The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra Will Celebrate 30 Years

The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra celebrates the music of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with excellence, flair and joy. In nearly 30 years, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra has grown from a glimmer in its founders' eyes and two inaugural concerts at the Sydney Opera House to achieve a national presence and widespread international recognition for its artistic success.

To know the Brandenburg is to go back in time, but to view the old through a modern lens - it's this vibrant and relevant approach to Baroque and Classical music that has informed Artistic Director Paul Dyer's 2019 season which marks this milestone.

Key concerts in the 2019 season feature the magnificent Australian Brandenburg Orchestra doing what it is they have become renowned for over the last three decades, performing great masterworks on the instruments for which the music was written.

The Brandenburg Concertos will be the first time that the orchestra has performed a full concert program of the music after which is was named. These concertos are considered by many as the pinnacle of orchestral writing in baroque music and are a magnificent showcase of the talented and virtuosic musicians of the Brandenburg.

Another special event will feature another composer that has been a towering figure in Brandenburg history. Handel's Anthems & Fireworks will be a gala event featuring celebratory music for royal festivities, including the Music for the Royal Fireworks. The Brandenburg Choir will also soar in all four of Handel's Coronation Anthems, including the thrilling Zadok the Priest.

Perhaps the most celebrated and popular of the Brandenburg's collaborations has been the Helpmann Award-winning partnership with contemporary circus ensemble Circa, bringing period musicians and acrobats to the same stage. After previously creating shows based on the music of France and Spain, Paul and Circa's Artist Director Yaron Lifschitz, have devised a brand-new show with English Baroque music inspiring the explosive and thrilling collision of music and circus.

The future of the performance of baroque music was key in Paul's artistic vision for 2019, both in terms of artists and concert presentation.

For Next Generation Baroque, Paul has identified four young musicians that he believes will be leading lights of baroque performance into the next 30 years. Two are violinists, Melbourne's 11 year-old prodigy Christian Li (the youngest-ever winner of the junior prize at the Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition) and Annie Gard, an Australian rising star out of New York's prestigious The Juilliard School.

Next Generation Baroque will also star New Zealand singers, soprano Madison Nonoa (returning to the Brandenburg stage after being the popular guest soloist in Noe?l! Noe?l! in 2016) and tenor Filipe Manu, who was the winner of the Australian Singing Competition in 2017. Both singers have been training at Guildhall School of Music in London with iconic Australian soprano Yvonne Kenny, who regularly performed with the Brandenburg in its first decade and was soloist on the orchestra's ARIA Award-winning Handel Arias album in 1998.

Vivaldi's The Four Seasons is Baroque music's biggest hit and it has been an important work in the Brandenburg's history (with unforgettable performances with Elizabeth Wallfisch, Lucinda Moon, Brendan Joyce and recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey as soloists). In this landmark year and with a view to the future, The Four Seasons will be re-imagined with concertmaster Shaun Lee-Chen as soloist. Details of the staging will be revealed in early 2019.

Beyond the orchestra's subscription seasons, the recently formed Brandenburg Quartet will tour Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, the Brandenburg Ensemble will tour regional NSW and a new Brandenburg Kids series will makes its debut.

Paul Dyer's 2019 season celebrates the past but embraces the future.

Looking ahead to the next 30 years, the Brandenburg is dreaming big about what more can be achieved and how to continue making a meaningful and exciting contribution long into the future.