beloved Medici Patrons, Nina Lansdown. Our sympathies go out to Nina’s husband Ian, their family and friends.

PAGANINI/TOGNETTI Caprice on Caprices (DEVA) (Composed 1801/2012) “What does this grand-master of sorcery show us? Listen!

That is the only answer to this riddle. Come, open your ears, and pay attention, for Paganini solves and creates difficulties which no one has ever dared to undertake” “Divine, diabolical … the people have gone crazy” “Technical wizardry, sleight-of-hand”

Nicolò PAGANINI (b. Genoa, Italy, 1782; d. Nice, France, 1840) An Italian virtuoso on the violin and guitar, Paganini came to lasting fame as a result of an extensive European tour he undertook between 1828 and 1830. Widely hailed for his violin wizardry, in Britain alone he netted an amazing £22,000. In Vienna he gained the admiration of Schubert, while in Warsaw, a young Polish piano virtuoso, Chopin, described Paganini simply as “perfect”. His major musical legacies to posterity are his set of 24 caprices for solo violin, begun in his early twenties, and six violin concertos.

So read three typical contemporary newspaper accounts of the great Italian violinist-composer, Nicolò Paganini.

No wonder that, long before Caruso and Pavarotti, Paganini was being hailed by fellow Italians as a super-star, a divo (a male diva), meaning god-like. Divo, one of the most ancient of all European words, was in turn derived from the Sanskrit DEVA, divinity.

A cult figure, Paganini was suspected of being an occult figure as well. Divo, or diabolo? How, listeners wondered, could a mere mortal play with such god-like assurance, unless – like the legendary Faust – he’d sold his soul to the Devil? If so, his performances might be not merely astonishing to hear, on account of their dazzling difficulty, but dangerous. Merely witnessing such diabolical virtuosity was risking damnation!

Fantastic stories sprang up everywhere. The press called him a murderer, and a miser – both untrue, though who wanted to believe otherwise? Legends of his devilish appearance were fuelled by the misfortune of having lost all his teeth in an operation in 1828 (giving his mouth a sunken look) and becoming cadaverously thin after a serious illness. Finally, on his deathbed, when he refused to see a priest, no further proof of his compact with the prince of darkness was required. The bishop of Nice reportedly refused to allow his corpse to be buried, so his coffin had to be stored in a cellar for five years until it could be returned to his hometown of Genoa.

Even in faraway Australia in the 1830s, Paganini’s name was synonymous with virtuosity. In Sydney in 1836, the Irishborn violinist William Vincent Wallace was dubbed the “Australian Paganini” because of his ability to imitate the master’s trick of conjuring complex melodies from a single string. Yet Paganini was also capable of song-like lyricism.

Hearing him play in Vienna in 1828, poor doomed Schubert (destined to die later that year) believed he’d “heard an angel sing”.

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Caprice, capice?

Borrowed from French, caprice was adopted into English in the 1700s (poet Alexander Pope rhymed it with vice) to mean a whim, a freak (joke or jest), a fancy (something literally from the realm of fantasy), bizarre…

In music, Paganini found the model for his caprices in the 24 capriccios of Italian baroque virtuoso, Locatelli, elaborate unaccompanied cadenzas inserted into his violin concertos, that pushed violin technique, and the instrument, to the limit. One of Locatelli’s English admirers noted: “He plays with so much Fury upon his Fiddle, that he must wear out some Dozens of them in a year.”

Multimedia Paganini You can find Jacques-Gabriel Prod’homme’s classic book Nicolo Paganini, a biography to read online, or download, from archive.org. Most of Paganini’s scores are available to view or download as pdfs at the Petrucci Music Library, imslp.org, including the 24 Caprices in both original manuscript and early printed editions. And, if you click on “video” on cellist Julian Lloyd Webber’s own website (julianlloydwebber.com), you are redirected to his YouTube hits, which include him and the band playing his brother Andrew’s 1977 Paganini Variations.

From beyond the grave, Paganini continued to wield his most powerful magic through his 24 caprices. For violinists a byword for virtuosity, they have also challenged composers and other instrumentalists. The fiendishly difficult Caprice No.24 in A minor is instantly recognisable thanks to later treatments by pianists Liszt and Rachmaninov, and – most widely known of all – Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s 1977 Variations for his cellist brother Julian.

Twenty years ago now, in 1992, Richard Tognetti also turned the ACO’s attention to reworking the Caprice No.24, in a techno-metal-chamber-orchestra treatment called Deviance (with a backward glance then, too, toward the band Devo).

This new Caprice on caprices (DEVA) is Richard’s “take two”, this time based on Caprices Nos 17 and 20.

By contrast with the minor-keyed No.24, this selection sources Paganini mostly in major mode, and more tuneful vein. Yet while this might seem to suggest something more easy going, Richard sets about reimagining Paganini’s two-handed (single violin) originals as if for a six-handed violinist deity (in reality, of course, relying on 3 two-handed soloists with backing from the rest of the ACO strings).

Richard begins by glossing phrases of the rather sweet and rustic D-major tune of Caprice No.20 with fluting harmonics in a thoroughly 21st-century vein. As in the original, this radiant opening is succeeded by a contrastingly hard-driven episode in B minor. Segue into the sostenuto (sustained) tutti opening of Caprice No.17 in E flat major, whose long slow theme was originally played out on the violin’s 2 lower strings in brief 4- and 5-note instalments, threaded together by skittering scales on the two upper strings. It, too, then moves into a busy minore (minor-key) interlude, whose originally single-strand and difficult octave theme Richard recasts into an even more devilish ensemble fugue.

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Olivier Strecker, Cannes 2007

MORRICONE Esercizi (Exercises) for 10 solo strings No.1 (interrupted melody and improvised canon) (Composed 1992–3)

Ennio MORRICONE (b. Rome, Italy, 1928) A classically trained trumpeter and composer, Morricone became a leading movie soundtrack composer of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He was nominated three times for Oscars before being given an Honorary Academy Award in 2007. As well as being a gifted tune-smith (think Gabriel’s Theme from The Mission), he has composed across a wide spectrum of idioms, and alongside his commercial career has been actively involved in Italy’s avant-garde classical and experimental jazz scenes. Since the early 1990s, he has added many new and adventurous serious concert works to his film output.

Paganini’s caprices joined an already long Italian tradition of music for solo violin that stretched the technical and expressive capacities of both player and composer (often the same person) by focusing on a particular sort of musical pattern-making. Vivaldi, in the intricate passage work of the Four Seasons, Tartini in his famous Devil’s Trill Sonata, Locatelli in his Art of the Violin, provided materials that generations of violin teachers and students have used as pedagogical tools. Paganini’s Caprices, too, are especially well-adaptable as teaching exercises, precisely because they address particular technical problems in a concentrated way.

In Richard’s Caprice on Caprices, we heard how Paganini’s Caprice No.17 develops a complex musical structure by systematically juxtaposing two simple ideas, interspersing short phrases of a melody with rapid scales. Paganini’s aim was certainly not to break up or destroy the melody, but rather to challenge the player to hold everything together regardless. But what if a composer decided on addressing the opposite “problem”, how to interrupt or change a melody in a systematic way, so that its gradual fragmentation becomes the very point of the pattern-making?

This possibility especially fascinated those modern musical pattern-makers par excellence, the so-called Minimalist composers in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Arvo Pärt (in the several versions of his Fratres), Michael Nyman (reworking a Mozart theme in his soundtrack to Peter Greenaway’s Drowning by Numbers), and – as we shall later hear – Henryk Górecki, all offered solutions, radically adding to or subtracting from their respective starting points. In these exercises for 10 solo strings (interrupted melody and improvised canon), Ennio Morricone attempts something similar, while also audibly contributing to the venerable Italian string tradition of Vivaldi and Paganini.

Surprisingly, the composer of such beautiful melodies as Gabriel’s theme from The Mission, has admitted: “For myself, I can do without a melody. In fact, I’ve often tried to disguise a melodic theme by adding rests and pauses and silences, and to encourage the listeners to identify with the sensations of sheer musical colours, instead of with a tune …

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This composition is an answer to this problem … I wanted to show that by taking a sequence of sounds (a melody), on the one hand respecting their original source, yet on the other hand distorting their original durations, altering the intervals, and re-working the dynamics, the basic melody thereby loses its recognisability, and its original connotations are replaced by something new and very different.”

In the Esercizi, Morricone concentrates on a few fleeting fragments from a famous moment in Verdi’s La Traviata, the scena “Arnami Alfredo”. The original “melody” is built around two ideas, wide upward leaps, and stepwise falls.

He simultaneously submits the theme to two processes, fragmenting it with rests and changes, and building new textures by making it the basis of slowly ruminating canons and flashy rapid passage work. Morricone has also described his famous film soundtracks as “simple exercises”, and even at their most melodic moments they often use similar techniques, such as slow fragmented canons, to accompany and distinctively colour their themes.

About Morricone …

From age 12, Morricone studied trumpet and composition at the Academy of St Cecilia in Rome where his most famous teacher was the Italian modernist composer Goffredo Petrassi. He began working in the 1950s as a freelance arranger for television and film, and composed his first feature film score, Il federale, for Luciano Salce in 1961, and his first Italian hit-parade song Se telefonando in 1966.

Multimedia Morricone As Morricone admits, “Even though I have carried out many experiments … people still seem to want to hear a melody.” His most brilliant and lovely film score in this regard is that for The Mission. For a very different Morricone, on YouTube you can watch and hear his trumpet solos in two 10-minute documentaries from the mid-1960s, entitled Azioni, by the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. You can also visit Morricone’s official website at enniomorricone.it.

For director Sergio Leone he composed soundtracks for the hugely popular “Spaghetti Westerns” A fistful of dollars (1964) (his score won an Italian Film Critics Award) and The good, the bad, and the ugly (1966). Major later successes include The Mission (1986) and The Untouchables (1987), both earning him Oscar nominations. Quentin Tarantino re-used music from Morricone’s 1960s film scores in Kill Bill (2003).

Parallel with his film career, Morricone was active in the Italian experimental music scene. Along with composer Frederic Rzewski, he was a member of the experimental-jazz avant-garde Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, an ensemble dedicated to improvising “New Consonances”.

Since the early 1990s Morricone has concentrated on concert conducting and composing. Notable works include Ut (the Italian word for “doh”), a 1991 trumpet concerto for Mauro Maur. In 2007 with the Roma Sinfonietta, he gave a concert in the United Nations General Assembly honouring its new Secretary-General, Ban-ki Moon.

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CHOPIN Piano Concerto No.1 in E Minor, Op.11 (Composed 1830) Arranged for piano and strings by Richard Hofmann

I Allegro maestoso (Risoluto) II Romance (Larghetto) III Rondo (Vivace)

Emulation and exile

Fryderyk CHOPIN •

(b. Zelazowa Wola, Poland, 1810; d. Paris, France, 1849) Chopin’s gifts as a pianist brought him early acclaim. At eight he performed a concerto

by Gyrowetz, and at 15 another

by Moscheles. The concertos of Hummel, who visited Warsaw in 1828 and made a great impression on Chopin at the time, were a direct influence on his own two piano concertos, both composed around his twentieth birthday (in 1830), shortly before he left Warsaw for Vienna and, finally, Paris. There he largely avoided performing in public, preferring to teach, and to play and compose for friends and influential patrons. His solo piano pieces, many on a miniature time scale, are most highly prized by posterity. As André Gide observed: “Some of Chopin’s shortest works have the necessary and pure beauty of the resolution of a problem.”

In the space of three years, between his 19th and 22nd birthdays, Chopin’s life and art were changed irrevocably. In 1829 on visits to Warsaw, two touring virtuoso composers, Hummel and Paganini, greatly impressed the young Pole and directly influenced the creation of the two piano concertos that he completed and premiered in 1830. Then, early in November 1830, he set off for Vienna. Back in Warsaw, at the end of the month, Polish patriots launched a revolution against their Russian overlords. Chopin’s friend and travelling companion, Titus Woyciechowski, returned to enlist on the Polish side, but in the short but vicious war that ensued, the Russian empire had the upper hand, and, by October 1831, less than a year after the uprising, Warsaw was again under its iron fist.

Thousands of Polish patriots were forced into exile, including many artists, writers and musicians. One young Polish singer, George Gordonovitch (1810-1840), an exact contemporary of Chopin, sought refuge as far away as Australia, where he arrived in 1834, and gave concerts in Hobart and Sydney, with mixed success, before opening a tobacconist’s business.

Meanwhile, despite or perhaps even because of the patronage he had formerly accepted from members of the Russian nobility in Poland, Chopin also decided to stay away, and arrived in Paris, late in September 1831. The traveller eventually became a permanent exile. He never returned to Poland.

Genesis Chopin’s only two piano concertos were written and first performed in the space of little more than a year around his 20th birthday, before he finally left Warsaw. The Concerto in E minor, though in fact the later of the pair, was the first to be published, printed in both Paris and Leipzig in 1833, three years before the earlier-completed F-minor Concerto. As a result, this E minor concerto became the “First”. However, the fact that both are youthful works makes the reversal less significant than it might otherwise be.

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Chopin in Australia Not until the late 1830s did Chopin’s music became widely known in English speaking countries. In Australia, printed editions imported by the composer Stephen Marsh, were advertised in The Sydney Morning Herald as early as 1843, but his music was not heard in public concerts until the 1850s. A German émigré, Julius Buddee, played the Romance from the E-minor concerto (as a piano solo, without orchestra) in Melbourne in 1867. But the first complete performance was given, in the Great Hall of Sydney University, on 17 December 1878. The pianist was Sydney Moss, and, as reported in the Herald, the orchestral accompaniment was for strings only!

The impetus to try his hand at concerto form probably came from concertos Chopin himself had performed as a child, including works by Adalbert Gyrowetz (1763-1850) when he was eight, and Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870) that he played at 15. Among others were the concertos of Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837), who visited Warsaw in 1828 and whose playing and music both made a deep impression on Chopin at the time. Almost certainly, they had a greater impact than the piano concertos of Beethoven, works Chopin may not even have known by 1820, or those of Mozart, which, though admired, were by then often considered too old-fashioned for public performance.

The Concerto in E minor was finished by 21 August 1830, and was first performed in public on 11 October. Chopin wrote to his friend Titus Woyciechowski the following day: “I hasten to let you know that yesterday’s concert went off very well. I can inform Your Lordship that I was not in the least bit nervous, and played as I do when I am alone. The hall was full. My Highness reeled off the Allegro with ease on a Streicher piano. Deafening applause. After the aria came my Adagio and Rondo …”

As he indicated, the concerto’s first and second movements were separated by the performance of an aria and chorus by Soliva. This was not an unusual practice, indeed the final two movements of the concerto were often played alone.

Chopin hoped to follow the E-minor with a third concerto, and worked on its first movement briefly in 1831. He reused the sketches for this abandoned work ten years later in the single-movement Allegro de Concert, Op.46. Meanwhile, the two complete concertos served Chopin well during the early years of his exile. In Paris, in 1833, he dedicated the published score of the E-minor Concerto to the pianist and composer, Frédéric Kalkbrenner (1788-1849), the supreme arbiter of pianistic taste in the French capital in the early 1830s. Chopin wrote to Titus upon his arrival in Paris in 1831: “If only I could play as well as Kalkbrenner! If Paganini is perfect, then so too is he, though in quite a different way… his poise, his touch, his smoothness of playing, all absolutely enchanting.”

ACO performance history In 1994 the ACO performed Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.1 in its full orchestral version. This is the first time the ACO has performed this arrangement.

In 1833, Chopin played the Romance alone at a concert organised by Hector Berlioz. Before the printed edition became available, he also sent a handwritten copy of the score to a brilliant young German pianist visiting Paris, the thirteenyear old Clara Wieck (who later married Robert Schumann).

Throughout her long career, her advocacy of the E-minor concerto ensured that it became well-known and loved.

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With strings only Clara Wieck heard Chopin himself play the concerto at a private concert in Paris in March 1832, one of several occasions on record when he performed the work not with full orchestra (wind octet, brass septet, timpani, and strings), but with strings alone, probably eight or nine players.

This remained a fully “authorised” option, especially in circumstances when Chopin feared a full orchestra would overwhelm the pianos he was playing, tonally delicate instruments by later standards. Chopin left no definitive reduced scoring, but a string version by Richard Hoffman (1831-1909) probably comes close to realising his intentions.

Having taken lessons from Liszt, Rubenstein and Thalberg, the English-born Hoffmann emigrated to New York in the late 1840s, and gave many performances of Chopin’s music there.

In the E-minor Concerto, the orchestra’s role is mostly accompanimental and supportive, rather than argumentative, and there is little shared organic development of musical ideas between it and the piano. The treatment of the main theme to the first movement is a case in point. The orchestra familiarises listeners to it in the self-contained introduction, and repeats it briefly at the point the soloist enters, but thereafter it plays little part in the piano’s music. Rather, it serves as a musical anchor, marking the completion of major episodes and, later, the decisive return to the home key.

But the real interest (and the bulk of the close to 20-minute duration) lies in the wide-ranging solo episodes.

Chopin finished the first movement in April 1830. On 15 May, he gave a detailed description of the slow second movement, in a letter to his friend Titus: Multimedia Chopin and Leschenko Among several good dedicated Chopin websites, chopinmusic.net gives links to a wide variety of other online resources, as does a Polish site chopin.pl (which you can access in Polish or English). Out-of-copyright free scores of most of Chopin’s music can be downloaded as pdfs from the Petrucci Music Library (imslp.org). Polina Leschenko has released CD recordings of music by Liszt, Schumann and Prokofiev and has just recorded a Mendelssohn CD with the ACO for the BIS label. See avanticlassic.com.

“The slow movement of my new concerto is in E major. It is not meant to create a powerful effect; it is rather a Romance, calm and melancholy, giving the impression of someone looking gently toward a spot which calls to mind a thousand happy memories … a kind of reverie in the moonlight on a beautiful spring evening. Hence the accompaniment is muted: that is the violins are stifled by a sort of comb that fits over the bridge and gives them a nasal, silvery tone.”

For the third movement, Chopin composed a straightforward Rondo using some Polish national elements, including a dance-type known as the Krakowiak. It was his second Krakowiak-Rondo, the first (Op.14, also for piano and orchestra) having already proved a success in 1829.

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 17

GÓRECKI Piano Concerto (Concerto for Harpsichord, or Piano, and Strings, Op.40) (Composed 1980)

1 2

Henryk Mikołaj GÓRECKI (b. Czernica, Poland, 1933; d. Katowice, Poland, 2010) Górecki (pronounced gó-RETski) was born in a village in Silesia. He studied and later worked at the Katowice Music Academy, becoming a professor there in 1975. A devout Catholic, in 1979 he resigned from all his official posts in protest against the Communist government’s restrictive policies. Having outgrown early avant-garde interests, he turned away from atonality and complexity (though not necessarily from dissonance) for an austere and grittily tonal minimalism, in works that registered the sufferings of Poles under twentieth-century German (both Weimar Republic and Nazi) as well as Russian Communist occupations.

Allegro molto Vivace (marcatissimo)

As a young adult in Katowice in the 1950s, one of Górecki’s favourite films was Aleksander Ford’s 1952 feature Chopin’s Youth. Charting the tumultuous years between 1825 and 1831, it reaches a dramatic climax with young Chopin composing his “Revolutionary” Etude, Op.10 No.2, and attempting to return from Vienna to take part in the patriotic struggle against the Russian Tsarists. One striking incidental feature of the film (as duly noted in the New York Times) was an appearance by “a diabolical-looking Paganini magnetizing an audience with his violin”. But for Górecki, perhaps the most significant musical moment in the film was a performance of Chopin’s Mazurka in A minor, Op.17 No.4. Twenty years later, Górecki borrowed just the piece’s opening left-hand chords to underpin the final movement of his masterpiece, the austere Symphony No.3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs), Op.36, for soprano and orchestra. Short of Chopin’s melancholic melody, the chords form a slow, ineffably sad ostinato.

One of the Third Symphony’s texts is a short prayer inscribed by an 18-year-old prisoner, Helena Błażusiakówna, on the walls of her Gestapo cell in the southern Polish town of Zakopane. Another is a brief lament by a mother for a son lost when the Silesian Uprisings were crushed by troops of the Weimar Republic. Górecki’s message was eloquent and plain, and he resolutely avoided elaborating on it further in later interviews, except to point out: “I had a grandfather who was in Dachau, an aunt in Auschwitz. You know how it is between Poles and Germans.

But Bach was a German too – and Schubert, and Strauss.

Everyone has his place on this little earth. That’s all behind me.”

Górecki’s other masterpiece The Third Symphony consists of three long, slow, cathartic laments, together lasting almost an hour. In stark contrast, his next most famous work consists of two short, fast, motoric movements, totalling under 10 minutes. Composed in 1980, four years after the symphony, the Concerto is its perfect foil. True to his word, Górecki put lamentation

18 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

behind him for the moment. With a backward glance to Paganini in Chopin’s Youth, Górecki later described the Concerto as a “wybryk”… a caprice!

As in Paganini’s Caprices, and Morricone’s similarly minimalist Esercizi, each movement of the Concerto addresses a musical “problem” in a systematic way. The parallel with Morricone is especially strong in the first movement, where, according to Górecki, the “problem” consists in “a constant superimposition of two voices, a cantus firmus (strings) and figuration (solo).”

Multimedia Górecki Up-to-date information on performances, recordings and scores of Górecki’s music are available at boosey.com/gorecki.

A dedicated article on Symphony No.3 (Górecki), at wikipedia.org is a fine introduction (with soundbytes) to his magnum opus, the hour-long work also known as the “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”. Peter Weir used music from it in his film Fearless (1993), and it was also sampled by the English Techno duo Lamb in their 1996 song Górecki. There are dozens of Górecki (and Lamb) videos on YouTube. Two authorised videos are of performances of early, extremely avant-garde works, Elementi (1963) from Gresham College (UK), and Musiquette IV (1970) from trombonist A. Ivanets. A third, by the Sydney Conservatorium Modern Music Ensemble, conducted by Carolyn Watson, is an 8-minute excerpt from another sombre late work, Kleines Requiem für eine Polka (1993). Sample chapters of Adrian Thomas’s book Górecki (Oxford Studies of Composers, 1997) can be previewed at Google books.

“Cantus firmus” is composer jargon for a plainchant melody when reused, usually in long sustained notes, within a contrapuntal or polyphonic (multi-voiced) texture. Here, Górecki has the whole string group playing the cantus firmus slowly in octaves (later in doubled thirds), while the keyboard’s rapid passage work forms the highly contrasted counterpoint (or second voice).

But the German Bach, and the great capriccio harpsichord cadenza of his Fifth “Brandenburg” Concerto, is the real tutelary deity behind the obsessive pattern-making of this first movement. And via Bach, also the great early 20thcentury Polish harpsichordist and Bach specialist, Wanda Landowska, who, like Chopin, saw out most of her career in exile (in her case, in Paris and the United States).

Bach’s keyboard concertos were among the first to realise the notion of concerto as ongoing contest between soloist and orchestra. Whereas simultaneous coexistence on two different planes was the guiding principle behind Górecki’s first movement, the second movement, in his own words, “turns the duality around to create juxtaposed tutti-solo contrasts”. As he explains (and as we witness repeatedly elsewhere in this program): “Often a simple idea lies behind a major decision.” And the result? A musical blogger recently summed up the concerto as “a pounding, neo-gothic maelstrom of sheer fingerboard ecstasy”.

The concerto was premiered in Katowice, almost exactly 32 years ago, on 2 March 1980, by harpsichordist Elzbieta Chojnacka, with the strings of the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stanislaw Wislocki.

Unfortunately for Górecki and Poland, “all that” was not yet completely relegated to the past. A year after the concerto, in 1981, in response to the ongoing crisis in Poland, Górecki composed his Miserere, Op.44, scored for a huge a cappella choir of 120 voices, in protest against Communist government’s vicious crackdown on Solidarność, the Solidarity trade union movement.

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 19

MENDELSSOHN Octet, Op.20 in E flat major for strings (Composed 1825)

1 2 3 4

Caricature by Aubrey Beardsley

Felix MENDELSSOHN (b. Hamburg, Germany, 1809; d. Leipzig, Germany, 1847)

“Mendelssohn composed for the nineteenth-century, and completely hit that taste for the Semi-Grand which prevails throughout all strata of society.”

As this British writer reflected in 1858, from the working-class row-houses of Manchester, where the choral society movement took his oratorio Elijah to its collective heart, to middle-class suburbia of Boston and Melbourne, the music of this economically privileged young Berliner (dying short of 40, he never had to suffer growing old) caught the Zeitgeist of the Victorian era as no other.

Karl Marx observed from his desk in the British Museum in 1859, “material life conditions the process of social, political and intellectual life.” And, in mid-19th-century societies where ordinary people first gained the leisure to pursue serious musical improvement, Mendelssohn became the first “people’s composer”.

Allegro moderato ma con fuoco Andante Allegro leggierissimo Presto

In Paris in 1832, young Clara Wieck (later Schumann) first heard Chopin himself play his E-minor Piano Concerto, accompanied (as we heard it) by an ensemble of strings alone. Completing that Paris program, those same strings then performed this work, Mendelssohn’s Octet. The Ottetto, as it first became known even in English speaking countries, was published the same year, and was being played in England in 1834. However, for most of the composer’s short life, it was his sacred choral music – including the oratorios Elijah and St Paul, that chimed most harmoniously with tastes of the emerging middleclasses.

Public appreciation for his chamber music grew more slowly. In Boston, USA, in 1853, when a dedicated Mendelssohn Quartette Club gave the first local performance of the Ottetto, it was greeted in the press as: “… a large and noble composition, full of fine and vigorous ideas, admirably wrought out, and never suffering the interest to flag”.

In Australia, where a fully professional music scene first emerged on the back of Gold Rush prosperity, there were massed performances of Elijah in Melbourne in 1858 and Sydney in 1859. The first Australian performance of the Octet was in Melbourne on 20 October 1879, under the leadership of the French émigré violinist Leon Caron (1850-1915).

Part of the Victorian fascination with the Octet is the fact that it was composed by a highly-intelligent 16-yearold. Over the previous few years, this son of a rich and well-connected Berlin banker enjoyed extraordinary opportunities to hear his compositions performed. Works especially written for and performed in household concerts included his series of 13 apprentice “symphonies” for strings (now a staple of chamber-orchestra repertory). But though he then graduated to his first official symphony in 1824, even a rich teenager could not reasonably expect to have a full concert orchestra at his disposal all the time.

20 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

So the problem of how to compose genuinely symphonic music for a small easily assembled group was still uppermost in Mendelssohn’s mind when, in the autumn of 1825, he composed the Ottetto. As he later confirmed in his introductory note to the printed edition of 1832: “The Ottetto must be played by all the instruments in symphonic orchestral style. Pianos (softs) and fortes (louds) must be strictly observed and more strongly emphasised than is usual in pieces of this character.”

Not surprisingly, then, the Allegro first movement, from the shimmering tremolos and soft flare of its con fuoco (“with fire”) opening theme onward, eschews the intimate focus of chamber music, for a more expansive, extroverted vision. As a British reviewer judged the Ottetto in 1848, Mendelssohn had “never written a larger or more impassioned Allegro than the opening one to this”, a remarkable distinction considering that, by then, Mendelssohn had clocked up in his symphonies and overtures well over a dozen much-loved, fully-orchestral Allegros. Only the audible, often almost athletic, prominence accorded to the first violinist (Mendelssohn originally wrote the part for his violin teacher, Eduard Rietz) is at odds with the collective symphonic ideal, though this very fact makes the Ottetto an even more interesting hybrid.

ACO performance history Mendelssohn’s popular Octet for Strings has been played in four ACO tours, in 1993, 1994, 2001 and 2006.

Astonishing to reflect that the lusciously ruminating second movement Andante was composed during Beethoven’s lifetime! At the very moment Beethoven was producing the late works that remained so alien to audiences for decades to come, Mendelssohn was crafting music that would come to exemplify the mid-19th-century ethos. Even more original is the third movement, which, according to Mendelssohn’s sister, Fanny, recalls the closing lines of the “Walpurgis Night’s Dream” scene in Goethe’s Faust. After a fey assembly AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 21

has witnessed the nuptials of Titania and Oberon, Ariel bids them do what fairies do…

If nature boon, or subtle sprite, Endow your soul with pinions; – Then follow to yon rosy height, Through ether’s calm dominions!

Before Goethe directs the “Orchestra (pianissimo)” to match his quatrain with suitable music: Drifting cloud and misty wreathes Are fill’d with light elysian; O’er reed and leaf the zephyr breathes – So fades the fairy vision!

With such a scenario, it is hardly surprising that this movement became independently popular. Mendelssohn himself re-scored it for full orchestra as an alternative to the minuet of his First Symphony.

Multimedia Mendelssohn Take a look at Mendelssohn’s original 1825 score, online at Petrucci Music Library (imslp.org). Far from the confident scrawl of Beethoven, the handwriting is obviously that of a careful 16-year-old apprentice, and on the cover, Mendelssohn’s violin teacher Eduard Rietz, who led the first performance, has written his name. The Octet continues to exert a fascination on music historians, eager to explain how a 16-year-old, however talented, came to write such a ground-breaking work. In one recent example of the hoops that young Mendelssohn is today made to jump through, Oxford musicologist Benedict Taylor devotes the second chapter of his book Mendelssohn, Time and Memory, published last year, to arguing that the octet shows the young composer’s awareness of Hegel’s philosophy of history. You can review Taylor’s argument at Google Books.

The Presto finale is an impressive mix of symphonic and fugal elements that Mendelssohn probably patterned on the finale of Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony. Into the contrapuntal web, several times he brings back momentarily the Walpurgis Night music from the third movement. Beyond the Ottetto, he remained fascinated with this literary subject, and, pursuing Shakespeare’s version of the story, in the following year, 1826, produced what was perhaps his most enduringly famous orchestral work, the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Op.21.

PROGRAM NOTES © GRAEME SKINNER 2012

22 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

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POLINA LESCHENKO

Marco Borggreve

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Russian pianist Polina Leschenko works with orchestras around the world including The Hallé, London Mozart Players, Scottish Chamber, Bournemouth Symphony, Britten Sinfonia, Camerata Salzburg, Bern Symphony, Lausanne Chamber, Russian National, I Pomeriggi Musicali in Milan, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

An accomplished and admired chamber musician, Polina Leschenko also performs frequently at many festivals including, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, Risør, Stavanger, Enescu Festival in Bucharest, La Roque d’Anthéron, Salzburger Festspiele, Schubertiade, Gstaad, Verbier, and Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano. Regular collaborators include Martha Argerich, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Ivry Gitlis, Julian Rachlin, Maxim Rysanov, Heinrich Schiff, Mischa Maisky and Torleif Thedéen.

Leschenko has appeared on the stages of the Wigmore Hall, Cité de la Musique, Palais des Beaux Arts, Tonhalle in Zürich, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and New York’s Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.

The 2011/2012 season sees Leschenko giving solo recitals throughout Europe including the Mozarteum in Salzburg, performing chamber music at many venues and festivals, and working with The Hallé Orchestra.

In 2009, Leschenko began a new position as International Chair in Piano at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff, where she has a three-year residency.

In 2003, Polina Leschenko recorded a debut CD for EMI in the series ‘Martha Argerich presents...’ with works by Liszt, Chopin, Kreisler/Rachmaninov, Brahms and Bach/Feinberg. She has also recorded a well received disc of Prokofiev chamber music with Martha Argerich, Christian Poltéra and Roby Lakatos, for Avanticlassic, with whom she has a recording contract. Her recital disc – featuring an all-Liszt programme including the B minor Sonata – was released in 2007 by Avanticlassic. The disc has won several awards: a Choc du Monde de la Musique, Pizzicato magazine’s Supersonic and a Joker from Belgian magazine Crescendo. Recently released by EMI Classics is a recording of Glinka’s Sextet as part of the ‘Martha Argerich and Friends Live from the Lugano Festival’ series.

Polina Leschenko was born in St. Petersburg into a family of musicians, and began playing the piano under her father’s guidance at the age of six. Two years later she made her solo début with the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra in St. Petersburg. She studied with Sergei Leschenko, Vitali Margulis, Pavel Gililov, Alexandre Rabinovitch-Barakovsky and Christopher Elton.

24 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

RICHARD TOGNETTI AO

Paul Henderson-Kelly

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND LEADER AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA Australian violinist, conductor and composer, Richard Tognetti has established an international reputation for his compelling performances and artistic individualism. He studied at the Sydney Conservatorium with Alice Waten, in his home town of Wollongong with William Primrose, and at the Berne Conservatory (Switzerland) with Igor Ozim, where he was awarded the Tschumi Prize as the top graduate soloist in 1989. Later that year he was appointed Leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) and subsequently became Artistic Director. He is also Artistic Director of the Maribor Festival in Slovenia.

“Richard Tognetti is one of the most characterful, incisive and impassioned violinists to be heard today.”

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (UK)

Select Discography As soloist: BACH Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard ABC Classics 476 5942 2008 ARIA Award Winner BACH Violin Concertos ABC Classics 476 5691 2007 ARIA Award Winner BACH Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas ABC Classics 476 8051 2006 ARIA Award Winner (All three releases available as a 5CD Box set: ABC Classics 476 6168) Musica Surfica (DVD) Best Feature, New York Surf Film Festival As director: VIVALDI Flute Concertos, Op.10 Emmanuel Pahud, Flute EMI Classics 0946 3 47212 2 6 Grammy Nominee PIAZZOLLA Song of the Angel Chandos CHAN 10163 All available from aco.com.au/shop.

Tognetti performs on period, modern and electric instruments.

His numerous arrangements, compositions and transcriptions have expanded the chamber orchestra repertoire and been performed throughout the world.

As director or soloist, Tognetti has appeared with the Handel & Haydn Society (Boston), Hong Kong Philharmonic, Camerata Salzburg, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Nordic Chamber Orchestra, YouTube Symphony Orchestra and the Australian symphony orchestras. He conducted Mozart’s Mitridate for the Sydney Festival and gave the Australian premiere of Ligeti’s Violin Concerto with the Sydney Symphony.

Tognetti has collaborated with colleagues from across various art forms and artistic styles, including Joseph Tawadros, Dawn Upshaw, James Crabb, Emmanuel Pahud, Jack Thompson, Katie Noonan, Neil Finn, Tim Freedman, Paul Capsis, Bill Henson and Michael Leunig.

In 2003, Tognetti was co-composer of the score for Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; violin tutor for its star, Russell Crowe; and can also be heard performing on the award-winning soundtrack. In 2005, he co-composed the soundtrack to Tom Carroll’s surf film Horrorscopes and, in 2008, co-created The Red Tree, inspired by illustrator Shaun Tan’s book.

He co-created and starred in the 2008 documentary film Musica Surfica, which has won best film awards at surf film festivals in the USA, Brazil, France and South Africa.

As well as directing numerous recordings by the ACO, Tognetti has recorded Bach’s solo violin repertoire for ABC Classics, winning three consecutive ARIA awards, and the Dvořák and Mozart Violin Concertos for BIS. A passionate advocate for music education, Tognetti established the ACO’s Education and Emerging Artists programs in 2005.

Richard Tognetti was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2010. He holds honorary doctorates from three Australian universities and was made a National Living Treasure in 1999. He performs on a 1743 Guarneri del Gesù violin, lent to him by an anonymous Australian private benefactor.

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 25

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA RICHARD TOGNETTI AO ARTISTIC DIRECTOR ACO MUSICIANS Richard Tognetti Artistic Director and Lead Violin Helena Rathbone Principal 2nd Violin Satu Vänskä Assistant Leader Madeleine Boud Violin Rebecca Chan Violin Alice Evans Violin Aiko Goto Violin Mark Ingwersen Violin Ilya Isakovich Violin Christopher Moore Principal Viola Nicole Divall Viola Timo-Veikko Valve Principal Cello Melissa Barnard Cello Julian Thompson Cello Maxime Bibeau Principal Double Bass Part-time Musicians Zoë Black Violin Veronique Serret Violin Caroline Henbest Viola Daniel Yeadon Cello

Australia’s national orchestra is a product of its country’s vibrant, adventurous and enquiring spirit. In performances around Australia, around the world and on many recordings, the ACO moves hearts and stimulates minds with repertoire spanning six centuries and a vitality 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 plays a 1743 Guarneri del Gesù violin, on loan to him from an anonymous Australian benefactor. Principal Cello Timo-Veikko Valve plays on a 1729 Giuseppe Guarneri filius Andreæ cello, on loan from Peter Weiss AM. Principal 2nd Violin Helena Rathbone plays a 1759 J.B. Guadagnini violin on loan from the Commonwealth Bank Group. Assistant Leader Satu Vänskä plays a 1728/29 Stradivarius violin owned by the ACO Instrument Fund, through which investors participate in the ownership of historic instruments.

Fifty international tours have drawn outstanding reviews at many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Vienna’s Musikverein. This year, the ACO tours to the USA and Europe.

The Australian Chamber Orchestra is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

The Australian Chamber Orchestra is supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW.

The ACO has made acclaimed recordings for labels including ABC Classics, Sony, Channel Classics, Hyperion, EMI and Chandos and currently has a recording contract with BIS. A full list of available recordings can be found at aco.com.au/shop.

Highlights include the three-time ARIA Award-winning Bach recordings and the complete set of Mozart Violin Concertos.

The ACO appears in the television series Classical Destinations II and the award-winning film Musica Surfica, both available on DVD and CD. 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.

26 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

MUSICIANS ON STAGE

RICHARD TOGNETTI AO§ HELENA RATHBONE* Artistic Director and Lead Violin Chair sponsored by Michael Ball AM & Daria Ball, Joan Clemenger, Wendy Edwards, and Prudence MacLeod

Principal 2nd Violin Chair sponsored by Hunter Hall Investment Management Limited

Photos: Paul Henderson-Kelly, Helen White

SATU VÄNSKÄ≈

MADELEINE BOUD

Assistant Leader Violin Chair sponsored by Robert & Kay Bryan

Violin Chair sponsored by Terry Campbell AO & Christine Campbell

REBECCA CHAN

AIKO GOTO

CHRISTOPHER MOORE

NICOLE DIVALL

Violin Chair sponsored by Ian Wallace & Kay Freedman

Violin Chair sponsored by Andrew & Hiroko Gwinnett

Principal Viola Chair sponsored by Tony Shepherd

Viola Chair sponsored by Ian Lansdown

Players dressed by

AKIRA ISOGAWA

TIMOVEIKKO VALVE+

JULIAN THOMPSON#

MAXIME BIBEAU

Principal Cello Chair sponsored by Mr Peter Weiss AM

Cello Chair sponsored by the Clayton Family

Principal Bass Chair sponsored by John Taberner & Grant Lang

§

Richard Tognetti plays a 1743 Guarneri del Gesù violin kindly on loan from an anonymous Australian private benefactor.

* Helena Rathbone plays a 1759 J.B. Guadagnini violin kindly on loan from the Commonwealth Bank Group. ≈ Satu Vänskä plays a 1728/29 Stradivarius violin kindly on loan from the ACO Instrument Fund. + Timo-Veikko Valve plays a 1729 Giuseppe Guarneri filius Andræ cello kindly on loan from Peter Weiss AM. # Julian Thompson plays a 1721 Giuseppe Guarneri filius Andræ cello kindly on loan from the Australia Council.

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 27

BEHIND THE SCENES BOARD Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM Chairman Angus James Deputy Chairman [leave of absence January–March 2012] Bill Best Liz Cacciottolo Chris Froggatt

Janet Holmes à Court AC Andrew Stevens John Taberner Brendan Hopkins Tony Shepherd Peter Yates AM

Richard Tognetti AO Artistic Director

ADMINISTRATION STAFF EXECUTIVE OFFICE Timothy Calnin General Manager Jessica Block Deputy General Manager and Development Manager Michelle Kerr Executive Assistant to Mr Calnin and Mr Tognetti AO ARTISTIC & OPERATIONS Luke Shaw Head of Operations and Artistic Planning Alan J. Benson Artistic Administrator Erin McNamara Tour Manager Elissa Seed Travel Coordinator Jennifer Powell Librarian EDUCATION Vicki Stanley Education and Emerging Artists Manager Sarah Conolan Education Assistant

FINANCE Steve Davidson Chief Financial Officer Cathy Davey Senior Accountant Shyleja Paul Assistant Accountant DEVELOPMENT Alexandra Cameron-Fraser Corporate Relations and Public Affairs Manager Sarah Vick Events Manager Tom Carrig Senior Development Executive Lillian Armitage Philanthropy Manager Sally-Anne Biggins Patrons Manager Stephanie Ings Investor Relations Manager Julia Glass Development Coordinator

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

MARKETING Georgia Rivers Marketing & Digital Projects Manager Rosie Rothery Marketing Executive Chris Griffith Box Office Manager Mary Stielow Publicist Dean Watson Customer Relations Manager David Sheridan Office Administrator & Marketing Assistant INFORMATION SYSTEMS Ken McSwain Systems & Technology Manager Emmanuel Espinas Network Infrastructure Engineer ARCHIVES John Harper Archivist

ABN 45 001 335 182

Australian Chamber Orchestra Pty Ltd is a not for profit company registered in NSW.

In Person: Opera Quays, 2 East Circular Quay, Sydney NSW 2000 By Mail: PO Box R21, Royal Exchange NSW 1225 Telephone: (02) 8274 3800 Facsimile: (02) 8274 3801 Box Office: 1800 444 444 Email: aco@aco.com.au Website: aco.com.au

28 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS GOVERNMENT SUPPORT

The Australian Chamber Orchestra is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

The Australian Chamber Orchestra is supported by the NSW Government through Arts NSW.

VENUE SUPPORT We are also indebted to the following organisations for their support:

LLEWELLYN HALL School of Music Australian National University William Herbert Place (off Childers Street) Acton, Canberra

PO Box 3567, South Bank, Queensland 4101 Telephone: 07 3840 7444 Chair Henry Smerdon AM Deputy Chair Rachel Hunter

VENUE HIRE INFORMATION Phone: +61 2 6125 2527 Fax: +61 2 6248 5288 Email: music.venues@anu.edu.au

Trustees Simon Gallaher Helene George Bill Grant Sophie Mitchell Paul Piticco Mick Power AM Susan Street Rhonda White

AEG OGDEN (PERTH) PTY LTD

EXECUTIVE STAFF Chief Executive John Kotzas Director – Presenter Services Ross Cunningham Director – Corporate Services Kieron Roost Acting Director – Patron Services Deborah Murphy Executive Manager – Human Resources Alicia Dodds Executive Manager – Production Services Bill Jessop Acting Executive Manager – Marketing Stefan Treyvaud

PERTH CONCERT HALL General Manager Andrew Bolt Deputy General Manager Helen Stewart Technical Manager Peter Robins Event Coordinator Penelope Briffa Perth Concert Hall is managed by AEG Ogden (Perth) Pty Ltd Venue Manager for the Perth Theatre Trust Venues.

AEG OGDEN (PERTH) PTY LTD Chief Executive Rodney M Phillips THE PERTH THEATRE TRUST Chairman Dr Saliba Sassine St George’s Terrace, Perth PO Box Y3056, East St George’s Terrace, Perth WA 6832 Telephone: 08 9231 9900

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The Queensland Performing Arts Trust is a Statutory Authority of the State of Queensland and is partially funded by the Queensland Government The Honourable Anna Bligh MP Premier and Minister for the Arts Director-General, Department of the Premier and Cabinet Ken Smith Deputy Director-General, Arts Queensland Leigh Tabrett Patrons are advised that the Performing Arts Centre has EMERGENCY EVACUATION PROCEDURES, a FIRE ALARM system and EXIT passageways. In case of an alert, patrons should remain calm, look for the closest EXIT sign in GREEN, listen to and comply with directions given by the inhouse trained attendants and move in an orderly fashion to the open spaces outside the Centre.

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 29

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS VENUE SUPPORT

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE TRUST

A City of Sydney Venue

Mr Kim Williams AM (Chair)

Clover Moore Lord Mayor Managed by PEGASUS VENUE MANAGEMENT (AP) PTY LTD Christopher Rix Founder Bronwyn Edinger General Manager CITY RECITAL HALL ANGEL PLACE 2 –12 Angel Place, Sydney, Australia GPO Box 3339, Sydney, NSW 2001 Administration 02 9231 9000 Box Office 02 8256 2222 or 1300 797 118 Facsimile 02 9233 6652 Website www.cityrecitalhall.com

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ACO—121 — 16676 — 1/120212

30 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

MEDICI PROGRAM In the time-honoured fashion of the great Medici family, the ACO’s Medici Patrons support individual players’ Chairs and assist the Orchestra to attract and retain musicians of the highest calibre.

MEDICI PATRON MRS AMINA BELGIORNO-NETTIS

PRINCIPAL CHAIRS Richard Tognetti AO

Helena Rathbone

Satu Vänskä

Lead Violin

Principal 2nd Violin

Assistant Leader

Michael Ball AM & Daria Ball Joan Clemenger Wendy Edwards Prudence MacLeod

Robert & Kay Bryan

Christopher Moore

Timo-Veikko Valve

Maxime Bibeau

Principal Viola

Principal Cello

Principal Double Bass

Tony Shepherd

Peter Weiss AM

John Taberner & Grant Lang

Ilya Isakovich Violin Australian Communities Foundation – Connie & Craig Kimberley Fund

Nicole Divall Viola Ian Lansdown

CORE CHAIRS Aiko Goto Violin Andrew & Hiroko Gwinnett Mark Ingwersen Violin

Madeleine Boud Violin Terry Campbell AO & Christine Campbell Alice Evans Violin Jan Bowen The Davies The Sandgropers

Rebecca Chan Violin Ian Wallace & Kay Freedman

Viola Chair Philip Bacon AM Melissa Barnard Cello The Bruce & Joy Reid Foundation Julian Thompson Cello The Clayton Family

GUEST CHAIRS

FRIENDS OF MEDICI

Brian Nixon Principal Timpani Mr Robert Albert AO & Mrs Libby Albert

Mr R. Bruce Corlett AM & Mrs Ann Corlett

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 31

ACO INSTRUMENT FUND The ACO has established its Instrument Fund to offer patrons and investors the opportunity to participate in the ownership of a bank of historic stringed instruments. The Fund’s first asset is Australia’s only Stradivarius violin, now on loan to Satu Vänskä, Assistant Leader of the Orchestra.

The ACO pays tribute to its Founding Patrons of the Fund, who have made donations or pledges to the Orchestra to assist the Fund in its acquisition of the Stradivarius violin.

PETER WEISS AM, PATRON VISIONARY $1m+

OCTET $100,000 – $199,000

ENSEMBLE $10,000 – $24,999

Peter Weiss AM

Amina Belgiorno-Nettis

Leslie & Ginny Green

LEADER $500,000 – $999,999

QUARTET $50,000 – $99,000

SOLO $5,000 – $9,999

CONCERTO $200,000 – $499,000 Naomi Milgrom AO

John Leece OAM & Anne Leece

SONATA $25,000 – $49,999

PATRONS $500 – $4,999 June & Jim Armitage Angela Roberts

2011 EUROPEAN TOUR PATRONS The ACO would like to pay tribute to the following donors who supported our highly successful 2011 European Tour.

Graeme & Jing Aarons Samantha Allen John & Philippa Armfield Steven Bardy Isla Baring Linda & Graeme Beveridge BG Group Paul Borrud Ben & Debbie Brady Kay Bryan Massel Group Terry Campbell AO & Christine Campbell Jenny & Stephen Charles The Clayton Family Penny Clive & Bruce Neill John Coles Commonwealth Bank Robin D’Alessandro & Noel Philp Jennifer Dunstan Bridget Faye AM

Ann Gamble Myer Rhyll Gardner Alan & Joanna Gemes Tony Gill Global Switch Limited Andrew & Hiroko Gwinnett Peter Henshaw & Fargana Karimova Peter & Sandra Hofbauer Janet L Holmes à Court AC Catherine Holmes à CourtMather Brendan & Bee Hopkins P J Jopling QC Lady Kleinwort Wayne Kratzmann Prudence MacLeod Bill Merrick P J Miller Jan Minchin Justin Raoul Moffitt Alf Moufarrige

32 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Louise & Martyn Myer Foundation Sir Douglas Myers Marianna & Tony O’Sullivan peckvonhartel architects Diana Polkinghorne Rio Tinto Limited Gregory Stoloff & Sue Lloyd David Stone Andrew Strauss Tim & Sandie Summers John Taberner & Grant Lang Patricia Thomas OBE Beverley Trivett Loretta van Merwyk Malcolm Watkins Michael Welch Wesfarmers Limited Gillian Woodhouse Ms Di Yeldham Anonymous (3)

ACO SPECIAL COMMISSIONS The ACO pays tribute to our generous donors who have provided visionary support of the creative arts by collaborating with the ACO to commission new works in 2011 and 2012.

CREATIVE MUSIC FUND COMMISSION Steven Alward & Mark Wakely Ian Andrews & Jane Hall Janie & Michael Austin Austin Bell & Andrew Carter T Cavanagh & J Gardner Chin Moody Family Anne Coombs & Susan Varga Greg Dickson

John Gaden AM Cathy Gray Brian Kelleher Penny Le Couteur Andrew Leece Scott Marinchek & David Wynne Kate Mills

Janne Ryan Barbara Schmidt & Peter Cudlipp Jane Smith Richard Steele Peter Weiss AM Cameron Williams Anonymous (1)

OTHER COMMISSIONS Jan Minchin Robert & Nancy Pallin

NATIONAL EDUCATION PROGRAM PATRONS Janet Holmes à Court AC Marc Besen AO & Eva Besen AO

TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS

HOLMES À COURT FAMILY FOUNDATION

THE ROSS TRUST

THE NEILSON FOUNDATION

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 33

ACO DONATION PROGRAM The ACO pays tribute to all of our generous donors who have contributed to our Emerging Artists and Education Programs, which focus on the development of young Australian musicians. These initiatives are pivotal in securing the future of the ACO and the future of music in Australia. We are extremely grateful for the support that we receive.

EMERGING ARTIST PATRON & EDUCATION PATRONS $10,000+ The Abercrombie Family Foundation Mr Robert Albert AO & Mrs Libby Albert Daria & Michael Ball Steven Bardy Guido & Michelle BelgiornoNettis Liz Cacciottolo & Walter Lewin John & Janet Calvert-Jones Darin Cooper Family John & Patti David Chris & Tony Froggatt Australian Communities Foundation – Ballandry (Peter Griffin Family) Fund Miss Nancy Kimpton Jeff Mitchell Louise & Martyn Myer Foundation Drs Alex & Pam Reisner John Taberner & Grant Lang Ian Wallace & Kay Freedman Peter Weiss AM Anonymous

DIRETTORE $5,000  $9,999 Geoff Alder The Belalberi Foundation Ross & Rona Clarke Bridget Faye AM Ian & Caroline Frazer Edward C Gray Annie Hawker Keith Kerridge Wayne N Kratzmann Philip A Levy Lorraine Logan Hon Dr Kemeri Murray AO Marianna & Tony O’Sullivan John Rickard

Roberts Family A J Rogers Ian Wilcox & Mary Kostakidis Anonymous

Barbara Ward-Ambler Karen & Geoff Wilson Janie & Neville Wittey Anonymous (6)

MAESTRO $2,500  $4,999

VIRTUOSO $1,000  $2,499

Michael Ahrens Jane Allen Will & Dorothy Bailey Bequest Virginia Berger Patricia Blau Cam & Helen Carter Jon Clark & Lynne Springer Caroline & Robert Clemente Leith & Darrel Conybeare M Crittenden John & Gloria Darroch Kate Dixon Professor Dexter Dunphy AM Leigh Emmett Goode Family Maurice & Tina Green Philip Griffiths Architects Nereda Hanlon & Michael Hanlon AM Lindi & John Hopkins Angela James & Phil McMaster David & Megan Laidlaw Alastair Lucas AM Jan McDonald P J Miller Donald Morley Sandra & Michael Paul Endowment S & B Penfold Ralph & Ruth Renard D N Sanders Greg Shalit & Miriam Faine Ms Petrina Slaytor Dr Charles Su & Dr Emily Lo Tom Thawley Dr & Mrs R Tinning Laurie Walker Ralph Ward-Ambler AM &

Annette Adair Peter & Cathy Aird Rae & David Allen Andrew Andersons Sibilla Baer Doug & Alison Battersby The Beeren Foundation Ruth Bell Victoria Beresin Brains Vicki Brooke In memory of Elizabeth C. Schweig Sally Bufé Neil Burley & Jane Munro G Byrne & D O’Sullivan Elizabeth & Nicholas Callinan J & M Cameron Sandra Cassell Ann Cebon-Glass John & Christine Collingwood Judy Croll Betty Crouchley Diana & Ian Curtis Marie Dalziel June Danks Michael & Wendy Davis Anne & Tom Dowling Jennifer Dowling Anne-Maree Englund Peter Evans Julie Ewington H E Fairfax Elizabeth Finnegan Nancy & Graham Fox Anne & Justin Gardener Rhyll Gardner Colin Golvan SC

34 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

ACO DONATION PROGRAM Warren Green Paul Harris Lyndsey Hawkins Patagonian Enterprises Pty Ltd Pete Hollings Peter & Ann Hollingworth Penelope Hughes Wendy Hughes Pam & Bill Hughes Phillip Isaacs OAM Warren & Joan Johns Mrs Caroline Jones D & I Kallinikos Len La Flamme John Landers & Linda Sweeny Mrs Judy Lee Greg Lindsay AO & Jenny Lindsay Joanne Frederiksen & Paul Lindwall Bronwyn & Andrew Lumsden Clive Magowan Anne Male-Perkins Mr & Mrs Greg & Jan Marsh Jennifer Marshall Jane Mathews AO Deidre & Kevin McCann Brian & Helen McFadyen J A McKernan Mrs Helen Meddings Graeme L Morgan Nola Nettheim Jennie & Ivor Orchard Anne & Christopher Page peckvonhartel architects Prof David Penington AC Mark Renehan Dr S M Richards AM & Mrs M R Richards Warwick & Jeanette Richmond In Memory of Andrew Richmond Em Prof A W Roberts AM Julia Champtaloup & Andrew Rothery Diana & Brian Snape AM Maria Sola & Malcolm Douglas Cisca Spencer Peter & Johanna Stirling Benson John & Jo Strutt Leslie C Thiess

Rob Thomas Colin & Joanne Trumble Ngaire Turner Kay Vernon Ellen Waugh M W Wells Sir Robert Woods Nick & Jo Wormald Anna & Mark Yates Don & Mary Ann Yeats Mark Young William Yuille Anonymous (13)

CONCERTINO $500  $999 Antoinette Ackermann Mrs Lenore Adamson in memory of Mr Ross Adamson Mr L H & Mrs M C Ainsworth Elsa Atkin Banting Electronics Jeremy Ian Barth Baiba Berzins Brian Bothwell Denise Braggett Diana Brookes Jasmine Brunner Morena Buffon & Santo Cilauro Darcey Bussell Jenny & Stephen Charles Stephen Chivers Georg & Monika Chmiel John Clayton Joan Clemenger Angela & John Compton Alan Fraser Cooper Dr Julie Crozier Professor John Daley Lindee Dalziell Mari Davis Martin Dolan In Memory of Raymond Dudley Professor Peter Ebeling & Mr Gary Plover M T & R L Elford Mirek Generowicz Peter & Valerie Gerrand Paul Gibson & Gabrielle Curtin Brian Goddard

Matthew Handbury Liz Harbison Lesley Harland Dr Penny Herbert in memory of Dunstan Herbert M John Higgins & Jodie Maunder Michael Horsburgh AM & Beverley Horsburgh Dr & Mrs Michael Hunter John & Pamela Hutchinson Stephanie & Michael Hutchinson Philip & Sheila Jacobson Deborah James Mrs Angela Karpin Bruce & Natalie Kellett Tony Kynaston & Jenny Fagg Sydney & Airdrie Lloyd Lorraine Lord Peter Lovell & Michael Jan Judy Lynch Alexandra Martin Donald C Maxwell Dr Hamish & Mrs Rosemary McGlashan Kim & Shirley McGrath Patricia McGregor Harold & Bertha Milner Jan Minchin John Mitchell & Carol Farlow Helen & Gerald Moylan Maurice Newman AC J Norman Graham North Robin Offler Allegra & Giselle Overton Josephine Paech Leslie Parsonage Deborah Pearson Kevin Phillips Michael Power Alison Renwick Sophie Rothery Team Schmoopy Manfred & Linda Salamon Robert Savage AM Garry E Scarf In Memory of H. St. P. Scarlett Jeff Schwartz

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 35

ACO DONATION PROGRAM Vivienne Sharpe Jennifer Sindel Andrew & Pip Stevens Dr Fiona Stewart Master William Taylor Joy Anderson & Neil Thomas David Walsh John & Pat Webb G C & R Weir Anonymous (27)

CONTINUO CIRCLE BEQUEST PROGRAM The late Kerstin Lillemor Andersen Dave Beswick Ruth Bell

Sandra Cassell The late Mrs Moya Crane Mrs Sandra Dent Leigh Emmett The late Colin Enderby Peter Evans Carol Farlow Ms Charlene France Suzanne Gleeson Lachie Hill Penelope Hughes The late Mr Geoff Lee AM OAM Mrs Judy Lee The late Richard Ponder Margaret & Ron Wright Mark Young Anonymous (10)

LIFE PATRONS IBM Mr Robert Albert AO & Mrs Libby Albert Mr Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM Mrs Barbara Blackman Mrs Roxane Clayton Mr David Constable AM Mr Martin Dickson AM & Mrs Susie Dickson Mr John Harvey AO Mrs Alexandra Martin Mrs Faye Parker Mr John Taberner & Mr Grant Lang Mr Peter Weiss AM

CONTRIBUTIONS If you would like to consider making a donation or bequest to the ACO, or would like to direct your support in other ways, please contact Lillian Armitage on 02 8274 3835 or at Lillian.Armitage@aco.com.au.

ACO CAPITAL CHALLENGE The ACO Capital Challenge is a secure fund, which permanently strengthens the ACO’s future. Revenue generated by the corpus provides funds to commission new works, expose international audiences to the ACO’s unique programming, support the development of young Australian artists and establish and strengthen a second ensemble.

We would like to thank all donors who have contributed towards reaching our goal and in particular pay tribute to the following donors:

CONCERTO $250,000 – $499,000

OCTET $100,000 – $249,000

QUARTET $50,000 – $99,000

Mr Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM & Mrs Michelle Belgiorno-Nettis Mrs Barbara Blackman

Mr Robert Albert AO & Mrs Libby Albert Mrs Amina Belgiorno-Nettis The Thomas Foundation

The Clayton Family Mr Peter Hall Mr & Mrs Philip & Fiona Latham Mr John Taberner & Mr Grant Lang Mr Peter Yates AM & Mrs Susan Yates

36 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

ACO INSTRUMENT FUND BOARD MEMBERS Chairman: Brendan Hopkins Bill Best Jessica Block

John Leece OAM John Taberner

ACO COMMITTEES SYDNEY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE Chair: Bill Best Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM Chairman ACO & Joint Managing Director Transfield Holdings Liz Cacciottolo Senior Advisor UBS Australia

Ian Davis Managing Director Telstra Television

Tony O’Sullivan Managing Partner O’Sullivan Partners

Chris Froggatt

Tony Shepherd Chairman Transfield Services

Tony Gill Rhyll Gardner

John Taberner Consultant Freehills

Brendan Hopkins

MELBOURNE DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL Chair: Peter Yates AM Chairman Royal Institution of Australia and Director AIAA Ltd

Stephen Charles Paul Cochrane Investment Advisor Bell Potter Securities

Jan Minchin Director Tolarno Galleries Susan Negrau

Colin Golvan SC

Debbie & Ben Brady

EVENT COMMITTEES Bowral

Brisbane

Sydney

Elsa Atkin Michael Ball AM (Chairman) Daria Ball Linda Hopkins Karen Mewes Keith Mewes Marianna O’Sullivan Tony O’Sullivan The Hon Michael Yabsley

Ross Clarke Steffi Harbert Elaine Millar Deborah Quinn

Mar Beltran Creina Chapman Suzanne Cohen Di Collins Patricia Connolly Judy Anne Edwards Elizabeth Harbison Bee Hopkins

Sarah Jenkins Vanessa Jenkins Abigail Jones Andrew Laughlin David Stewart Mary Stollery Tom Thawley

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 37

ACO PARTNERS 2011 CHAIRMAN’S COUNCIL MEMBERS The Chairman’s Council is a limited membership association of high level executives who support the ACO’s international touring program and enjoy private events in the company of Richard Tognetti and the Orchestra.

Mr Guido Belgiorno-Nettis AM Chairman Australian Chamber Orchestra & Joint Managing Director Transfield Holdings

Mr John Grill Chief Executive Officer WorleyParsons

Mr David Mathlin Senior Principal Sinclair Knight Merz

Mr Glen Sealey General Manager Maserati Australia & New Zealand

Mr Michael Maxwell & Mrs Julianne Maxwell Mr Ray Shorrocks Head of Corporate Finance, Sydney Mr Geoff McClellan Mrs Janet Mr Philip Bacon AM Patersons Security Partner Holmes à Court AC Director Freehills Mr & Mrs Clive Smith Philip Bacon Galleries Mr & Mrs Simon & Katrina Holmes à Court Mr Donald Mr Andrew Stevens Mr David Baffsky AO McGauchie AO Observant Pty Limited Managing Director Chairman Mr Brad Banducci IBM Australia & Nufarm Limited Mr John James Chief Executive Officer New Zealand Managing Director Cellarmasters Group Mr John Meacock Vanguard Investments Managing Partner NSW Mr Paul Sumner Australia Mr Jeff Bond Director Deloitte General Manager Mossgreen Pty Ltd Mr Warwick Johnson Peter Lehmann Wines Ms Naomi Milgrom AO Managing Director Mr Michio (Henry) Optimal Fund Mr Michael & Taki Ms Jan Minchin Management Mrs Helen Carapiet Managing Director & Director CEO Tolarno Galleries Ms Catherine Mr Stephen & Mitsubishi Australia Ltd Livingstone AO Mrs Jenny Charles Mr Jim Minto Chairman Mr Alden Toevs Managing Director Mr & Mrs Robin Telstra Group Chief Risk Officer TAL Crawford Commonwealth Bank Mr Steven Lowy AM of Australia Mr Clark Morgan Rowena Danziger AM Co-Chief Executive Vice Chairman & Kenneth G. Coles AM Officer Mr Michael Triguboff UBS Wealth Westfield Group Managing Director Management Australia Dr Bob Every MIR Investment Chairman Mr Didier Mahout Management Ltd Mr Alf Wesfarmers CEO Australia & Moufarrige OAM Mr Robert Scott New Zealand Ms Vanessa Wallace Chief Executive Officer Managing Director BNP Paribas Director Servcorp Wesfarmers Insurance Booz & Company Mr John Marshall & Mr Scott Perkins Mr Angelos Mr Geoff Wilson Mr Andrew Michael Head of Global Banking Frangopoulos Chief Executive Officer Apparel Group Limited Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Officer KPMG Australia Australia/New Zealand Australian News Channel Mr Peter Mason AM Mr Peter Yates AM Chairman Mr Oliver Roydhouse Mr Richard Chairman AMP Limited Managing Director Freudenstein Royal Institution & Mrs Kate Mason Inlink Chief Executive Officer of Australia & FOXTEL Director AIAA Ltd Mr Colin Golvan SC & Dr Deborah Golvan

38 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

ACO PARTNERS The ACO would like to thank its partners for their generous support.

FOUNDING PARTNER

ACO2 PRINCIPAL PARTNER

NATIONAL TOUR PARTNERS

OFFICIAL PARTNERS

PERTH SERIES & WA REGIONAL TOUR PARTNER

CONCERT AND SERIES PARTNERS

PREFERRED TRAVEL PARTNER

Daryl Dixon

ACCOMMODATION AND EVENT PARTNERS

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 39

ACO NEWS CREATIVE MUSIC FUND  ACO2 PREMIERE The Creative Music Fund is a collective of innovators and visionaries whose aim is to facilitate the commissioning of new works

by Australian composers, with a focus on creating opportunities for developing musicians and reaching young Australians in regional communities.

In 2011, the Creative Music Fund partnered with the ACO to commission a work by award-winning composer Paul Stanhope for AcO. In November, AcO premiered the work, Qinoth, in front of a large audience

at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. In December they performed it again, as part of a three day appearance at the Vasse Felix Festival in Western Australia.

The ACO would like to thank the members of the Creative Music Fund for their support, vision and tireless dedication to the development and enjoyment of Australian music, musicians and music lovers. We look forward to future partnerships and inspiring opportunities to come.

Rehearsal of Qinoth led by Dale Barltrop, with Paul Stanhope

REHEARSAL FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITY In November, students with disability were welcomed into the ACO Studio to sit beside the musicians while they rehearsed, giving them a sense of what it feels like to be in the orchestra. They also played along to the music with the triangle and a gong.

Muhamed Mehmedbasic and students at the open rehearsal for Students with Disability

40 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

ACO NEWS ASIAN TOURS In October, with the support of the Australia-Japan Foundation and AustraliaKorea Foundation, the ACO undertook a very successful tour to Korea and Japan.

In Korea they performed at the Seoul Arts Centre, celebrating the Australia-Korea Year of Friendship, and gave a special concert for children and sta at a local orphanage.

In Japan, the Orchestra performed to enthusiastic audiences in Tokyo, Kanazawa

and Kita-kyushu. For an entertaining report from the road, visit aco.com.au/blog.

In January, Richard Tognetti, ACO musicians and members of the ACO’s Qantas Emerging Artists program performed three concerts to large, enthusiastic audiences in the skiing town of Niseko in Hokkaido, Japan with Japanese guitarist Yasuji Ohagi, samisen player Shishimaru Takeuchi and taiko drumming group Koryu.

ACO performing at Hakuju Hall in Tokyo

Aoki Tomokazu of the Niseko Promotions Board and Richard Tognetti

Madeleine Boud, Rebecca Chan, Stephen King and Melissa Barnard after the Give Out Love orphanage concert in Seoul

AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA 41

ACO NEWS PRIVATE CONCERT AT ST JAMES’S PALACE On Monday 12 December, a glittering crowd of ACO supporters gathered at St James’s Palace in London for a special private concert hosted by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. The concert was to celebrate the ACO’s 20th London performance and to thank the supporters of the ACO’s triumphant 2011 European Tour. Corporate supporters included the Commonwealth Bank, Global Switch, Rio Tinto and the BG Group and individual patrons included ACO Directors Janet Holmes à Court AC, John Taberner and Brendan Hopkins, as well as Terry Campbell AO, Senior Chairman, Goldman Sachs, Jan Minchin, and Paul Borrud, CEO, Facebook Australia.

The Prince of Wales with ACO musicians

The Prince of Wales with Paul and Sarah Orchart and Ken Smith, the Government’s Queensland Agent General to the UK

The Prince of Wales with Jan and Leni du Plessis and Janet Holmes à Court AC

The Prince of Wales with Terry and Christine Campbell, Michael and Helen Carapiet

The Prince of Wales with Jan Minchin

42 AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

The Prince of Wales with Paul and Robin Borrud, Peter Kerr and Malcolm Watkins

JOSEPH TAWADROS RICHARD TOGNETTI AUSTRALIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA JAMES TAWADROS CHRISTOPHER MOORE MATT McMAHON

Album available in the foyer or at aco.com.au and all good music retailers. www.abcclassics.com

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