The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra is Australia's finest period instrument orchestra, made up of leading specialists in the performance of Baroque and Classical music. The Orchestra is committed to energetic and lively programming, combining popular Baroque and Classical favourites with premiere Australian performances of seldom-heard masterpieces.

The musicians play from original edition scores and on instruments of the period. These have been restored or faithfully reproduced to recreate a 17th-century orchestral sound and they differ significantly from their modern equivalents – softer and more articulated with an often raw and earthy timbre.

The Orchestra's name pays tribute to the Brandenburg Concertos of J.S. Bach, whose musical genius was central to the Baroque and Classical periods.

Founded in 1990 by Paul Dyer when a team of hand-picked musicians was assembled for intensive rehearsals leading up to debut performances at the Sydney Opera House for its Mostly Mozart Festival, the success of that first concert still rings true to this day – the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra combines historical integrity with a distinctly fresh Australian style.

The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra makes regular appearances in the major concert halls and historic cultural venues of Australia, and has performed with guest artists such as Andreas Scholl, Emma Kirkby, Andreas Staier, Cyndia Sieden, Marc Destrubé, Elizabeth Wallfisch, Hidemi Suzuki, Derek Lee Ragin and Andrew Manze. The Orchestra has appeared at both the Sydney and Melbourne Festivals, performed Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea with Opera Australia in 1993, and from 1994 established a sell-out annual series of ‘salon style' concerts at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

In March 1998 the Orchestra made its Tokyo debut with countertenor Derek Lee Ragin. Moving from strength to strength, the Orchestra accompanied ‘the world's leading countertenor of our time', Andreas Scholl, in a concert tour to Europe in August 2001, finishing at the London Proms.

The year 2000 brought two major developments: the use of the newly-built City Recital Hall Angel Place as the Orchestra's major concert venue, and the highly successful launch of the Orchestra's first subscription season. Since then the Orchestra has developed into a significant player in the Australian music scene and was admitted into the Major Performing Arts Group of the Australia Council in 2003.

The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra has released ten compact discs, with soloists including Andreas Scholl, Genevieve Lacey, Yvonne Kenny, Elizabeth Wallfisch, Sara Macliver, Graham Pushee and Cyndia Sieden. Several of these recordings have received awards, including two ARIA awards for Best Classical Recording.

Information from

• Australian Music Online

Record number

3871

References

• courtesy of Steven Godbee Publicity

Updated

02 December 2004

To cite this page

http://nla.gov.au/nla.cs-ma-NAMO~3871