Australian Chamber Orchestra
Australian Chamber Orchestra — the country’s international-standard touring band
The Australian Chamber Orchestra is — by reputation, recording catalogue and international tour list — the most successful Australian classical music ensemble of the last thirty years. Founded as a small string ensemble in 1975 and now under artistic director Richard Tognetti since 1989, the ACO is a permanent ensemble of around twenty string and wind players that performs roughly 100 concerts a year across Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia. The Sydney City Recital Hall at Angel Place is the principal home and the company’s recordings on Decca, BIS and the in-house ACO label are reviewed in the international classical press at the level of Berlin, Vienna and London ensembles.
What they’re known for
The ACO’s identity is built on the player-led ensemble idea — Tognetti directs from the leader’s chair rather than the podium, and the ensemble plays standing, which produces a tighter, more chamber-music-than-orchestral sound than is typical for an orchestra of its size. The repertoire core sits in the late-Classical and early-Romantic strings repertoire (Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Beethoven), with substantial commitment to twentieth-century strings (Britten, Stravinsky, Bartók, Tippett) and a strong contemporary commissioning programme — the company has premiered Brett Dean, Kevin Volans, Pēteris Vasks and Peter Sculthorpe works in recent seasons.
The ACO’s signature multimedia projects — collaborations with the cinematographer Jon Frank that have produced The Reef, Mountain, River and The Crowd and I — sit alongside the standard subscription series and have toured globally. These are the company’s most accessible entry-points for non-classical audiences.
Home venues
- City Recital Hall, Angel Place — the principal Sydney home. 1,200 seats; the room is acoustically dry and well-suited to chamber strings.
- Sydney Opera House — Concert Hall — used for the larger-format ACO programmes (the multimedia productions, the Beethoven cycles, the major commissions).
- Melbourne Recital Centre — the Melbourne home. Acoustically the country’s best chamber music room.
- Llewellyn Hall, ANU — Canberra home.
- QPAC Concert Hall — Brisbane.
- Adelaide Town Hall — Adelaide.
- Perth Concert Hall — Perth.
The season pattern — and how to book
The ACO announces its annual season in early September. The subscription package — a typical eight-concert national subscription, with single-city versions also available — opens immediately. Single tickets follow in mid-November. The ACO Collective (the small-ensemble offshoot programme) and the regional touring series are announced separately, usually in October.
The ACO’s marquee multimedia productions — Mountain, The Reef — sell out their best seats within a fortnight of single-ticket release. The standard subscription concerts have better availability into the run; we’d recommend a Saturday night subscription pair with the front-half stalls or the side-circle for the best balance.
Planning a trip
An ACO weekend is the most flexible classical-music trip in Australia because the company plays two cities most weekends — Sydney’s main ACO subscription concerts on Tuesday and Saturday, with Melbourne on Sunday and Tuesday after a fly-down. The Sydney City Recital Hall is the easiest pre-show pairing in the city: walk to it from Angel Place restaurants (Tetsuya’s, Felix, Bambini Trust), or from Pyrmont if you’re staying that side of the harbour.
For the dedicated music traveller, the ACO is a touring company you can follow — the United States tour in autumn each year has played Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center; the UK tours have played Wigmore Hall, the Barbican and the Royal Festival Hall; the European tours have included the Concertgebouw, the Berlin Philharmonie and the Salzburg Festival. The international tour ticket is reliably the cheapest serious-orchestra ticket in those rooms because the ACO is still positioned as the visiting Australian act.
Tour reach beyond the capitals
The ACO runs the most consistent regional Australian touring of any classical ensemble. The regional subscription series plays Newcastle (Civic Theatre, four concerts a year), Wollongong (IPAC), the Gold Coast (HOTA), and Geelong (Costa Hall) each year. One-off tours reach Coffs Harbour, Mildura, Mount Gambier, Toowoomba, Cairns and Burnie regularly. International touring is the most extensive of any Australian ensemble — typically thirty concerts a year outside Australia.
Useful links
- Official: aco.com.au
- Venue: City Recital Hall
- Where we cover them: Companies, Reviews