How to plan a chamber music weekend in Australia
Australian chamber music is — pound-for-pound — the country’s most internationally credible classical music export, and the cheapest serious music tickets in the country sit in the chamber music subscription circuits. Musica Viva Australia‘s national subscription brings approximately eight international ensembles a year through every state and most major regional centres; the Australian Chamber Orchestra tours its own programmes across every capital city; the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra runs the country’s principal period-instrument programme; and the major state symphonies all run chamber subscription series alongside their full-orchestral programmes.
For the visiting chamber music traveller, the planning question becomes: which city, which weekend, and which combination of programmes pairs best?
Sydney — the City Recital Hall weekend
The strongest single-weekend chamber music proposition in the country is the City Recital Hall at Angel Place, where the ACO’s Sydney subscription concerts and the Brandenburg’s Sydney mainstage both regularly perform. Pair an ACO Tuesday night with a Musica Viva subscription concert two nights later and you have a four-day Sydney chamber music weekend at the highest standard. Stay in Pyrmont, The Rocks or anywhere the harbour walk to Angel Place is comfortable.
Melbourne — the Recital Centre weekend
The Melbourne Recital Centre on Sturt Street is the country’s best-engineered chamber music hall — the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall acoustic is the country’s only purpose-built chamber room at international standard. The MRC is the Melbourne home for Musica Viva, the ACO and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s chamber programmes. Pair a Friday Musica Viva subscription concert with the ACO Sunday afternoon and you have a Sunday-Monday-Tuesday Melbourne chamber weekend at the country’s strongest acoustic standard. Stay in Southbank, Carlton or East Melbourne.
Adelaide — the Town Hall and Festival overlap
The Adelaide Town Hall is one of Australia’s most acoustically generous heritage chamber rooms, and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s chamber programme there pairs unusually well with the Adelaide Festival’s chamber music programme each March. If you’re in Adelaide for the Festival, the chamber music programme is reliably the most rewarding part of the festival programme for the music traveller. Pair with a daytime visit to the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Adelaide Central Market.
Canberra — Llewellyn Hall and the country’s quiet chamber circuit
The Llewellyn Hall at the ANU School of Music is one of the country’s quieter chamber music rooms and one of the most acoustically rewarding. Musica Viva’s Canberra subscription series and the ACO’s Canberra concerts both happen here. Pair with the National Gallery of Australia for daytime, the parliamentary triangle for the architecture, and the substantial Canberra wine region (Murrumbateman, Lake George, the Yass Valley) for the country pairing.
The regional circuit — where the best value sits
The genuinely cheapest serious chamber music tickets in Australia sit on the regional touring circuit. Musica Viva’s Newcastle, Toowoomba, Cairns and Wollongong tour stops are the same international ensembles that play the City Recital Hall and the Melbourne Recital Centre, in heritage regional theatres at substantially lower ticket prices. James’s standing recommendation for the chamber music traveller: pick a regional Musica Viva concert, drive to a country town for a weekend, and pair the international string quartet with the wine region or the natural-environment day-trip that the regional centre sits next to.
The subscription strategy
The single most cost-effective way to access serious chamber music in Australia is the Musica Viva national subscription package — eight international ensembles a year for a price that would not cover three single-ticket concerts in equivalent international venues. The ACO national subscription is similarly priced. If you’re in two cities most months, the dual-city subscription packages from both organisations are the cheapest reliable serious-music seats in the country.
Our running chamber music coverage is at Seasons, with the Musica Viva and ACO subscription announcements covered each September.
