Australian Chamber Orchestra: Five Centuries of the Sublime

Join the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) for an evening spanning five centuries of sublime music.

The ACO lives and breathes music, making waves around the world for its explosive performances that redefine orchestral music. With their fearless leader of 35 years, Artistic Director Richard Tognetti, the Orchestra celebrates 50 years of transformative music-making with a program showcasing why this orchestra is one of the most distinct, inventive and renowned ensembles on the world stage today.

A new work from John Luther Adams, commissioned by the ACO as part of a residency in Australia, sees the Orchestra literally transforming, changing shape on stage as the music asks you to see beyond the visible horizon to the true, limitless expanse before us. Richard Tognetti then evokes that sense of the sublime in Vaughan William’s The Lark Ascending, beloved by audiences everywhere.

The concert culminates in an arrangement for strings of Schubert’s String Quartet in D minor ”Death and the Maiden” with the thrilling energy and virtuosity of the ACO on full display.

“The Australian Chamber Orchestra is uniformly high-octane, arresting and never ordinary.” - The Australian

“If there's a better chamber orchestra in the world today, I haven't heard it.” - The Guardian UK

Artists

Australian Chamber Orchestra

Richard Tognetti, Director and Violin

Program

HENRY PURCELL - Fantazia upon One Note

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL - Concerto Grosso in A major, Op.6, No.11

JOHN LUTHER ADAMS - Horizon*

Intermission

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (arr. Adam Johnson) - The Lark Ascending

FRANZ SCHUBERT – String Quartet No. 12 in C Minor, D703. “Quartettsatz” (arr. strings)

* Commissioned by the Australian Chamber Orchestra