Long Lost Loves (and Grey Suede Gloves) | February 2024

Long Lost Loves
(and Grey Suede Gloves)

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We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the many lands on which we meet, work and live, and
we pay our respects to Elders past and present – people who have sung their songs, danced their dances
and told their stories on these lands for thousands of generations, and who continue to do so.
Long Lost Loves (and Grey Suede Gloves)
ANNA DOWSLEY
mezzo-soprano
MICHAEL CURTAIN
piano
CONSTANTINE COSTI
writer & director
HILARY BELL
dramaturg
MATTHEW MARSHALL
lighting design
IAN DICKSON & PAUL KILDEA
concept
NEWCASTLE
CITY HALL
Tuesday 20 February, 7.30pm
• Pre-concert talk: 6.45pm,
Mulubinba Room
BRISBANE
POWERHOUSE THEATRE,
BRISBANE POWERHOUSE
Thursday 22 February, 7pm
• Pre-concert talk: 6.15pm, Graffiti Room
CANBERRA
THE PLAYHOUSE,
CANBERRA THEATRE CENTRE
Friday 1 March, 7pm
• Pre-concert talk: 6.15pm,
Playhouse Foyer West
SYDNEY
CITY RECITAL HALL
Monday 4 March, 7pm
• Pre-concert talk: 6.15pm,
Function Room, Level 1
MELBOURNE
ELISABETH MURDOCH HALL,
MELBOURNE RECITAL CENTRE
Tuesday 5 March, 7pm
• Pre-concert talk: 6.15pm,
Salzer Suite, Level 2
ADELAIDE
ADELAIDE TOWN HALL
Presented in association with Adelaide Festival
Thursday 7 March, 7.30pm
• Pre-concert talk: 6.45pm,
Prince Alfred Room
PERTH
PERTH CONCERT HALL
Sunday 10 March, 6.30pm
• Pre-concert talk: 5.45pm,
Corner Stage Riverside, Terrace Level
With special thanks to Peter Griffin AM & Terry Swann, Ms Felicity Rourke & Justice François Kunc,
and Susie Dickson (supporting Anna Dowsley), for their support of this tour,
and to the MVA Director’s Circle and Amadeus Society for their support of the 2024 Concert Season.
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From the Artistic Director
© Darren Leigh Roberts
He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer whose recordings
have picked up Grammy awards and nominations and
who is fascinated by American popular music from the
early 20th century. Yet William Bolcom’s own Cabaret
Songs lay claim to more adventurous territory, a lineage
joining Brecht, Weill, Porter, Bernstein and Sondheim, all
the while mining American jazz, ragtime and vaudeville
traditions.
The songs, which Bolcom wrote for his wife, the mezzosoprano
Joan Morris, in the 1970s and 1980s, are as
eclectic musically as they are thematically: the furrier
uncle who coughs a lot, ‘fur in his craw from hot days
in the store’; Black Max, the shadowy figure raising his
broad black hat to the good burghers of Rotterdam,
overseeing untold scams; the beautiful scatting narrator
in ‘Amor’ who leaves a trail of lovesick admirers wherever
she goes.
I’ve long wondered how all these songs could be linked
narratively, instead of encountering them in a short recital
bracket or encore. It would be a bit like the Cantina scene
in Star Wars – the most unlikely collection of characters
gathered at an intergalactic bar, discovering all sorts of
commonalities amidst their many evident differences.
Finding these narrative commonalities has been the work
of a number of people. Ian Dickson and I first thrashed
out how the show could be arced in workshops with the
incomparable mezzo-soprano Anna Dowsley and pianist
Michael Curtain, everyone throwing ideas around, each
of us captivated by the songs and the many worlds they
occupy. We then brought on the wonderful director
Constantine Costi to script and direct the work, which he
has done in conjunction with the playwright Hilary Bell
and the lighting designer Matthew Marshall.
It may seem like a lot of people for a song recital, and
indeed it would be, were it not for the fact that this is
something far more than a song recital. As the songs’
librettist, Arnold Weinstein, noted, ‘We wrote these songs
as a cabaret in themselves, no production “values” to
worry about. The scene is the piano, the cast the singer...’
The result? An ‘elusive form of theatre-poetry-lieder-poptavernacular
prayer called cabaret song’.
Paul Kildea
Artistic Director
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Program
Cabaret Songs (selections)
Music by
WILLIAM BOLCOM (b 1938)
Lyrics by
ARNOLD WEINSTEIN (1927–2005)
Can’t Sleep (1995, rev. 1996)
Miracle Song (1996)
Over the Piano (1978)
Toothbrush Time (1979)
Places to Live (1979, rev. 1985)
Surprise! (1985)
Poet Pal of Mine (1996)
Lady Luck (1996)
At the Last Lousy Moments of Love (1995)
He Tipped the Waiter (1985)
Love in the Thirties (1996)
The Total Stranger in the Garden (1996)
Fur (Murray the Furrier) (1978)
Amor (1978)
Oh Close the Curtain (1979)
Satisfaction (1984)
Blue (1996)
George (1985)
Waitin (1978)
Song of Black Max (1985)
2 min
2 min
2 min
4 min
2 min
1 min
2 min
1 min
2 min
3 min
3 min
2 min
3 min
3 min
5 min
1 min
3 min
4 min
2 min
4 min
Approximate duration: 70 minutes – No interval.
Please ensure that mobile phones are turned to silent.
Photography and video recording are not permitted during the performance.
Musica Viva Australia thanks Annette Alderson, Fiona Boundy, Shannon Burns and Alasdair Mitchell Ferguson.
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Anna Dowsley, Paul Kildea, Michael Curtain and Constantine Costi
© Jeremy Belinfante

Director’s Note
Librettist Arnold Weinstein offers this
guidance to those performing the Cabaret
Songs: ‘No piano tinkling unmerrily away
out for an evening of no fun.’
The exciting directive from Paul Kildea and
Ian Dickson to create a narrative world
for these songs to inhabit set myself and
dramaturg Hilary Bell to work on something
akin to archaeologists sorting through a
chest of disparate glistening treasures – or
maybe in this case, as executors of the
estate of a scandalous New York socialite
with a dark and delicious past.
What to do with these songs? How to sort
them? In what ways are they similar? In
what ways do they clash? The initial step to
answer these questions was to look closely
at the men who wrote them.
Arnold Weinstein described himself as
a ‘theatre poet’ and his work in Cabaret
Songs confirms this. His words fizz with
characterisation and drama found in a
universe of romantic conundrums, sinister
scandals and charming eccentrics – all
laced with a dose of acrid cynicism. But like
all great cynics, his attempts to run away
from sentimentality at full pace lead to
surprising corners of heartfelt emotion. It’s
often the most jaded amongst us who feel
most deeply.
The discovery that Weinstein had fallen
prey to Max Jacobson aka Dr Feelgood and
his addictive ‘vitamin shots’ (which were
largely composed of amphetamine) also
struck me. There is a kind of delicious and
dark scattered energy to these texts. Mad
characters come and go: some explode
into existence in thirty second bursts; others
like Black Max, with his inky meandering,
glide and guide you thorough dark paths
and tunnels; and a smaller group, as if
exhausted by those who paraded before
their arrival, sit quietly in a state of pensive
comedown. Weinstein lived fast and freely
and his words rollick with the same jangled
energy in which he lived.
The recording of composer William
Bolcom at the piano with his equally
acclaimed wife, the singer Joan Morris,
from Manhattan’s tiny 74-seat Flea Theatre,
offered another clue. The atmosphere
in these recordings is informal, rough,
and there is a sense of connection as if
performing in a living room to family and
friends.
Bolcom grappled with his musical identity
as an emerging composer. He considered
following in the steps of avant garde
composers like Berio or Boulez, but it was
advice from John Cage (nonetheless)
that encouraged him to pursue a different
path. Bolcom’s love of American popular
music of the past made him draw from a
well that was no less groundbreaking than
high European art music. The innovation
of ragtime found in composers like Eubie
Blake and Scott Joplin alongside the
self-taught freshness of Irving Berlin all
informed Bolcom’s style. His phrasing and
melodies are loaded with invention but
never stray to alienate the listener: his
work operates within and progresses the
approachable vernacular of American
popular music.
In short, it’s entertaining stuff.
Cabaret Songs speaks to Bolcom and
Weinstein’s pursuit of immediacy,
playfulness and warmth. Anna Dowsley
and Michael Curtain are both artists of the
highest talent and daring. Together we’ve
striven to create a theatrical world where
each of these madcap cabaret characters
can come to life to tell us their stories of
love, death, and the foibles of those you
meet along the way.
This is Long Lost Loves (and Grey Suede
Gloves).
Constantine Costi
Writer & Director
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Interview
BY ALI MCGREGOR
Anna Dowsley is an Australian operatic mezzo-soprano forging a career
in Europe. Ali McGregor is an opera singer and performer who, by her
own admission, ‘ran away from classical music into the lurid arms of
cabaret’ some time ago. After finding a suitable time between Germany
and Melbourne, when their children were playing elsewhere, she and
Anna Dowsley compared notes on how William Bolcom and Arnold
Weinstein’s songs differ, if at all, from more traditional ‘art song’ or lieder.
‘Let’s just be raw, be real.’
Ali:
What does the word ‘cabaret’ mean to you?
Anna: When I first heard the term, it meant
Liza Minnelli and, of course, the book and
film that I studied in high school: 1930s
Berlin – grungy, subversive and politically
outspoken; after hours, a very intimate
audience… alcohol! And now, on a more
personal level, I think of the late, beautiful
Jacqui Dark. I saw one of her shows in
Newtown not so long ago, and I was so in
awe of the art form in that sense of speaking
to an intimate audience. You are laughing,
and then a second later, you’re crying.
Having that power and that rawness.
And did you know these particular songs
before working on this program?
When I was studying, singers would often
do songs like George and Black Max, but I
never performed them myself. I knew them
as the sort of songs you put into a program
when you want to lighten the evening, which
doesn’t do them justice, as we’ve discovered.
How did your approach to these songs differ
from your usual process?
So often, with opera and art song, the fourth
wall is up. I love the fourth wall! I love being
in the audience, watching someone from
the outside. But this is a chance to be in the
audience’s lap. These songs are made for
an audience. There are a few exceptions
where there is a sense of introspection, and
you are expressing an internal dialogue, but
in general, the audience is there, and you’re
telling them a story directly.
I read a great story from Arnold Weinstein,
when asking a friend who had committed
her life to studying the Bard, ‘How much do
you know about Shakespeare?’ She replied,
‘Not as much as he knows about me.’ How
are you relating to these songs personally?
There’s something so timeless about them,
and you often forget that some of these
were written in the seventies, but they can
seem so contemporary. These very colourful,
vibrant characters may be larger than life
but they are also easily relatable. The text is
wonderful, and you never quite know where
it will go, which is what I love about them.
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And why they are such a fantastic writing
team is because, musically, you don’t often
know where Bolcom will go either.
Yes! I talked to Mikey [pianist Michael
Curtain] about this; Bolcom is a fantastic
pianist who writes difficult piano music. It
sounds like it’s all improvised, but of course,
you open the score, and it’s so beautifully
detailed and not improvised at all. It’s very
much prescribed but feels so spontaneous.
Have you found you are learning this music
the same way you would learn Lieder
or more traditional art song? Or has the
process been different?
It’s been different in that, at first, Mikey and
I sort of jammed together. So often, you
would prepare the music yourself, know
all your notes, and then get together and
create the song. But with these songs, we’ve
had the luxury of time in preparation and
exploration. We had workshops, played,
sightread, and made mistakes. The end
result has come from mucking around and
seeing what we felt spontaneously. Also, as
a classical singer, singing in English is not
the norm. Taking that translation part of the
process away lets your mind focus on other
things straight away.
Also, when it’s not in your mother tongue,
sometimes nuance is not immediately
apparent. And especially with lyrics like
these, which are clever with intricate
wordplay, that takes time in another
language to figure out, doesn’t it?
Yes, and when Con [director Constantine
Costi] talked about looking at these songs
from the perspective of an artist having a
crisis of some sort, I realised that I’m having
my own difficulties with everything having to
be so perfect. In our current world, you can’t
go on stage without worrying that someone
has secretly recorded you. It’s so hard to take
risks. But I love performance, and I love live
theatre, and I love being able to take risks
and daring. Con said, ‘Anna, isn’t this exactly
what you need right now? Let’s just be raw,
be real. See what happens.’
Are there any songs that you have
especially connected with?
Blue, definitely. When I first approached
the text, I automatically assumed it was
about deep love for someone else. But after
approaching this song on and off over the
past year, I came to the obvious idea that
it’s not about loving someone else; it’s about
loving yourself and being still within yourself.
And that’s something we can all strive for.
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Anna Dowsley in rehearsal.
© Jeremy Belinfante
What is Cabaret Song?
Arnold Weinstein writes:
First, what it is not. It is not, like these notes,
For Musicians Only. No piano tinkling
unmerrily away out for an evening of no fun,
especially for the words whose un-accented
syllables are deftly fudged by accented
accompaniment. As Lester Young said, ‘Play
the words.’
But what is cabaret song? Is it the long letter to
the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands sung by
sad Dylan or his commercial for psychedelics,
Tambourine Man, or the John Wesley Harding
dirge? Unh unh, them’s western ballads sung
in saloons of the Pecos, not in cabarets, though
Jacques Levy’s lyrics to Dylan’s hymn Durango
saunter easily into the cabaret spot.
Dylan’s partners, the Beats, don’t sit too
well either in the cabaret’s dopeless smoke.
Ginsberg’s blues remain cantorial, stoned.
Maybe Kerouac’s hip haiku joined Stan Getz
in a successful debut of improvisational lieder
that could be listened to in a kind of club. Jazz
and poetry spent a lot of time hanging out in
bars, but jazz and poems do not generally a
cabaret song make. Fran Landesman is the
huge exception, supernally talented writer of
Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most, to
be hoarsely incanted in the dark to all the Sad
Young Men at the bar.
Cabaret stuff cannot be electrified to an
audience of teary old-timers at the Palace or
the kids at the Palladium nor yet to Felt Forum
throngs. Maybe in a small concert hall but
not really; that’s more an experience brought
about by the heartbreaking wear and tear of
cabaret life on its ill-paid performers who need
the occasional lucrative airing.
So what are we left with? Well, aimez-vous
Poulenc setting Apollinaire’s Hôtel, not wanting
travailler but fumer? What about Garcia
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Lorca’s Malagueña, in which Death ‘enters and
exits/in the tavern’, like an O’Neill whore, sung
in the long lines of flamenco? Or the Italian
Stornelli sung table to table by wandering
improvisers in Rome and Florence?
Despite Virgil Thomson’s accusation that British
ballads are ungainly, the snippy maestro and
master critic might agree that certain poets
certainly qualify as makers of the soft-sung
poem that lends itself to cabaret rendering:
Shakespeare, Jonson, Donne, Campion,
Sidney, Blake. And Dryden gave Purcell plenty
to sing about in the key of cabaret.
But it is in Germany that the rhinestone mantle
of cabaret is worn most comfortably. Out of
the Viennese café tradition that gave birth to
Schubert’s pop tunes, lieder in English, came
the line from Oscar Straus to Brecht–Weill.
Along the way, around the turn of our century,
Schoenberg took time out from copying
operetta scores to write a few dozen items
called Brettl-Lieder – cabaret songs. (If you’re
lucky enough to find the record of Marni Nixon
singing these you may be surprised.)
Brecht and Weill, vowing to ‘write for today, to
hell with prosperity’, produced their immortal
numbers under national conditions of stress,
adumbrated in the stridency of their sound
and image. The Brecht–Weill lyric rasping
was played in all the Berlin clubs and has
been played in all the theatres of the western
world ever since; played and played since
those fearful times because they wrote for that
‘today’ that comes around again and again.
Cabaret likes such ideas. It was ears-on
education for a Germany with an education
limited to the few, and (even to those
educated few) cabaret songs told much of
what journalism left out. But the facts and
notions taught in the sawdust classrooms of
cabaret nite-life were collaged of poetry and
flagrancy – not unlike the expressionist cinema
of the day, nor the pre-postmodernism of Kurt
Schwitters. And the lessons preached by Brecht
of the preacher’s family and the cantorial
Weill were the doctrines of Einstein, Freud and
Marx decked out in the lipstick and mascara of
cabaret.
The idea of Ideas as kissing cousins of popular
song might make some sense if you remember
that Bacon, Harvey and Newton, Galileo
and Copernicus were contemporaries of the
same Elizabethan songmakers who gave us
the innovations of sound and seriousness that
characterized the lyric output of Dowland,
Morley, Blow, Byrd. And though there were no
cabarets at the time, there were taverns and
street-corners and theatres where the small
sound prevailed; folk and gentility met in the
ballads that sang the news of the day.
The courtly and the popular were blended
as early as the 15th century and wandered
together with the chansonniers through the
Renaissance. In Marriage à la Mode Dryden
talks of notions ‘sung in cabarets’, and Pepys
in his diary (also of the 17th century) records
walls that read ‘Dieu te regarde’ in the French
cabarets. So it seems that cabarets favoured
political salt and amatory sult back then too.
In our era Kaufman had a cabaret talent until
it was gentrified by Moss Hart. Then the two
emulated the courtly in their exclusion of the
popular rawness and genius Kaufman had
shown in his absurdist works 30 years before
Absurdity. In our country Marc Blitzstein was
solidly dedicated enough to have devoted
serious musical energy to Saying Something.
When asked why he tended to deploy his
Schoenbergian background to sing of the
unions, he answered, ‘Nothing is too good for
the proletarian.’
But the most daring moment in the history of
cabaret occurred in Zurich in February 1916.
On that day Dada was born; in the chintzy
sleazy unartistic unintellectual atmosphere
of the Cabaret Voltaire, the movement
that was to transform modern art and lay
the groundwork for post-modernism was
announced by a reading by Tristan Tzara,
followed by ‘performance art’ by Arp and
Kandinsky, lyrics by Wedekind, Morgenstern,
Apollinaire, Marinetti, Cendrars. Designs by
Modigliani, Picasso. Simultaneous reading
of three poems ‘showing the struggle of the
vox humana with … a universe of destruction
whose noise is inescapable’ (Hugo Ball’s
Diary).
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An intellectually starved America, coming out
of its long Puritanical fast, welcomed the new
imports. Cabaret quality writing moved off the
floor and onto the stage, where the ’20s saw
Rice’s Adding Machine and Sophie Treadwell’s
Machinal, a kind of living newspaper that
happened to star Clark Gable; in the ’30s
Rome’s Pins and Needles, Blitzstein’s The
Cradle Will Rock, Weill’s Johnny Johnson
all had the episodic, collagistic approach
characteristic of cabaret. Even Our Town
has the spare, loose quality of revue, with
the cohesiveness of real theme that makes it
cabaretlike in form.
In England Auden had begun his campaign
against the uncouth refinement of political
rhetoric:
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone…
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is
Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of
the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton
gloves.
Clear and simple, but demanding the
imagistic attention characteristic of the cabaret
experience. Auden also wrote such wry songs
(to Britten’s delicious music) as Tell Me the Truth
About Love:
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.
which, apart from the ironic (we hope)
fluff/love rhyme, is like after-hours Cole Porter.
But even the love songs of cabaret have a
conspiratorial quality.
Thus, passing to the left, the Living Theater,
the Open Theater, Caffé Cino; to the right,
Bway and, off-right, Off-Bway; in between
was the Artist Theater (Koch, O’Hara, Ashbery
accompanied by New York painters rather
than musicians). And in some political bunker
of their own architecting, a couple of writers
met and wrote the songs on this album.
Norse-American William Bolcom the
composer studied with Roethke the poet, and
before that, his feet barely hitting the pedals,
Bill had played for the vaudeville shows
passing through Seattle with such songs in
the repertory as Best Damn Thing Am Lamb
Lamb Lamb. Milhaud found Bill and brought
him back alive to highbrow music, though
he never lost his lowbrow soul (neither did
Milhaud). Operas later, we wrote these songs
as a cabaret in themselves, no production
‘values’ to worry about. The scene is the piano,
the cast is the singer, in this case Joan Morris,
who inspired us with her subtle intimation
of Exactly What She Wanted. We hope she
got it. Nobody defines better than she this
elusive form of theatre-poetry-lieder-poptavernacular
prayer called cabaret song.
ORIGINAL PROGRAM NOTE
© LIBRETTIST ARNOLD WEINSTEIN
Rehearsals in the Janette Hamilton Studio at
Musica Viva Australia House, Sydney.
© Jeremy Belinfante
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Anna Dowsley
Mezzo-soprano Anna Dowsley performs
on operatic and concert stages around the
world, establishing herself as one of the many
exciting artists to emerge from Australia in
recent years.
In this current season, Anna performed the role
of Cherubino (The Marriage of Figaro) with
her home company Opera Frankurt, appeared
in a new production of The Snow Maiden at
the Tyrol Festival Erl, and made her debut with
Opera Queensland in a new production of
Così fan tutte.
In the 2022/23 season, Anna appeared as
Adalgisa (Norma) with Teatro Carlo Felice
in Genoa, made her Opera Frankfurt debut
performing the role of Olga (Eugene Onegin),
recorded with the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic
Orchestra (for the Palazzetto Bru Zane label)
and performed in concert with Concerto
Budapest. In 2021, Anna performed the title
role in Carmen (Nürnberg State Theatre,
Germany) and appeared as Zerlina in Don
Giovanni (Teatro Petruzzelli, Italy). She made
her United Kingdom debut in 2017 performing
the role of Meg Page alongside Bryn Terfel as
Falstaff (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic).
Her career began with Opera Australia, where
her many roles included: Dorabella (Così fan
tutte), Rosina (The Barber of Seville), Zerlina
(Don Giovanni), Siebel (Faust), Smeton (Anna
Bolena), Flora (La traviata), Tebaldo (Don
Carlos) and Zaida (Il turco in Italia). With
Sydney Chamber Opera, Anna performed the
title role in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, and
she toured with New Zealand Opera’s 2017
production of The Mikado (Pitti Sing). Anna
performed the title role in Pinchgut Opera’s
2022 production of Orontea and starred in
their 2020 full-length opera film A Delicate
Fire.
On the concert platform, Anna has performed
with the Sydney, Tasmanian, Adelaide
and Queensland Symphony Orchestras,
Pinchgut Opera, Van Diemen’s Band, Sydney
Philharmonia Choirs and the Royal Melbourne
Philharmonic, with repertoire including
Beethoven’s Mass in C and Symphony No. 9,
Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem and Great
Mass, and Bach’s Magnificat, Mass in B minor
and Easter Oratorio.
Also an art song enthusiast, Anna has
explored and studied song repertoire with
many prominent recital artists (at Britten–Pears
Young Artist programs and the Oxford Lieder
Festival) including Angelika Kirchschlager,
Martin Martineau, Roger Vignoles, Véronique
Gens and Susan Manoff.
In 2019, Anna received third prize in the
Toulouse International Singing Competition
and was the recipient of the Australian Opera
Award, funded by the Youth Music Foundation
of Australia. In her final years of study at the
Sydney Conservatorium of Music, she was
awarded the 2014 Lady Fairfax New York
Scholarship (Opera Foundation Australia) and
the Marianne Mathy Scholarship (Australian
Singing Competition).
In the coming year, Anna performs the role
of Sister Helen (Dead Man Walking) with
Landestheater Detmold in Germany, sings
her first Dido (Dido and Aeneas) with Opera
Queensland, makes her debut with State
Opera South Australia (Così fan tutte) and
performs again with Sydney Symphony
Orchestra under the baton of Donald
Runnicles. Later in 2024, Anna will be moving
her family’s German home from Frankfurt to
Oldenburg, where she takes up a full-time
Principal Artist position with Oldenburgisches
Staatstheater.
annadowsley.com
Michael Curtain
Michael Curtain is currently the Assistant
Chorus Master and Children’s Chorus Master
at Opera Australia, a post he has held for the
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last seven years. In this time, he has worked
on over 50 productions for the company; he
had previously worked as a repetiteur and as
the musical director for the Opera Australia
schools touring program.
Michael studied Piano and Accompaniment
at Sydney Conservatorium of Music. As a
pianist and organist Michael has performed
with the Opera Australia Orchestra, Orchestra
Victoria, the Sydney Symphony Fellowship
and Sinfonia, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs,
St Mary’s Cathedral Choir, the Tasmanian
Chorale and the Strelitzia Ensemble, and
performed in recital with many of Australia’s
leading singers. Michael has been a prize
winner and finalist in the Sydney International
Song Prize and the Mietta Song Competition
and has been an official accompanist for the
Sydney Eisteddfod.
Obsessions and Messiah for the Australian
Brandenburg Orchestra; Puccini’s Suor
Angelica for Opera Projects Sydney; and
Verdi’s Requiem for Ensemble Apex and
Phoenix Central Park. He has directed revivals
of La juive, La traviata and Harry Kupfer’s
Otello (Opera Australia), Il viaggio a Reims
(Dutch National Opera, OA and Royal Danish
Opera), and Sir David McVicar’s Vienna
State Opera production of Falstaff (National
Centre of Performing Arts, Beijing). In 2020 he
wrote the libretto of a new Australian opera
by composer Simon Bruckard, Cassandra, for
Victorian Opera.
Constantine has been Assistant Director
for productions of the Ring cycle (OA) and
Turandot (Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour)
with director Chen Shi-Zheng, Wozzeck
(Salzburg Festival, OA, Canadian Opera
Company, Metropolitan Opera), Hunde
Gottes (Schauspielhaus Vienna), and The
Marriage of Figaro (OA); he also co-directed
Werther with director Elijah Moshinsky (OA).
As the recipient of the Berlin New Music
Opera Award with The Opera Foundation for
Young Australians, he worked with Komische
Oper Berlin’s directing team on Tchaikovsky’s
Eugene Onegin, directed by Barrie Kosky.
Constantine Costi
Constantine Costi is a director and writer
working across opera, film and theatre.
Most recently Constantine directed
Il tabarro for Sydney Festival, and directed
and adapted Melbourne, Cheremushki
(music by Shostakovich) for Victorian Opera
and Sweeney Todd for NIDA. He has also
directed La traviata for Handa Opera on
Sydney Harbour; the double bill Mahagonny
Songspiel and The Seven Deadly Sins at the
Old Fitz Theatre; the feature film A Delicate
Fire, based on the madrigals of Barbara
Strozzi, and the opera Orontea for Pinchgut
Opera; Monochromatic, a video series of
piano portraits, for Phoenix Central Park;
an online production of Don Giovanni for
Shanghai Opera; Karakorum, Bittersweet
Other credits include directing and cocreating
the world premiere of the jazz
musical The Overcoat (Belvoir’s 25A); cowriting
the immersive theatre experience
Visiting Hours (Vivid Festival); and directing
The Space between the Fuel and the Fire,
The Hypochondriac and The Shewing-Up
of Blanco Posnet (NIDA), Thomas Arne’s The
Sailor’s Return (Nagambie Lakes Opera
Festival); The Master and Margarita after
Bulgakov (Aboriginal Centre of the Performing
Arts); Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an
15

Artist (Zenith Theatre); and Chaucer’s The
Canterbury Tales (George Georgiou Inc).
Screen credits include the music videos I Know
What You’re Hiding (Hedge Fund) and Into My
Arms (Bloods) for Triple J Unearthed, and the
short films Ferguson and Daisy and Ursula and
Donny.
Constantine is a graduate of the National
Institute of Dramatic Art in Directing and
holds a Bachelor of Communications (Media
Arts and Production) from the University of
Technology, Sydney. He has been a member
of the Belvoir Artists’ Workshop, Co-Artistic
Director of Red Line Productions at the Old Fitz,
and an affiliate director with Griffin Theatre.
Matthew Marshall
Born and raised in Perth, Matthew Marshall
graduated from the West Australian Academy
of Performing Arts (WAAPA) Production and
Design course in 2000.
With 23 years of experience, Matt has
worked for most of the major performing arts
companies and festivals in Australia, including
multiple shows for Bell Shakespeare, Belvoir,
Ensemble Theatre, Griffin Theatre, Sydney
Dance Company, Sydney Theatre Company,
Opera Australia, Opera Queensland, State
Opera South Australia, West Australian
Opera, the Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin,
Melbourne, Perth and Sydney Festivals,
Sydney Mardi Gras and WOMADelaide. His
work has been seen on the international stage
in the UK (including the Barbican, Southbank
Centre and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival),
Germany, Belgium, France, Spain and New
Caledonia.
Matt has been nominated for Best Lighting
Design twice at the Helpmann Awards and
on multiple occasions by the Australian
Production Design Guild.
Recent designs include the world’s first digital
Ring cycle (Opera Australia) by visionary
Chinese director Chen Shi-Zheng, Gatsby at
the Green Light (Sydney Opera House),
Il tabarro and Vigil: Awaken (Sydney
Festival), Così fan tutte, The Unruly Tourists,
Macbeth and The Marriage of Figaro (New
Zealand Opera), Oil (Black Swan State
Theatre Company), Goldberg Variations
(West Australian Ballet), The Crowd & I
(Australian Chamber Orchestra), A Winter’s
Journey (Musica Viva Australia), Night Mass
(Dark Mofo), Mary Stuart (Perth Festival),
Tim Minchin’s The Absence of You music
video, The Barber of Seville (Seattle Opera),
Tchaikovsky: The Man behind the Music (Tulsa
Ballet), La bohème (Handa Opera on Sydney
Harbour), Athalia (Pinchgut Opera), Askungen
(Royal Swedish Opera) and Carmen (Oper
Leipzig). His production of Cinderella (Opera
Queensland) with long-time collaborator
Lindy Hume has played around the world
including Germany, New Zealand, Sweden
and the USA, and performs in repertory at
Leipzig Opera and the Royal Swedish Opera.
Design highlights include John Adams and
Peter Sellars’ opera A Flowering Tree and
the opening night spectacular Home (Perth
International Arts Festival), Band of Magicians
(Tropicana Casino, Las Vegas), Billy Elliot
(Auckland Theatre Company), and the
dazzling Velvet Rewired in the Magic Mirrors
Spiegeltent at the 2020 Adelaide Fringe, with
an Australian tour in 2022/23.
Event lighting designs include the installation
Beat Box at Dream World on the Gold Coast;
The Domain at the 2015 Sydney Festival,
including Triple J’s 40th birthday Beat the
Drum celebration; Art & About, transforming
Sydney’s Martin Place in Sydney into a
quarter-acre block party; and 130 Years of
Bvlgari, a showcase of $38 million worth of
jewellery.
Matt is a mentor to Lighting Design students
at both of Australia’s premier arts training
institutions – NIDA in Sydney and WAAPA in
Perth – and has recently worked with students
16

at the Sharjah Performing Arts Academy in the
United Arab Emirates. He was a judge for the
Australian Production Design Guild Awards
from 2017 to 2023.
Hilary Bell
Hilary Bell writes for stage, radio, screen and
music theatre. Her plays have been produced
nationally around Australia, by the Sydney
Theatre Company, Ensemble Theatre, Belvoir,
Griffin, State Theatre Company of South
Australia, Black Swan, Deckchair, La Boite,
NORPA, National Theatre of Parramatta,
Sydney Opera House, City Recital Hall, Arts
Centre Melbourne, Vitalstatistix, NIDA and
Darlinghurst Theatre Company. Internationally
she’s been produced in Europe, in the USA by
companies including Atlantic and Steppenwolf,
and in the UK by the National Theatre’s youth
theatre festival, Connections.
Wolf Lullaby, written in 1995, won her the
inaugural Philip Parsons Young Playwrights
Award. Other plays include Fortune, The
Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Ruysch, The Falls,
Splinter, The Bloody Bride, Memmie Le
Blanc, The Red Balloon, The White Divers of
Broome, Victim Sidekick Boyfriend Me, Perfect
Stranger, Summer of Harold, and adaptations
of Chekhov’s The Seagull, Molière’s The
Hypochondriac, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
and Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors.
She is also a member of 7-ON Playwrights,
a collective of mid-career dramatists who
collaborate on multi-voice projects; their most
recent project, the anthology Sharp Darts:
Chamber Plays by 7-ON, was published by
Currency Press in 2021. She collaborated with
Lally Katz on The Mysteries: Genesis and was
associate writer on Paul Capsis’ play Angela’s
Kitchen, which won Best New Australian
Work at the 2010 Helpmann Awards. Other
accolades include the Jill Blewett Playwrights
Award, Aurealis Award, Inscription Award,
Sydney Theatre Company’s Patrick White
Playwriting Fellowship and two Australian
Writers Guild Awards, and in the US,
Bug’n’Bub, the Eric Kocher Playwrights Award
and the Tennessee Williams Fellowship in
Creative Writing at the University of the South,
Tennessee.
Hilary also writes lyrics and libretti for opera,
musicals and song cycles. Collaborating with
composers including Phillip Johnston, Greta
Gertler Gold, Andrée Greenwell, Victoria
Bond, Douglas Stephen Rae, Elena Kats-
Chernin, Maria Alfonsine, Luke Styles and
Ensemble Offspring, her music theatre works
include The Wedding Song, The Red Tree,
Mrs President, Starstruck – The Stage Musical
(with Mitchell Butel), Alphabetical Sydney:
All Aboard! and Seven Stories. With Greta
Gertler Gold, she is currently writing a musical
adaptation of Picnic at Hanging Rock. She is
also collaborating with composer Jacob Collier
and director Michael Gracey on a musical
about Pavarotti, for production company
Scenario Two.
Hilary is the creator, with illustrator Antonia
Pesenti, of several picture books, including
the best-selling Alphabetical Sydney. With
Matthew Martin, she created The Marvellous
Funambulist of Middle Harbour.
She has written audio scripts for the State
Library of NSW exhibitions Dead Central
and Quick March!, and for the Museum
of Contemporary Art’s exhibition, David
Goldblatt: Photographs 1948–2018. She is
currently a Visiting Scholar at the State Library
of NSW.
Hilary is a graduate of the Juilliard
Playwrights’ Studio, NIDA, and the Australian
Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS).
17

Amadeus
Society
Musica Viva Australia’s Amadeus Society is
a small philanthropic circle of passionate music
lovers who help us to realise our bold artistic
vision and bring acclaimed international and
local artists to our stages throughout the country.
Since 2007 the Amadeus Society has enabled
Musica Viva Australia to further extraordinary
artistic initiatives and in 2024 will continue to
do so by celebrating the wealth and diversity
of Australian musical talent.
Annual membership of the Society includes
intimate private house concerts with our
mainstage artists, currently held in
Melbourne and Sydney.
If you are interested in joining the Amadeus Society or would like more information please contact:
MELBOURNE
Irene Ryder, Senior Development Manager
0487 330 199 | iryder@musicaviva.com.au
SYDNEY
Caroline Davis, Individual Giving Manager
02 8394 6636 | cdavis@musicaviva.com.au

Patrons
CUSTODIANS
ACT Margaret Brennan, Clive & Lynlea Rodger,
Ruth Weaver, Anonymous (3)
NSW Catherine Brown-Watt PSM & Derek Watt,
Jennifer Bott AO, Lloyd & Mary Jo Capps AM, Andrew &
Felicity Corkill, Peter Cudlipp, Liz Gee, Suzanne Gleeson,
David & Christine Hartgill, Annie Hawker, Elaine Lindsay,
Trevor Noffke, Dr David Schwartz, Ruth Spence-Stone,
Mary Vallentine AO, Deirdre Nagle Whitford, Richard
Wilkins, Kim Williams AM, Megan & Bill Williamson,
Ray Wilson OAM, Anonymous (12)
QLD Anonymous (2)
SA Monica Hanusiak-Klavins & Martin Klavins,
Anonymous (4)
LEGACY DONORS
ACT
The late Geoffrey Brennan
NSW The late Charles Berg, The late Stephen Center,
The late Janette Hamilton, The late Dr Ralph Hockin in
memory of Mabel Hockin, The late Geraldine Kenway,
The late Kenneth W Tribe AC, Anonymous
QLD
The late Steven Kinston
SA The late Edith Dubsky, In memory of Helen Godlee,
The late Lesley Lynn
VIC In memory of Anita Morawetz, The family of
the late Paul Morawetz, The late Dr G D Watson
WA
Anonymous
TAS
Kim Paterson QC, Anonymous
VIC Elizabeth & Anthony Brookes,
Julian Burnside AO QC, Ms Helen Dick, Robert Gibbs
& Tony Wildman, Helen Vorrath, Anonymous (8)
WA Graham Lovelock, Anonymous (4)
ENSEMBLE PATRONS
Our artistic vision for 2024 is made possible thanks to
the extraordinary generosity of our Ensemble Patrons,
each of whom supports the presentation of an entire
national tour for our 2024 Season.
Long Lost Loves (and Grey Suede Gloves)
Peter Griffin AM & Terry Swann,
Ms Felicity Rourke & Justice François Kunc,
Susie Dickson (supporting Anna Dowsley)
Esmé Quartet
Anonymous
The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
Ensemble Patrons Ian Dickson AM & Reg Holloway
Commissioning Donor Richard Wilkins
Organ Scholar Patrons Ian & Cass George
The Choristers’ Circle We thank all members for their
support of each chorister
Ensemble Q & William Barton
Ian & Caroline Frazer
CONCERT CHAMPIONS
The mainstage concerts of our 2024 Season are brought
to life thanks to the generosity of our Concert Champions
around the country.
Adelaide Susan Marsden & Michael Szwarcbord
Brisbane Andrea & Malcolm Hall-Brown, Andrew & Kate
Lister, Barry & Diana Moore, The Hon. Anthe Philippides SC,
Anonymous (2)
Canberra Andrew Blanckensee & Anonymous,
Dr Suzanne Packer, Sue Terry & Len Whyte
Melbourne Peter Lovell & Michael Jan, In memory of
Paul Morawetz, Mark & Suzy Suss, The late Dr G D Watson,
Youth Music Foundation Australia, Igor Zambelli
Perth Jan James in memory of her sister Anne Wilding
& Anonymous, Dr Robert Larbalestier AO,
Deborah Lehmann AO & Michael Alpers AO,
For Stephanie Quinlan (2), Valerie & Michael Wishart
Sydney Darin Cooper Foundation, Patsy Crummer,
Pam Cudlipp, Dr Jennifer Donald & Mr Stephen Burford,
Katherine & Reg Grinberg, Ray Wilson OAM
19

MVA DIRECTOR’S CIRCLE
Darin Cooper Foundation, Stephen & Michele Johns
AMADEUS SOCIETY
Tony Berg AM & Carol Berg, Tom Breen & Rachael
Kohn AO, Dr Di Bresciani OAM, Ms Annabella Fletcher,
Dr Annette Gero, Katherine & Reg Grinberg, Jennifer
Hershon, Fred & Claire Hilmer, Penelope Hughes,
Michael & Frédérique Katz, Dr Hadia Mukhtar,
Philip Robinson, Andrew Rosenberg, Ray Wilson OAM
MAJOR GIFTS
$100,000+
NSW The Berg Family Foundation,
Patricia H. Reid Endowment Fund, Anonymous
$50,000+
ACT
Marion & Michael Newman
NSW J A Donald Family, Katherine & Reg Grinberg,
Elisabeth Hodson & the late Dr Thomas Karplus
EMERGING ARTISTS
GIVING CIRCLE
The Emerging Artists Giving Cricle is a group of
generous donors whose collective support will enable
the artistic development of the next generation of
Australian chamber musicians.
Nicholas Callinan AO & Elizabeth Callinan,
Caroline & Robert Clemente, Patricia H. Reid Endowment
Fund, Andrew Sisson AO & Tracey Sisson,
Mick & Margaret Toller, Anonymous
COMMISSIONS
Musica Viva Australia is proud to support the creation
of new Australian works through The Ken Tribe Fund
for Australian Composition and The Hildegard Project.
We are grateful to the following individuals and
collectives for their generous support of this work:
Alison & Geoff Kerry, D R & K M Magarey,
The Hon. Anthe Philippides SC, Playking Foundation,
Richard Wilkins
Musica Viva Australia also thanks the Adelaide
Commissioning Circle, the WA Commissioning Circle,
and the Silo Collective for their support in bringing
new Australian works to life.
$20,000+
NSW Gardos Family, Ian Dickson AM & Reg Holloway,
Michael & Frédérique Katz, Vicki Olsson
QLD
Ian & Caroline Frazer, Andrea & Malcolm Hall-Brown
VIC The Morawetz Family in memory of Paul Morawetz,
Marjorie Nicholas OAM, Anonymous
WA
$10,000+
ACT
Anonymous
R & V Hillman, Mick & Margaret Toller, Anonymous
NSW Gresham Partners, Mrs W G Keighley, Anthony
Strachan, Jo Strutt, Kim Williams AM & Catherine Dovey,
Stoneglen Foundation, Ray Wilson OAM in memory of
James Agapitos OAM
QLD
SA
Anonymous
Jennifer & John Henshall
VIC Peter Lovell, In memory of Dr Ian Marks,
Mercer Family Foundation, Anonymous
WA Legacy Unit Trust, Deborah Lehmann AO
& Michael Alpers AO
$5,000+
ACT Goodwin Crace Concertgoers, Craig Reynolds,
Sue Terry & Len Whyte
NSW Christine Bishop, Tom Breen & Rachael Kohn AO,
Sarah & Tony Falzarano, Robert & Lindy Henderson,
David & Carole Singer, Diane Sturrock, Richard Wilkins
QLD
Anonymous
SA Aldridge Family Endowment,
Fiona MacLachlan OAM
VIC Julian Burnside AO KC & Kate Durham,
William J Forrest AM, Leanne Menegazzo, Bruce Missen,
Joy Selby Smith, Greg Shalit & Miriam Faine,
Musica Viva Australia Victorian Committee,
Youth Music Foundation Australia, Anonymous
WA
David Wallace & Jamelia Gubgub
20

ANNUAL GIFTS
$2,500+
ACT Kristin van Brunschot & John Holliday,
Dr Andrew Singer, Anonymous
NSW ADFAS Newcastle, Maia Ambegaokar &
Joshua Bishop, Susan Burns, Richard Cobden SC,
Dr Robyn Smiles, Hon. Professor Ross Steele AM,
Anonymous
SA
DJ & EM Bleby
VIC Jan Begg, Alastair & Sue Campbell, Anne
Frankenberg & Adrian McEniery, Sing Off – Genazzano
& surrounding schools, Lyndsey & Peter Hawkins,
Michael Nossal & Jo Porter, Ralph & Ruth Renard,
Maria Sola, Wendy R Taylor, Helen Vorrath
WA Zoe Lenard & Hamish Milne, Mrs Morrell,
Anonymous
$1,000+
ACT Andrew Blanckensee, The Breen/Dullo Family,
Odin Bohr & Anna Smet, Martin Dolan, Liz & Alex Furman,
Kingsley Herbert, Margaret & Peter Janssens, Margaret
Oates, S Packer, Clive & Lynlea Rodger, Anonymous (3)
NSW Judith Allen, David & Rae Allen, Dr Warwick
Anderson, Jennifer Bott AO, Vicki Brooke, Neil Burns,
Hugh & Hilary Cairns, Hon. J C Campbell QC &
Mrs Campbell, Lloyd & Mary Jo Capps AM, Opus 109
Sub-fund, Community Impact Foundation, Robin &
Wendy Cumming, Trish & John Curotta, Thomas Dent,
Nancy Fox AM & Bruce Arnold, John & Irene Garran,
Charles & Wallis Graham, Kate Girdwood, Annie Hawker,
Lybus Hillman, Dr Ailsa Hocking & Dr Bernard Williams,
Dorothy Hoddinott AO, Mathilde Kearny-Kibble,
Catharine & Robert Kench, Kevin & Deidre McCann,
Professor Craig Moritz, Michael & Janet Neustein,
Paul O’Donnell, In memory of Katherine Robertson,
Laurie Orchard, Ms Vivienne Sharpe, Geoff Stearn,
Graham & Judy Tribe, Kate Tribe, John & Flora Weickhardt,
Megan & Bill Williamson, Anonymous (3)
QLD George Booker & Denise Bond, Prof. Paul & Ms Ann
Crook, Stephen Emmerson, Robin Harvey, Lynn &
John Kelly, Andrew & Kate Lister, Jocelyn Luck, Barry &
Diana Moore, Keith Moore, Barbara Williams &
Jankees van der Have, Anonymous
SA Ivan & Joan Blanchard, Richard Blomfield,
Max & Ionie Brennan, Peter Clifton, Elizabeth Ho OAM in
honour of the late Tom Steel, Dr Leo Mahar, Ruth Marshall &
Tim Muecke, Geoff & Sorayya Martin, Ann & David Matison,
Diane Myers, Leon Pitchon, Jennie Shaw, Anne Sutcliffe,
Robert & Glenys Woolcock, Anonymous (3)
The Hon. Dr Barry Jones AC & Ms Rachel Faggetter,
Angela Kayser, Angela & Richard Kirsner, Angela Li, Janet
McDonald, Ruth McNair AM & Rhonda Brown in memory of
Patricia Begg & David McNair, June K Marks, Christopher
Menz & Peter Rose, D & F Nassau, Adrian Nye, Resonance
Fund – Michael Cowen & Sharon Nathani, Barry Robbins,
Murray Sandland, Ms Thea Sartori, Darren Taylor & Kent
Stringer, Lyn Williams, Mark & Anna Yates, Anonymous (2)
WA David & Minnette Ambrose, Dr S Cherian,
Michael & Wendy Davis, In memory of Raymond Dudley,
Dr Penny Herbert in memory of Dunstan Herbert,
Anne Last & Steve Scudamore, Hugh & Margaret Lydon,
Olivier David & Dr Bennie Ng, Marian Magee & David
Castillo, John Overton, Prof. Robyn Owens AM, Margaret &
Roger Seares, Robyn Tamke, Anonymous (2)
$500+
ACT Margaret Brennan, Christine Bollen, Christopher
Clarke, Peter Cumines, Jill Fleming, Robert Hefner, Helen
Rankin, Ruth Weaver, Dr Paul & Dr Lel Whitbread
NSW Alexandra Bune AM, Christopher & Margaret
Burrell, Robert Cahill & Anne Cahill OAM, Lucia Cascone,
Howard Dick, Dr Arno Enno & Dr Anna Enno, Bronwyn
Evans, Anthony Gregg, The Harvey Family, David & Sarah
Howell, Bruce Lane, Olive Lawson, Dr Colin MacArthur,
D R & K M Magarey, Professors Robin & Tina Offler, Kim &
Margie Ostinga, Trish Richardson in memory of Andy Lloyd
James, Dr John Rogers, Penny Rogers, Peter & Heather
Roland, Christopher Sullivan & Jim Lennon, Kathie & Reg
Grinberg – In honour of Dalia Stanley’s birthday, Beverley &
Richard Taperell, Kay Vernon, Andrew Wells AM,
Margaret Wright OAM, Anonymous (6)
QLD Geoffrey Beames, Noela Billington, Janet Franklin,
Prof. Robert G Gilbert, Timothy Matthies & Chris Bonnily,
Anonymous
SA Zoë Cobden-Jewitt & Peter Jewitt, Elizabeth Hawkins,
Dr Iwan Jensen, The Hon. Christopher Legoe AO QC &
Mrs Jenny Legoe, Helga Linnert & Douglas Ransom,
Trish Ryan & Richard Ryan AO, Tony Seymour,
Anonymous (3)
VIC David Bernshaw & Caroline Isakow,
Coll & Roger Buckle, Pam Caldwell, Mary-Jane Gething,
Dr Anthea Hyslop, Eda Ritchie AM, Maureen Turner,
Anonymous (5)
WA Jennifer Butement, Fred & Angela Chaney,
Rachel & Bruce Craven, Dr Barry Green, Russell Hobbs &
Sue Harrington, Paula Nathan AO & Yvonne Patterson,
Lindsay & Suzanne Silbert, Ruth Stratton, Christopher Tyler,
Anonymous (3)
TAS
Dianne O’Toole
VIC Joanna Baevski, Russ & Jacqui Bate, The late Marc
Besen AC & the late Eva Besen AO, Jannie Brown, Alison
& John Cameron, Mrs Maggie Cash, Alex & Elizabeth
Chernov, Kathy & George Deutsch OAM, Dhar Family,
Lord Ebury, Dr Glenys & Dr Alan French, Naomi Golvan &
George Golvan KC, John & Margaret Harrison,
Virginia Henry, Doug Hooley, Helen Imber,
21

Stories to inspire
BY ZOË COBDEN-JEWITT
The Choir of King’s College,
Cambridge and the launch of
the Choristers’ Circle
... a Choir worth crossing the world
to hear … The singers had done the
travelling this time, of course, but
they had so drawn us into their
world that, as we stepped out of the
Recital Centre, I almost expected to
hear the crunch of snow underfoot.
— SUZANNE YANKO, CLASSIC MELBOURNE
As part of Paul Kildea’s compelling artistic
vision for 2024, Musica Viva Australia is
delighted to be bringing The Choir of King’s
College, Cambridge back to Australian
audiences around the country.
Founded in the 15th century by King
Henry VI, The Choir of King’s College,
Cambridge is undoubtedly one of the world’s
best-known choral groups. Every Christmas
Eve millions of people worldwide tune into
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, a
service that has been broadcast almost
every year by the BBC since 1928.
While the Choir exists primarily to sing the
daily services in King’s College Chapel, its
worldwide fame and reputation, enhanced by
its many recordings, have led to invitations to
perform around the globe, and to an extensive
international touring schedule.
To bring The Choir of King’s College,
Cambridge back to Australia is a
privilege, but to have it perform great
20th-century religious works alongside
a commissioned work from Damian
Barbeler and Judith Nangala Crispin,
is an intimate way for the choir to
engage with Australian history.
— PAUL KILDEA, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
MUSICA VIVA AUSTRALIA
Led by Daniel Hyde, the presentation of
classical choral repertoire alongside a new
work by Damian Barbeler and Judith Nangala
Crispin is going to be an Australian musical
highlight of 2024. It is also a significant
undertaking for Musica Viva Australia, and
with that in mind we have launched a special
appeal in support of the Tour.
22

The Choir during their last visit to Australia in 2019.
There will be 16 boy Choristers visiting
Australia performing with the Choir, and
in order to support this crucial part of the
presentation, we have created The Choristers’
Circle. This is an opportunity for our valued
subscribers and donors to provide support for
one (or more) of the Choristers in the amount
of $3,000 (tax deductible) – it will also make a
tangible difference to Musica Viva Australia as
we continue to build support into the future.
The Choir’s unparalleled soloistic,
ensemble and tutti skills were
on show as perhaps nowhere else,
Hyde’s masterly direction ensuring
an almost magical cohesion in
terms of blend and ensemble.
— LIMELIGHT MAGAZINE
At Musica Viva Australia, we remain so very
grateful to our donors and patrons for the
myriad ways in which you support us each
year, and we hope that you may feel able
to join this new giving circle, or to make a
donation of any size, towards the presentation
of this unparalleled choir. Such support
enables us to keep presenting the finest
musicians from around the world, something
we have been proudly undertaking for
decades.
If you are interested in supporting this, or
making a more general gift towards our work,
we would be delighted to hear from you.
Please contact Zoë Cobden-Jewitt at
zcobden-jewitt@musicaviva.com.au
for more information.
Your support makes this work possible.
Thank you.
23

Concert Partners
Perth Concert Series Sydney Morning Masters Series Musica Viva Australia at The Edge Series
Major Project Partner
Legal
Chartered Accountants
Piano & Tuning
Media Partners
Print Partner
Wine Partner act, nsw, qld, vic, wa
Wine Partner sa
Hotel Partner
Hotel Partner
Government Partners
Musica Viva Australia is assisted by the
Australian Government through Creative Australia,
its principal arts investment and advisory body.
Musica Viva Australia is supported
by the NSW Government through
Create NSW.
Musica Viva Australia is a Not-for-profit Organisation
endorsed by the Australian Taxation Office as a
Deductible Gift Recipient and registered with the
Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission
(ACNC).
Emerging Artists Partners
Competitions
Principal Partner
Strategic Partner
University Partner
FutureMakers Lead Partner
Key Philanthropic Partner
Key Philanthropic Partner
FutureMakers Residency Partner
24

Education Partners
Government Partnerships & Support
National Education Supporters
J A Donald Family
Marion & Mike Newman
In Schools Performance, Education & Professional Development
• Aldridge Family Endowment • Godfrey Turner Memorial Music Trust • In memory of Anita Morawetz
• Keith MacKenzie Will Trust • Margaret Henderson Music Trust • Marsden Szwarcbord Foundation
• Perpetual Foundation – Alan (AGL) Shaw Endowment • Grieve Family Fund
National Music Residency Program
The
Benjamin
Fund
The Marion &
E.H. Flack Trust
Day Family
Foundation
• Aldridge Family Endowment • Carthew Foundation • Foskett Foundation • FWH Foundation
• John & Rosemary MacLeod • Joy Selby Smith • Legacy Unit Trust
• Lipman Karas • Seeley International • Anonymous Donors (3)
25

Esmé Quartet
‘Superb artistry … dazzling’
South China Morning Post
National Tour: 29 April–14 May
musicaviva.com.au/esme
1800 688 482 (no booking fees)
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and enjoy delicious local produce and
weekend lunches in the gardens and grounds.
As a friend of Musica Viva Australia, you are
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2 O24
Unleash your potential in the national chamber music competition for Australian school students.
Applications open: 23 FEB–22 MAR (Coaching Program) | 1–30 MAY (Competition Entries)
musicaviva.com.au/strikeachord
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