Go on a fascinating tour of the building guided by City of Adelaide's passionate and knowledgeable volunteers.

Learn about the building's architecture, world famous organ, history, and Colonel William Light: British military officer and the first Surveyor-General of the Colony of South Australia.

The Metropolitan Male Choir of South Australia is joined by the MMCSA Orchestra to bring you a wide range of music suitable for all music lovers. With guest artists, James Monro, our 2019 MMCSA scholarship winner on 'Cello, soprano Naomi Hede and Andrew Georg on the mighty Town Hall organ, this will be a memorable concert.

The concert features operatic highlights, grand classics, folk songs and music from favourite musicals including Les Miserables.  

You can order your tickets by calling 0401 204 634 or visiting https://www.trybooking.com/BCLKG

Tickets

$45.00 Dress Circle
$35.00 Stalls 
$25.00 Gallery and Alcoves

Ives, String Quartet no 1 From the Salvation Army
Nigel Westlake, String Quartet no 3* (World Premiere)
Debussy, String Quartet op 10

The music of Charles Ives is made of pictures from a long-lost America, depicted with such vivid immediacy that they seem absolutely alive.

Through the magic lantern of his musical imagery, this New England world appears like a nostalgic dream – white-painted churches in autumn forests filled with congregations joyously chanting hymns and spirituals.

Not dissimilar to the inquisition that Ives undertakes, Claude Debussy’s quest to liberate sensuality led to a revolution in French musical identity.

His string quartet replaces rigid thematic structures with a free flow of colours, motifs and gestures in the search for melodic rapture, realising his decadent dictum, ‘Pleasure is the Law.’

The vibrant colour and energy for which Nigel Westlake is renowned make his eagerly-awaited new work a splendid companion to Debussy and Ives.

Croatian-born pianist Dejan Lazić rejoins Richard Tognetti and the ACO for a celebration of Mozart’s symphonies and concertos, capped by one of Mozart’s formative influences, Joseph Haydn.

Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.3 is one of Richard Tognetti’s calling cards, with his signature energy and crispness adored by audiences both here and overseas. Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.14 is full of invention and considered the first of his mature concertos. In this program we hear it alongside Dejan’s original arrangement of the Allegretto grazioso from Mozart’s Piano Sonata K.333.

The program is bookended by two great symphonies: Mozart’s Symphony No.25 and the work that directly influenced it, Haydn’s Symphony No.39 ‘Tempesta di mare’. Mozart is known for his rigorous Classicism, but this symphony, instantly recognisable as the dramatic opening of Miloš Forman’s 1984 film Amadeus, is almost “romantic” in its power.

Like Mozart’s symphony, Haydn’s was written when the “Sturm und Drang” movement was strong, and its passion and drama still captivates audiences today.

Lisa Ono began singing and playing the guitar at age 15. Her natural voice, rhythmic guitar playing and her charming smile led her to huge success and popularised Bossa Nova in Asia.

She has performed with many great artists, including the legendary Antonio Carlos Jobim, the Jazz Samba giant Joao Donato, and has been performing enthusiastically in New York, Brazil and across Asia.

In 2019, Lisa will bring more everyone loved classic pieces ‘La Vie En Rose’, ‘Take Me Home Country Roads’, ‘Jambalaya’, ‘Catupiry’ and ‘Quizas Quizas Quizas’, plus selected Classic pieces from Spain, France, Brazil and Japan...with her unique, multicultural life experience and touching voice.

Perhaps the most celebrated string quartet ever to emerge from the USA, the Emerson String Quartet is making its first Australian tour in over 19 years. Founded in 1976 and with only one personnel change in all that time, the ensemble has stacked up more than 30 recordings and countless awards. With such a pedigree, it is no surprise that the Emersons play with masterly warmth and ease: a spontaneous confidence and joy. Naturally enough, a master string quartet has chosen to play two programs of great masterpieces. Mozart wrote with his audience very much in mind, and his quartets are full of attention-grabbing highlights and dreamy slow movements, while the vitality of folk music shapes the quartets of Dvořák. Shostakovich’s Fifth Quartet did not appear until after the death of Stalin, when its icy, wintry darkness could at last be safely brought into the light. Artists: Eugene Drucker- violin Philip Setzer - violin Lawrence Dutton - viola Paul Watkins - cello Program: MOZART String Quartet no 21 in D major, K575 DVOŘÁK String Quartet no 10 in E-flat major, op 51 SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet no 5 in B-flat major, op 92 Presented in association with Brisbane Festival. Tour supported by the Musica Viva Amadeus Society

Douglas Boyd - Conductor 
Anthony Marwood - Violin

Cathy Milliken - New Work [World Premiere] 
Schumann - Violin Concerto 
Dvořák - Symphony No.9 'From the New World'

There are many reasons why Dvořák’s Ninth Symphony continues to be a favourite: the melding of Bohemian and American musical influences, the sublime Largo, the dramatic arc linking all four movements. It became an instant hit at its premiere 125 years ago.

Such things can happen at premieres – so don’t miss the new work by our Composer in Association, Cathy Milliken! Anthony Marwood then brings his customary flair and originality to Schumann’s Violin Concerto, a piece that was hidden away for 80 years by those who feared it presaged something of the composer’s subsequent mental collapse. In fact, it’s delightfully tuneful music, especially the violin and cello dialogue of the slow movement, and its final Polonaise has a beguiling simplicity.

Join us for an entertaining FREE lunchtime organ concert with organist Simon Nieminski.

From family-friendly pieces to beautiful organ works, there’s a little bit of magic for everyone.

Free Concert. All Welcome. No bookings required.

Cost: FREE
Start: 12.30pm Tuesday 1 October
Duration: 1 hour. You may exit earlier if need be.

Guy Noble - Conductor 
Gisele Blanchard - Soprano 
Mario Bellanova - Baritone

Verdi - La forza del destino: Overture 
Puccini - Gianni Schicchi: O mio babbino caro 
Wagner - Lohengrin: Bridal March 
Mascagni - Cavalleria rusticana: Intermezzo

"This series is all about the music we know and love, in an informal setting that leaves everyone with a spring in their step: audiences and musicians alike" Emma Gregan, French Horn

“Put on the costume, and the face in white powder. The people pay, and laugh when they please.” Leoncavallo, Pagliacci

Opera is iconic, emblematic and not for the faint-hearted. Tonight’s program reminds us why great arias continue to touch us, even so many years after they were composed. And how, a night at the Opera, can stir a myriad of emotions to sustain and enliven us. 

Early music has rarely sounded as chic or brilliant! The four musicians of French ensemble Nevermind – combining flute, violin, viola da gamba and harpsichord – met and founded their group while they were students in Paris, with each of them sharing a love of the Baroque and traditional chamber music. A breath of fresh air in today’s classical music scene, they are rewriting the rule-book on period-instrument concerts with a thoroughly engaging mix of virtuoso expertise and unpretentious charm. Delighting audiences across Europe in prestigious festivals and concert series and making their Australian debut with Musica Viva, Nevermind is disarmingly relaxed and unpretentious and thoroughly dedicated to the universal appeal of good music. Artists: Anna Besson - flute Louis Creac’h - violin Robin Pharo - viola da gamba Jean Rondeau - harpsichord Program: MARAIS Trios for the King’s Bedtime: Suite IV F COUPERIN Les Nations: L’Espagnole TELEMANN Paris Quartet no 4 in G minor, TWV43:g1 QUENTIN Quartet Sonata op 15 no 3 GUILLEMAIN Quartet Sonata op 12 no 3 Presented in association with Melbourne International Arts Festival.

Bach holds a special place in the heart of every ACO musician. In this program, the ACO explore his genius with an impressive line-up featuring Richard Tognetti, Erin Helyard, Brett Dean and ACO Principal Cello, Timo-Veikko Valve.

Richard Tognetti’s solo violin opens the program. Its pure, captivating tone sets the scene before giving way to the vibrant lyricism of the Sonata in A major for violin and harpsichord. A favourite of Richard’s and audiences alike, his recording of the complete Bach Sonatas for violin and harpsichord won an ARIA Award for Best Classical Album.

Brett Dean features as both composer and performer in this program. Commissioned by the ACO and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, his Approach (Prelude to a Canon), was written as a prologue to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.6, leading directly into what he calls the “close, contrapuntal companionship” of the voices in Bach.

Bach’s inventive Brandenburg Concertos are one of his many crowning achievements. The Sixth Concerto is the most intimate of all and a striking and elegant finale to the famous suite.

Pinchas Zukerman - Director/Violin

Beethoven - Egmont: Overture 
Mozart - Violin Concerto No.5 'Turkish' 
Elgar - Enigma Variations

Now, this is music with personality! But whose is it? Elgar’s Enigma Variations are inspired by real people, friends of the composer – a diverse company whose portraits come alive each time they are performed. Pinchas Zukerman is an ideal host, generous and gregarious, bringing them all together for a convivial evening with us.

Zukerman’s own chance to shine comes in the assured elegance and seemingly endless melody of Mozart’s Fifth Violin Concerto. But Mozart’s mercurial temperament also shows through – look out for playful digressions in the rondo!

Enjoy Beethoven’s ‘Egmont’ Overture as a sort of aperitif or antipasto before all these guests arrive!

A new classical supergroup of four leading European soloists, the Skride Piano Quartet is sweeping through the northern hemisphere like a breath of fresh air – and is now bringing its dazzling energy to Australia.

Sisters, soloists and regular duo partners, Baiba and Lauma Skride sought out two of their favourite chamber music colleagues in Lise Berthaud and Julian Steckel.

Piano quartets are less often heard than piano trios, but the simple addition of a rich-toned viola seems to inspire composers to create music of outstanding lyricism. Together these stunning virtuosi play with a palpable sense of joy, mutual respect and endless invention.

Baiba Skride violin
Lise Berthaud viola
Julian Steckel cello
Lauma Skride piano 

Program:
BEETHOVEN Piano Quartet no 1 in E-flat major, WoO 36
Graeme KOEHNE New Work* (World Premiere)
BRAHMS Piano Quartet no 1 in G minor, op 25

*Commissioned for Musica Viva

The final concert in the ACO's National Tour Season is a big, exuberant celebration. They open with the Australian Premiere of American composer Andrew Norman’s Gran Turismo, revving up for a showdown by two of the most important names in the romantic era.

Johannes Brahms and Antonín Dvořák were close friends, spiritually as well as professionally. Brahms embraced his rich Germanic music tradition, while Dvořák was carving out a new sound, rooted in the music of his own homeland. Brahms admired the young composer’s dazzling melodic and rhythmic skills and championed his work on an international scale.

Richard Tognetti and Principal Cello Timo-Veikko Valve perform Brahms’s Double Concerto, the composer’s last orchestral work. Brahms’s aim in combining the two solo instruments was to create a deeply sonorous and wide-ranging string sound. Dvořák’s Symphony No.8 expresses a kaleidoscope of emotions and manifests the composer’s love of nature and Czech folk music. Pushing the very concept of a “chamber orchestra” to even greater heights, it’s an explosive finale to our 2019 Season.

Mark Wigglesworth - Conductor 
Mark Gaydon - Bassoon 
Dean Newcomb - Clarinet 
Adrian Uren - Horn

Wagner - Die Feen: Overture 
Mozart - Sinfonia Concertante 
Tchaikovsky - 'The Nutcracker' Act II

A fairy-tale feast… with plenty of dessert!

For starters, a charming ‘Fairy Overture’ dished up by the 20-year-old Wagner. Then four friends, principal wind players of the ASO, share the delights of a Sinfonia Concertante attributed (partly because it’s so good) to Mozart. A lively dinner conversation in cheerful company…

Act Two of The Nutcracker takes place in the Kingdom of Sweets, where there are dances in celebration of chocolate, tea and coffee. With favourites such as ‘Waltz of the Flowers’ and ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’, Tchaikovsky’s memorable score is magic for the ears. If there’s an aural equivalent of a sweet tooth, this is the fix, and it’s the perfect way to leap into December!

Australian Chamber Orchestra

Joy and creativity can’t be held down forever, so even in the darkest decades of cruel oppression that spread from Soviet Russia through Eastern Europe in the 20th century, music bloomed and imaginations flew. Humour, black as some of it may have been, also thrived. This was life, as the Russians like to say, “laughing through tears”.

Estonian Arvo Pärt is one of the most performed and influential living composers. In his deeply loved work Tabula Rasa, for two violins, prepared piano and orchestra, he extends “small steps of tolerance to the world”, seeking spirituality and independence through silence and harmony.

Meanwhile, within Russia, Shostakovich and Prokofiev represented two still hotly contested strands: the supposed collaborators and the resisters. Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony in C minor, a signature piece for the virtuosic ACO, was a lament for victims of fascism and war, but also an act of self-reflection whose movements evolve from elegy and brutal force into acceptance and farewell.

Resistance will be whispered, literally, during Saariaho’s Nymphéa: Misterioso. The short piece by the Finnish composer, whose country has always had a complicated and delicate relationship with its large neighbour, Russia, includes a poem by the great 20th-century Russian poet, Arseny Tarkovsky, which will be whispered by members of the Orchestra.

Richard Tognetti - Director & Violin
Satu Vänskä - Violin,
Australian Chamber Orchestra

KILAR Orawa 8′
ARVO PÄRT Tabula Rasa 26′
PROKOFIEV Sonata for Solo Violin in D major* 13′
KAIJA SAARIAHO Nymphéa: Misterioso (arr. strings) – Australian Premiere 3′
SHOSTAKOVICH Chamber Symphony (arr. Barshai) 23′ 

Australian Chamber Orchestra

Music’s ability to lift us from despair or deep pain, or at least express our response to spiritual and physical wellness, are neither new nor new age, as 12th-century composer and healer Hildegard von Bingen well understood.

English violinist Hugo Ticciati, who will direct this program of meditative but emotionally charged music in his Australian debut, experienced these qualities and “the interconnectedness of everything” as he sought ways to alleviate physical pain so severe it would force him to stop playing.

Exploring such responses to life-changing upheavals, Latvian composer Peˉ teris Vasks’ neo-spiritual Lonely Angel was written as a meditation on Mother Earth and redemption. Beethoven’s String Quartet in A minor, a hymn of thanksgiving that begins as a slow prayer before becoming jubilant and ecstatic, emerged from Beethoven’s recovery from a serious illness.

An even greater blow to Beethoven, the realisation of inevitable early deafness, saw his utter despair and futility expressed in the unsent letter of farewell known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. Australian Brett Dean’s Testament draws inspiration from this writing, capturing the fluctuations of hesitancy and passion, and the search for clarity, for healing, in this “wretched despair”.

Hugo Ticciati - Guest Director & Violin
Australian Chamber Orchestra

TAVENER Mother of God, Here I Stand (arr. strings) 3′
PHILIP GLASS Company for string orchestra 8′
MAX RICHTER On the Nature of Daylight – Australian Premiere 6′
TERRY RILEY Half-Wolf Dances Mad in Moonlight – Australian Premiere 8′
PĒTERIS VASKS Lonely Angel: Meditation for violin and string orchestra 13′
BRETT DEAN Testament (arr. strings) 15′
HILDEGARD Vos flores rosarum (arr. strings) 5′
BEETHOVEN
String Quartet in A minor: III. Holy song of thanksgiving of a convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian mode. Molto adagio – Andante (arr. strings) 17′ 

Australian Chamber Orchestra

2020 marks Richard Tognetti’s 30th year as the ACO’s Artistic Director. In celebration of his versatility and contribution to the Orchestra as arranger, composer, champion of new works and lost gems, and as a source of inspiration for new music, this program is a chance to look to the future as much as the past.
From the past is Tognetti’s acclaimed arrangement of Haas’s From The Monkey Mountains, a vivid tone poem composed in a Nazi ghetto that imagines a carefree life beyond the walls where the “rhythm of the open countryside and birdsong… the warm song of the human heart” resonate.

Looking to the future is the world premiere of a new work for electric violin by Samuel Adams, 33-year-old composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music and son of 20th century giant John Adams, written especially for Tognetti’s 30th anniversary with the Orchestra.

Tognetti’s progressive edge is highlighted in his own composition, Beyond, with vocals provided by the ACO’s Satu Vänskä, and in a new approach to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, long a favourite of the Orchestra and beloved of ACO audiences, now channelled through Scottish composer and electronica explorer Anna Meredith.

In its Australian premiere, Meredith’s ANNO intertwines Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with new compositions for electronics and string orchestra, moving through the seasons to create one continuous musical year that offers a fresh and invigorated experience of Vivaldi’s masterpiece. Featuring Richard Tognetti as soloist, Meredith herself will join the ACO to perform live electronics for these performances, a reminder of the adventure and imagination that has characterised this Orchestra and its artistic leader for 30 years.

Richard Tognetti - Director, Violin & Electric Violin
Satu Vänskä - Vocals, Anna Meredith- Electronics
Australian Chamber Orchestra

SAMUEL ADAMS New Work for Electric Violin and Strings – World Premiere* 12′
RICHARD TOGNETTI Beyond 4′
HAAS
String Quartet No.2 “From the Monkey Mountains” (arr. Tognetti) 32′
ANNA MEREDITH / VIVALDI ANNO: Four Seasons – Australian Premiere** 51′