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The Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO), Australia's most active touring orchestra, giving over a hundred concerts and undertaking one international tour each year, has much to celebrate in 2025. It was founded in Sydney in 1975 by cellist John Painter, so the group itself is fifty years old this year. Another anniversary involves the ACO's music director Richard Tognetti, who has now been thirty-five years at the helm. He was appointed lead violin in 1989 and subsequently became artistic director.
Richard Tognetti. Photo © 2022 Daniel Boud
The third anniversary concerns the orchestra's 'Emerging Artist Program', created twenty years ago. This is a scheme which connects young musicians at the start of professional careers with a programme of learning, one-to-one mentorship and professional performance opportunities. The programme was formed to stop young players having to leave Australia to pursue professional careers. Five current players of the ACO came through this programme. A key feature of the programme is the ACO Collective, created in 2007 by ACO principal violin Helena Rathbone, which combines the orchestra's emerging artists and regular performers to produce a string orchestra which connects with regional audiences and showcases new Australian music.
Other notable ACO features include its collection of nine Golden Age instruments crafted by eighteenth century Italian luthiers Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri del Gesù, as well as a four-hundred-year-old double bass, and the orchestra's own three-hundred seat Sydney Harbour venue, which opened in 2022, creating additional revenue for the orchestra through venue hires. The orchestra also makes recordings and created its own digital streaming platform in 2023, ACO On Demand.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra. Photo © 2022 Nic Walker
Coming soon, 6-17 February 2025, is an orchestra tour featuring Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No 7 and Johannes Brahms' Violin Concerto. Richard Tognetti will conduct and take the solo violin part in the concerto. The tour will feature concerts at Newcastle City Hall in New South Wales, Melbourne Recital Centre, Arts Centre Melbourne, City Recital Hall in Sydney, Sydney Opera House and Brisbane's QPAC Concert Hall.
Then, in March 2025, the ACO heads to Europe for another tour, announced yesterday, featuring concerts in Germany, Netherlands, Poland and the UK. Richard Tognetti comments:
As we make preparations for the ACO's fiftieth anniversary, I am delighted that we will be returning to London, a city that has become the ACO's second home over the years, as well as giving concerts in The Netherlands, Poland and Germany, including a performance of our cinematic collaboration, Mountain, in Wrocław.
One of the ACO's many successful cross-artform collaborations, Mountain (2017), which became Australian cinema's highest-grossing homegrown non-IMAX documentary, is a collaboration between the orchestra and Australian film director Jennifer Peedom, also known for her 2015 documentary Sherpa.
Poster for Jennifer Peedom's film Mountain
The film explores high mountain peaks around the world while describing the relationship between humans and mountains through time, and has a soundtrack composed by Richard Tognetti. This screening/live performance event will take place at the NFM-MH building in Wrocław, Poland on Saturday 15 March 2025.
The following day, Sunday 16 March at the same venue, the ACO collaborates with the NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra for a programme of music by Witold Lutosławski, Bryce Dessner, J S Bach and Pavel Haas.
The ACO March 2025 tour begins in the Netherlands with a programme featuring music by Dmitri Shostakovich (Piano Concerto No 1 and the Chamber Symphony, both in C minor), Sofia Gubaidulina (Reflections on the Theme B-A-C-H) and Johann Sebastian Bach (Ricercar a 6 from The Musical Offering arranged by Richard Tognetti, Brandenburg Concerto No 3 in G, the Fugue in E flat from The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2 arranged by Mozart, and the Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C minor). This takes place at Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw concert hall on Tuesday 11 March 2025.
Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw and Bimhuis. Photo © 2019 Keith Bramich
Following the special weekend in Wrocław, this same Shostakovich/Gubaidulina/Bach programme will then be performed at the Kultur-Kongresszentrum Liederhalle in Stuttgart, Germany on Wednesday 19 March and then, ending the tour, at the Barbican Centre in London, UK on Friday 21 March 2025.
Further information: aco.com.au
Posted 28 January 2025 by Keith Bramich