Takács Quartet with Angie Milliken | August 2025

Takács Quartet
WITH ANGIE MILLIKEN

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.
TAKÁCS QUARTET
with ANGIE MILLIKEN narrator
E DWA R D
DUSINBERRE
violin
HARUMI
RHODES
violin
RICHARD
O’NEILL
viola
A N D R Á S
FEJÉR
cello
ADELAIDE
ADELAIDE TOWN HALL
Friday 22 August, 7.30pm
• Pre-concert talk: 6.45pm,
Prince Alfred Room
BRISBANE
CONCERT HALL, QPAC
Wednesday 20 August, 7pm
Recorded for broadcast by ABC Classic
• Pre-concert talk: 6.15pm,
Concert Hall Balcony Foyer
• Meet the Artists after the concert
MELBOURNE
ELISABETH MURDOCH HALL,
MELBOURNE RECITAL CENTRE
Thursday 14 August, 7pm
• Pre-concert talk: 6.15pm,
Eva and Marc Besen Suite, Level 2
PERTH
WINTHROP HALL
Monday 25 August, 7.30pm
• Pre-concert talk: 6.45pm,
Eileen Joyce Studio,
UWA Conservatorium of Music
CANBERRA
LLEWELLYN HALL,
ANU SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Saturday 16 August, 7pm
• Pre-concert talk: 6.15pm,
Larry Sitsky Room
• Meet the Artists after the concert
SYDNEY
CITY RECITAL HALL
Monday 18 August, 7pm
Charles Berg Tribute Concert
• Pre-concert talk: 6.15pm,
Function Room, Level 1
• CD signing after the concert
With special thanks to Ensemble Patron, the Chamber Music Foundation, for their support of this tour and
our Concert Champions for their support of this tour within their state; to Susie Dickson for her support of
Angie Milliken; and to the Sonnet Commissioning Circle for their valued contribution. We also gratefully
acknowledge the Creative Development Collective for their generous support of new artistic projects,
and the Amadeus Society for their support of the 2025 Concert Season.
3

From the Artistic Director
© Darren Leigh Roberts
When I first read Bertolt Brecht’s Sonnet
in Emigration, one line jumped out at me.
Brecht had newly arrived in America, having
for eight years changed countries more
frequently than shoes, so he said, and was
rightly in culture shock. Not that the US
lacked some of the cultural infrastructure
Brecht had taken for granted growing
up – the large orchestras, the thriving
literary scene, the private salons and arty
gossip – but though familiar, it all looked
and sounded different. ‘Wherever I go,’ he
wrote in the Sonnet, ‘they ask me: “Spell
your name!” | And oh, that name was once
accounted great.’ For Brecht also looked
and sounded different.
I dealt before with people such as these
And I suspect there may be growing doubt
Whether, in fact, my services would please.
The collaboration between the distinguished
artists of the Takács Quartet – old friends of
Musica Viva Australia – the composer Cathy
Milliken, and her sister Angie Milliken,
began in conversations with Cathy about
this Brecht poem. We were some years away
from celebrating Musica Viva Australia’s
80th birthday and I knew I wanted us to laud
our émigré founders and their gloriously
foreign names. We (eventually) landed on
an unusual genre: spoken narration and
string quartet. Think Strauss’s Enoch Arden,
only with an instrumental line-up that is core
to Musica Viva Australia’s history and future.
Cathy then did a deep dive into Brecht’s
‘exile poems’, threading together from
them a narrative about Brecht’s wartime
years and his ability to distil his experiences
in America into a series of heartbreaking
works on displacement and homesickness,
drawing no small amount of inspiration from
the view from her apartment over one of
Brecht’s historical Berlin homes.
The Takács Quartet is no stranger to this
heartbreaking sense of emigration and
cultural dislocation, having been founded
in Budapest in 1975 but having lived in
America for the last four or so decades.
Yet, as with Richard Goldner and Walter
Dullo – and indeed many of the audiences
and musicians in Musica Viva Australia’s
earliest years – the quartet made its own
opportunities in its adopted land, and
through these opportunities, we now hear
and understand music in America in the
second half of the 20th century so differently.
The appreciation of all the musicians in
this program of the significance of the
commission – alongside the delicious
opportunity to hear the quartet in repertory
it has made its own in the last five decades
– has been inspirational. Welcome back
to Australia, Edward, Harumi, Richard and
András!
— Paul Kildea
4

Program
Franz Joseph HAYDN (1732–1809)
String Quartet in G minor, Op. 74 No. 3 ‘The Rider’ (1793)
24 min
I
II
III
IV
Allegro (Fast)
Largo assai (Very slow)
Menuetto: Allegretto (A little fast) – Trio
Finale: Allegro con brio (Fast and energetic)
Cathy MILLIKEN
Sonnet of an Emigrant (2025)
after Bertolt Brecht
for narrator and string quartet
Commissioned for Musica Viva Australia. World premiere performances.
20 min
Selected poems from Brecht, B. (2020) Die Gedichte (J. Knopf, ed., 3rd ed.), Suhrkamp;
and Brecht, B. (1976) Poems 1913–1956 (J. Willett & R. Manheim, eds.), Eyre Methuen Ltd:
‘To the Soldiers in the East’; ‘Pleasures’; ‘Motto’; ‘The Leavetaking’; ‘Questions’;
‘Sonnet in Emigration’; ‘Everything Changes’.
I N T E R V A L
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)
String Quartet in C major, Op. 59 ‘Razumovsky’ No. 3 (1808)
34 min
I
II
III
IV
Andante con moto – Allegro vivace
(Moving along at an active walking pace – Fast and lively)
Andante con moto quasi allegretto
(Moving along at an easy walking pace)
Menuetto: Grazioso (Graceful)
Allegro molto (Very fast)
Please ensure that mobile phones are turned off before the performance.
Photography and video recording are not permitted during the performance.
5

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Masterclasses
© Sean Moloney
Musica Viva Australia creates opportunities for
Australian and internationally acclaimed artists to
share their experience and expertise with talented
early-career artists and young music students,
creating an enriching learning experience.
The following masterclasses are presented as
part of this tour:
• Melbourne | Fri 15 August, 10am–12pm
Australian National Academy of Music
— András Fejér
• Sydney | Tue 19 August, 10am–12pm
Conservatorium of Music
— András Fejér & Harumi Rhodes
• Brisbane | Tue 19 August, 6pm–8.30pm
The University of Queensland
— Edward Dusinberre & Richard O’Neill
• Brisbane | Thu 21 August, 11am–1pm
QLD Conservatorium, Griffith University
— Edward Dusinberre & Richard O’Neill
• Adelaide | Fri 22 August, 10am–12pm
Elder Conservatorium of Music
— Harumi Rhodes
• Perth | Mon 25 August, 10am–12pm
University of Western Australia,
Eileen Joyce Studio
— András Fejér & Harumi Rhodes
Musica Viva Australia’s Emerging Artists
Program, including Masterclasses, is
supported by:
Tom Breen & Rachael Kohn AO
Nicholas Callinan AO
& Elizabeth Callinan
Chamber Music Foundation
Caroline & Robert Clemente
John & Rose Downer Foundation
Andrea & Malcolm Hall-Brown
John & Rosemary MacLeod
Mercer Family Foundation
The Morawetz Family
in memory of Paul Morawetz
Marjorie Nicholas OAM
Patricia H Reid Endowment Fund
Craig Reynolds
Andrew Sisson AO & Tracey Sisson
YMF Australia
Anonymous (3)
Musica Viva Australia Masterclasses
are also supported by Wesfarmers Arts
in Western Australia, Monash University
in Victoria, University of Queensland,
and the Australian National University
in Canberra.
—
For details visit:
musicaviva.com.au/masterclasses
7

Meet the artists
© Marnya Rothe
© Annika Bauer
CATHY MILLIKEN
Born in Brisbane and based in Berlin, Cathy
Milliken is an award-winning composer
and performer known for her evocative
instrumental and vocal works. The social
relevance of her output has won her
international recognition as a leading
composer, creative director, educational
consultant and performer. A founding member
of Ensemble Modern, she worked extensively
with artists such as György Ligeti, Karlheinz
Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Fred Frith and
Frank Zappa.
Cathy Milliken has composed for concert,
opera, radio and film. Commissioners
include Southbank Centre London, the
Donaueschingen Festival, Staatsoper Berlin,
Arditti Quartet, Sydney Symphony Orchestra
and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.
International participatory compositions
include the Umculo Festival (South Africa),
Future Labo (Japan), Berlin Philharmonic
Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Ensemble
Modern, Remix Ensemble Casa da Música,
Asko|Schönberg and Munich Biennale.
Awards include the Prix Italia, the Prix Marulić,
the Australian Art Music Award, an Australia
Council Fellowship, and the YAMAward for
best youth opera.
ANGIE MILLIKEN
Angie Milliken is an Australian actress with
a diverse career in film, television and theatre.
A graduate of the National Institute of
Dramatic Art (NIDA), she landed her first lead
role on Australian TV in the mini-series The
Paperman, and on film she took lead roles in
Ray Argall’s Eight Ball and in Act of Necessity,
for which she earned her first Australian Film
Institute award nomination.
She has since won two AFI Best Actress
Awards and seven nominations for leading
roles in the TV series MDA, the mini-series My
Brother Jack, The Shark Net and Through My
Eyes. Her leading film roles have starred her
opposite Colin Friels in Solo, Hugh Jackman
in Paperback Hero and Bryan Brown in Dead
Heart.
Her recent independent film Passengers has
featured at many film festivals in the US and
Australia including Mill Valley, St Tropez,
Dungog and the Beverly Hills FTVNM. Her
work on stage has seen her performing for
many leading theatre companies, in particular
opposite Hugo Weaving at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music, and for Sydney Theatre
Company in The White Devil. In 2001 she was
awarded a Centenary Medal for Achievement
in the Arts. In the US she has also been seen
on CBS, guest starring in CSI Miami, and she
continues to work in both the US and Australia.
8

© Ian Malkin
Takács Quartet
The world-renowned Takács Quartet is now
entering its 50th anniversary season. Edward
Dusinberre, Harumi Rhodes (violins), Richard
O’Neill (viola) and András Fejér (cello) are
excited about upcoming projects including
performances throughout the USA of Mozart
viola quintets with Jordan Bak and a new string
quartet, NEXUS, written for them by Clarice
Assad, co-commissioned by leading concert
organisations throughout North America.
As Associate Artists at London’s Wigmore Hall,
the group will present four concerts featuring
works by Haydn, Assad, Debussy, Beethoven
and two Mozart viola quintets with Timothy
Ridout that will also be recorded for Hyperion.
Other European appearances include the
Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Konzerthaus
Berlin, Florence, Bologna, and Rome.
The members of the Takács Quartet are
Christoffersen Fellows and have been Artists
in Residence at the University of Colorado,
Boulder since 1986. During the summer
months the Takács join the faculty at the Music
Academy of the West, running an intensive
quartet seminar.
The Takács has recorded for Hyperion
since 2005. In 2021 the Takács won a Presto
Music Recording of the Year Award for their
recordings of string quartets by Fanny and
Felix Mendelssohn, and a Gramophone
Award with pianist Garrick Ohlsson for
piano quintets by Beach and Elgar. Other
releases for Hyperion feature works by Haydn,
Schubert, Janáček, Smetana, Debussy and
Britten, as well as piano quintets by César
Franck and Shostakovich (with Marc-André
Hamelin), and viola quintets by Brahms and
Dvořák (with Lawrence Power). For their CDs
on the Decca/London label, the Quartet has
won three Gramophone Awards, a Grammy
Award, three Japanese Record Academy
Awards, Disc of the Year at the inaugural
BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Ensemble
Album of the Year at the Classical BRITs.
The Takács Quartet is known for its innovative
programming. In July 2024 the ensemble gave
the premiere of Kachkaniraqmi by Gabriela
Lena Frank, a concerto for solo quartet and
string orchestra. Since 2021/22 the ensemble
has partnered regularly with bandoneon
virtuoso Julien Labro in a program featuring
new works by Clarice Assad and Bryce
Dessner, commissioned by Music Accord.
They have toured 14 cities with the poet
Robert Pinsky, and played regularly with the
Hungarian folk group Muzsikás.
The Takács Quartet was formed in 1975 at the
Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest by Gábor
Takács-Nagy, Károly Schranz, Gábor Ormai
and András Fejér, while all four were students.
The group received international attention in
1977, winning First Prize and the Critics’ Prize at
the International String Quartet Competition
in Evian, France. The Quartet made its North
American debut tour in 1982.
Members of the Takács Quartet are the
grateful beneficiaries of an instrument loan by
the Drake Foundation, and are grateful to be
Thomastik-Infeld Artists.
9

About the music
Haydn, as so often, dedicated the three
quartets of Op. 74 to a noble patron, in this
case a Hungarian, Count Apponyi. They
were, however, composed in 1792–93 for
concerts to be presented in London by the
impresario J.P. Salomon. As such, and unlike
any of his previous quartets, they were written
for a paying public, rather than the denizens
of aristocratic salons, and are, therefore,
‘popular’ music of a very high order.
The programs for such concerts often freely
mixed genres, and it would not have been
unusual for chamber music to share the stage
with a new symphony or vocal composition.
In these works Haydn develops a new
musical rhetoric that may reflect these new
circumstances. This is not to say that Haydn
dumbed his music down; in fact, as the late
Charles Rosen noted, Haydn’s work, like
Shakespeare’s, actually becomes more
sophisticated at precisely the same time as it
becomes more populist.
Haydn had a breakthrough with his Op.
33 quartets, composed in the early 1780s,
where he cultivated the short, memorable
phrases that characterised comic opera,
and, deploying them equally among the
four instrumental voices, created a new
democratic polyphony. By the time of Op.
74 this was, of course, second nature. The
London works take this conversational aspect
and enhance it with other characteristically
dramatic devices: the sudden use of
contrasting dynamics and rhythmic
dislocations, the unexpected moments of
complete silence, the deliberate wandering
into ‘wrong’ keys. And there is a new heft to
the texture at moments of emphasis: Haydn
uses techniques like double-stopping (playing
on more than one string at the same time) to
create powerful, almost orchestral effects.
The G minor work was nicknamed the ‘Rider’
(though not, of course, by Haydn) because
of the cantering rhythmic figure with which
it begins, though the main thematic interest
comes from the combination of a triplet
figure, passed from voice to voice, and a
pervasive short-short-long motif. The outer
movements are notable for their switch
from minor to major modes to conclude.
The second movement is based on a
sparse sequence of chords in the remote
key of E major, but repeatedly strays back
to G, notably in a shimmering passage of
demisemiquavers. The Menuetto is in a
cheerful G major, though contrasted with a
central, chromatic G minor Trio. In the Finale
Haydn cultivates a jovial folk-like idiom, with
rustic dance rhythms answered by passages
upholstered, Viennese-style, in parallel thirds
and a radiant major-key finish.
© GORDON KERRY 2013
Composer Cathy Milliken provides the
following commentary on Sonnet of an
Emigrant:
‘Spell your name!’ This seemingly simple
request becomes a pointed challenge to
identity. As an émigré and living in exile,
one’s past is erased – displaced from home,
severed from history. What remains is only
a name, broken into letters, repeated and
scrutinised.
10

Sonnet of an Emigrant, commissioned by
Musica Viva Australia for string quartet
and narrator, centres on the experience of
exile. While reading Bertolt Brecht’s writings
from his time in political exile, one poem in
particular – Sonnet in Emigration – stood
out to me. In this sonnet, Brecht recalls the
constant demand: ‘Wherever I go they ask
me: “Spell your name.”’
When in Berlin, my apartment happens
to overlook the Berliner Ensemble theatre.
Brecht co-founded this theatre with his
wife, Helene Weigel, after returning to East
Berlin in 1948, having been forced out of Los
Angeles by the McCarthy hearings. In the
square before the theatre stands a statue
of Brecht, silently observing the flow of
audiences arriving for performances of his
plays. From my balcony, I often see actors
preparing for their entrances, a nightly
reminder of Brecht’s enduring presence.
A year ago, as a fellow of the Villa Aurora
in Los Angeles – the former home of
Brecht’s friend and fellow émigré writer
Lion Feuchtwanger – I immersed myself
in Brecht’s extensive works housed in its
library. Brecht himself had been a frequent
© Annika Bauer
visitor there during his exile years. There is
a photograph of Brecht and Feuchtwanger
sitting on the balcony bench at the Villa,
overlooking the Pacific. I often sat here too,
leafing through Brecht’s poetic volumes,
imagining conversations past. Some of the
poems I selected for this composition were
written in Los Angeles; others come from the
Svendborg Poems, penned in exile in the
Danish countryside around 1938.
Sonnet of an Emigrant follows a timeline
inherent in the poems’ themes. The sequence
moves through exile’s emotional landscape,
beginning with a poem of longing and loss
– Und ich werde nicht mehr sehen (And I
will never again see) – and then recalling
the pleasures of the home country and
the simple freedoms. This reflection gives
way to the harried, forced leave-taking,
and then to letters written to loved ones,
expressed in Schreib mir (Write me) with its
insistent, urgent repetition. Brecht’s Sonnet
in Emigration, the pivotal poem that inspired
this work, follows as a moment of profound
reflection, dissecting identity in exile. The
final poem, Alles wandelt sich (Everything
changes), serves as a coda, contemplating
transformation and the challenge of adapting
to a shifting world.
Brecht’s poetry, with its intricate structures and
layered meanings, became the foundation
of the composition’s musical language. The
almost claustrophobic rhyming scheme of
the sonnet mirrors the stasis of exile, evoking
a sense of entrapment. Schreib mir conveys
urgency through relentless repetition. In
Alles wandelt sich, formal mirroring with
subtle deviations reflects the inevitability of
change. I could not however have composed
this work without being inspired by the
electric performances of the Takács Quartet
appearing now together with Angie Milliken.
I thank the Quartet and Angie for their
dedication to undertake this new work, as
well as Paul Kildea of Musica Viva Australia
for his inspiring dramaturgical input and
hugely knowledgeable accompaniment of
this commission.
11

Writing a string quartet based on Brecht’s
texts raised a fundamental question:
where does such a piece belong within
his artistic tradition? Should it embrace
theatricality, or maintain critical distance – the
Verfremdungseffekt that defined his approach
to theatre? In a 1958 BBC talk on Brecht,
Feuchtwanger, his friend and collaborator,
remarked: ‘Story, plot, continuity did not
matter to him. What mattered was the right
situation, the right gesture, the right word.
He visualised the gesture; out of the gesture
grew the word, and out of the word grew the
character … The word had to be light and
elegant. “Elegant” was a favourite adjective
of his.’
Perhaps this is my answer. The composition
does not seek to stage Brecht but rather to
distil his essence – through the right gesture,
the right musical phrase, the echo of a name,
spelled out and reshaped in sound. Though
written in the context of Brecht’s own exile,
these poems speak beyond their time. They
resonate with the displacement and identity
struggles of countless others, past and present,
for whom exile is not just a historical condition
but an ongoing reality. In their urgency and
humanity, they remind us that the experience
of losing and reclaiming one’s place in the
world remains as relevant today as ever.
A partial exception was made for this, the
third quartet, no doubt owing to the brilliance
and power of its fugal finale, and the seeming
backward-looking conventionality of its
third movement, a minuet rather than a
scherzo. Yet this quartet is in many ways the
most daring, the strangest of the three, for
all its Classical features. Maynard Solomon
suggests that, rather than being ‘symphonic
quartets’ with a public in mind, the three
Razumovsky quartets are really interior
monologues. Beethoven places trust in his
inner ear, which hears the quartet medium
in a new way. In this perspective the minuet
is a memory of a world Beethoven has seen
vanish.
CATHY MILLIKEN © 2025
Beethoven wrote over the sketches for the
finale of his Quartet in C major, Op. 59 No.3:
‘Make no secret of your deafness, not even
in art.’ The three Op. 59 quartets, dedicated
to Prince Razumovsky, patron of the string
quartet led by Ignaz Schuppanzigh, have
been seen as Beethoven’s adoption of a more
‘public’ manner in quartet writing. They are
vast in scale, with powerful effects, and highly
projected sonorities. If public success was
Beethoven’s aim, he failed: these quartets
were largely greeted with puzzlement. ‘Long
and difficult’ is representative of the critical
response.
Composer Robert Simpson suggests that
the amazing ‘themeless’ introduction to this
quartet may represent deafness itself. There
is no defined tonality – instead, a dwelling
on the interval of the diminished seventh,
in an atmosphere of mystery and suspense.
The ‘dissonant’ opening of Mozart’s Quartet
K. 465 is in the background. But Beethoven’s
continuation is, more than Mozart’s,
organically related to his introduction, as
proved by the importance given there to
the semitone interval, which also begins
the second subject. The rising intervals of a
12

tone, then a semitone, are springboards –
deafness, yes, observes Simpson, but the
inner ear is unimpaired, and music can go
on, eventually with a brilliant celebration
of the key of C major, almost military in its
splendour: ‘The introduction is like a man
struggling to hear something, and the
Allegro his inward success.’
Czerny reported that Beethoven had
promised Razumovsky to weave a Russian
melody into every one of the quartets
he dedicated to his patron. The theme
of the slow movement may or may not
be a Russian folksong, but it is Slavonic
in feeling. Beethoven’s first idea for
this movement was eventually used for
the second movement of the Seventh
Symphony; the idea in the Quartet also
has a fixation on rhythm, a kind of hypnotic
fascination. The cello pizzicati provide
a kind of fateful drumming under this
wandering minor-key cello melody, in a
brooding mood only partially relieved
by the almost naïve contrasting theme in
pointed notes.
If the Menuetto represents Beethoven’s
acceptance of his Classical heritage, what
follows shows him breaking and remaking
the mould. In spite of his counterpoint
studies with Albrechstberger, Beethoven
did not receive a thorough grounding in
fugue, and the word spread among his
contemporaries that he could not write
one. In his late piano sonatas and quartets
Beethoven was definitively to prove them
wrong; meanwhile, in the finale of this
quartet, he takes up where Mozart had left
off, mastering fugal elements combined
with sonata form. It is an outburst of
power, energy and control, restating the
polyphonic principle which is of the essence
of the string quartet, while stretching the
medium to unprecedented dynamism.
© DAVID GARRETT
Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) was one of the
most influential playwrights of the 20th
century. His works include The Threepenny
Opera (1928) with composer Kurt Weill,
Mother Courage and Her Children (1941),
The Good Person of Szechwan (1943), and
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1958). Brecht
was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, and the two
world wars directly affected his life and works.
He wrote poetry when he was a student but
studied medicine at the Ludwig Maximilian
University of Munich. After military service
during World War I, he abandoned his
medical studies to pursue writing and the
theatre.
A member of the Independent Social
Democratic Party, Brecht wrote theatre
criticism for a Socialist newspaper from 1919
to 1921. His plays were banned in Germany
in the 1930s, and in 1933 he went into exile,
first in Denmark and then Finland. He
moved to Santa Monica, California, in 1941,
hoping to write for Hollywood, but he drew
the attention of the House Un-American
Activities Committee. Although he managed
to deflect accusations of being a Communist,
he moved to Switzerland after the hearings.
He relocated to East Berlin in 1949 and ran the
Berliner Ensemble, a theatre company. As a
director, he advocated the ‘alienation effect’
(Verfremdungseffekt) in acting – an approach
intended to keep the audience emotionally
uninvolved in the plights of the characters.
Brecht’s poetry is collected in Poems 1913–1956
(1997) and Poetry and Prose: Bertolt Brecht
(2003). He wrote a wide variety of poetry,
including occasional poems, poems he set
to music and performed, songs and poems
for his plays, personal poems recording
anecdotes and thoughts, and political poems.
Poet Michael Hofmann, in ‘Singing about the
Dark Times: The Poetry of Bertolt Brecht’ for
the Liberal, commented, ‘In the course of a
mobile, active and engaged life, the poems
were the intelligent, compressed, adaptable
and self-contained form for both his private
and his public address.’
Bertolt Brecht died in 1956. He is buried in
Berlin.
© POETRY FOUNDATION
13

Interview
BY SHIRLEY APTHORP
The Same River Once
14
Cathy Milliken and Bertolt Brecht are, give or
take a few decades, neighbours. Cathy’s Berlin
home literally adjoins the Berliner Ensemble,
the theatre that Brecht founded and ran in
1950s East Berlin, and the writer’s erstwhile
home is just around the corner.
Talking with the composer and her actor
sister, Angie Milliken, requires different sorts
of temporal and geographic sleight of hand;
Angie is still based in Brisbane, where Cathy
grew up, and Zoom helps to bridge the
distance between us.
Numerous other tectonic shifts were necessary
for the inception of Sonnet of an Emigrant. A
commission from Paul Kildea for a piece for the
Takács Quartet; a composing residency at the
Villa Aurora in Los Angeles, where Brecht lived
and worked after fleeing from Nazi Germany;
a visit by Angie during the residency, ‘soaking
in the atmosphere of what that experience
must have been like’.
‘It was,’ recalls Cathy, ‘a happy melding of
interest and passion.’
After long and careful reflection, Cathy chose
eight of Brecht’s sonnets, pinning them to
her kitchen wall, moving pages until a clear
emotional curve emerged – shock, longing,
urgency, reflection, guarded optimism. She
briefly considered ending with ‘I shall never
see…’, then rejected it – too bleak – in favour of
Alles wandelt sich (‘Everything changes’). She
wanted ‘a language which was not ornate’,
mirroring Brecht’s stripped-down diction.
Angie served as her first listener: ‘If it didn’t
ring true to me, I’d say.’ Cathy kept adjusting:
‘Nobody wins if the text can’t be heard,’ she
explains, and so pauses and tempi shifted until
every word landed cleanly.
The sonnets date from 1940–42, when Brecht
moved between Scandinavia and California,
fearful of Nazi reach and wary of McCarthyism
and the FBI. Their imagery – letters in the post,
newspapers, old books – may be historical, but
the Millikens hear them everywhere.
‘When they were living in Los Angeles,’ Angie
says, ‘and the end of the Second World War
was declared, Brecht immediately started
thinking, where do we go next? What’s our
next move? That sense of being chased, of
never settling – that’s still very much alive now.’
Cathy agrees. ‘I think what he experienced was
this ever-changing existence. He left his writing
desk, his settled life, and moved into something
unstable, on the run all the time. And yet he
managed to write from inside that instability.’
Through flight, exile, yearning, and the search
for belonging, Cathy’s libretto settles on the
immutability of change: ‘You cannot shake
off the water you poured into the wine,’ Brecht
acknowledges; ‘You can begin again with your
last breath.’
‘That’s where I wanted to land,’ Cathy explains.
‘Because exile is movement, and sometimes
that movement carries hope.’
The conversation turns to Gaza, to the
Ukrainian refugees adapting to Berlin life,
to German right-wing debates about ‘remigration’
and Australian internment camps.
Art, Cathy believes, still has a role in all this. ‘It
doesn’t always have to be political. But it can
bring things into focus – quietly, suddenly. Even
just the act of bringing old literature back into
circulation can be powerful.’
Angie agrees. ‘There’s a kind of desensitisation
happening, a feeling of helplessness, or even
apathy. But I really believe that in art, there’s
a chance for re-sensitisation. The work has a
quiet intensity that builds without you really
knowing it. It sneaks under your skin.’

Composer and actor share overlapping
tools. As an oboist and founding member of
Germany’s cutting-edge Ensemble Modern,
Cathy’s performances have often involved
acting; Angie studied music before turning to
stage and screen. In every line of the score,
Cathy wrote with her sister’s voice in mind.
‘Angie is kind of my voice of truth,’ she says.
‘She nudges me when something is off. She
brings this incredible sensitivity, a deep
knowledge of text. She’s not just reading it –
she’s inhabiting it.’
Angie’s role is not one of declamation or
recitation. ‘I’m the fifth instrument,’ she says.
‘It’s intimate – four string players and me.
There are parts where they’re waiting for me,
and parts where I’m counting like mad to stay
with them. It’s exposed. But it’s also a cocreation.
Every performance will be different.’
The Takács Quartet, too, was written into the
DNA of the piece. Though she had known of
the ensemble for many years, Cathy first heard
them play live in Santa Monica, while still in
residence at Villa Aurora. ‘They’re incredibly
powerful,’ she says. ‘A Classical-Romantic
quartet with a long history – and a history of
exile, too. Their sound is so unified, but within
that you can hear four distinct languages.’
For Cathy, living next door to Bertolt Brecht is
just part of a broader connection, including
links to composers who worked with Brecht
during his lifetime. Her musical lineage
includes years working with Heiner Goebbels
on the music of Hanns Eisler, and she knows
musicians who had performed under Paul
Dessau at the Berliner Ensemble. ‘That all fed
in,’ she says. ‘But at some point I had to make
my own way through, especially as a non-
German.’
Her own way includes the deft use of silence
and space. The string-players might graze the
bridge for a breath-like hiss, then dissolve into
stillness. ‘There’s urgency, intensity, but also
space and breath,’ Angie says. ‘Cath’s music
moves deftly between emotional immediacy
and objectivity. There’s great range within
it. And what I love is that it lets the audience
inhabit that space too.’
Cathy agrees. ‘I was very conscious of not
being ornate. I wanted clarity of purpose. Each
poem has its own world. I tried to reflect that,
and also the fluctuation – the fragility of the
moment.’
They sisters have collaborated before – on
Hamlet Link, and later Songs of Love and War
– but this feels different. ‘In those earlier works,
the musicians had to follow me,’ Angie says.
‘This time, I’m one of them.’
Their rehearsal window is short: two days
in Berlin, one on site. But there’s trust. ‘The
printed page is just so strong,’ Cathy says.
‘It’s daunting, actually. I just want to let Brecht
speak.’
Part of the work’s tension emerges from its
scale: modest, precise, intimate. The listener is
invited to imagine writing to a loved one they
may never see again, or trying to plan a future
when nothing in the present is stable. ‘It’s not
about reducing the text to what I feel,’ Angie
says. ‘There’s a much larger canvas I want to
expand into. It’s a universal experience. And
it’s happening again.’
Alles wandelt sich. Everything changes. It’s a
closing line – but not a full stop.
15

2 O 2 5
Experience
the thrill, the joy of
Strike A Chord live!
SAT 30 AUGUST, 2PM
MELBOURNE RECITAL CENTRE
Join us for an unforgettable experience at the
Strike A Chord National Final – Australia’s
premier chamber music competition for
school-aged musicians. Witness twelve of
the country’s top youth chamber music groups
as they showcase their talents and compete
for prestigious cash and professional
development prizes.
Don’t miss this chance to support the next
generation of chamber music talent from all over
Australia. Book your tickets from 21 June or tune
in online and be part of this exciting event.
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Trio Isimsiz
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presented with dazzling technical mastery’
Gramophone Magazine
30 September–14 October
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Let
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© James Grant
The music you’ve loved.
The moments that moved you.
The performances that stayed with you long after the final note.
All of these can live on.
For 80 years, Musica Viva Australia has brought music to life
in concert halls, classrooms and communities across the country.
As an audience member, you’ve been part of that story.
By leaving a gift in your will, you can help ensure future generations
experience the same magic that music has given you – whether
through our world-class concert series, leading education programs,
or by nurturing the artists of tomorrow.
Let your love of music play on.
MUSICAVIVA.COM.AU/LEGACY
For a confidential conversation, please contact our Director of Development:
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THANK YOU TO OUR WONDERFUL DONORS
It's the generosity of our donor family that brings our work to life. Their support enables us to continue to
create, produce and present, year after year—for 80 years—showcasing the finest artists; supporting the
next generation of talent; and providing industry-leading education programs to students of all ages,
right across the country. We can't thank you enough.
CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT
COLLECTIVE
Thank you to these generous donors whose visionary
investment will bring to life MVA’s artistic vision.
Darin Cooper Foundation
Prof. Malcolm Gillies AM & Dr David Pear
Peter Griffin AM & Terry Swann
International Music & Arts Foundation
Richard Wilkins
ENSEMBLE PATRONS
Our national concert season for 2025 is made possible
thanks to the extraordinary generosity of our Ensemble
Patrons, each of whom supports the presentation of an
entire national tour for this season.
The Cage Project
Ian Dickson AM & Reg Holloway
Jess Hitchcock & Penny Quartet
Chamber Music Foundation
Hollywood Songbook
Ensemble Patrons Ian Dickson AM & Reg Holloway
Chamber Music Foundation
Other Tour Support Ms Felicity Rourke & Justice François Kunc
Northern Lights
Bruce & Charmaine Cameron
Takács Quartet with Angie Milliken
Ensemble Patrons Chamber Music Foundation
Supporting Angie Milliken Susie Dickson
MVAIS ENSEMBLE PATRONS
MVAIS Ensemble Patrons support the exceptional ensembles
which deliver childhood music education programs for
Musica Viva Australia In Schools.
El Camino
Ray Wilson OAM & Raymond Camillire
in memory of James Agapitos OAM
Life is an Echo
Jo Strutt
Lost Histories
Kay Vernon
Music of the World
Gresham Partners
Music in my Suitcase
Valerie & Michael Wishart
On the Wireless
Alison Kerry
Water Rhythms
Anthony Strachan
EMERGING ARTISTS
GIVING CIRCLE
The collective support of our Emerging Artists Patrons enables the
artistic development of the next generation of Australian chamber
musicians via our Masterclasses, Strike A Chord and FutureMakers
programs.
Tom Breen & Rachael Kohn AO, Nicholas Callinan AO &
Elizabeth Callinan, Chamber Music Foundation, Caroline &
Robert Clemente, John & Rose Downer Foundation, Andrea &
Malcolm Hall-Brown, John & Rosemary MacLeod , Mercer Family
Foundation, The Morawetz Family in memory of Paul Morawetz,
Marjorie Nicholas OAM, Patricia H. Reid Endowment Fund, Craig
Reynolds, Andrew Sisson AO & Tracey Sisson, YMF Australia,
Anonymous (3)
CONCERT CHAMPIONS
The mainstage concerts of our 2025 Season are brought
to life thanks to the generosity of our Concert Champions
around the country.
ACT Andrew Blanckensee & Anonymous,
Dr Ray Edmondson OAM & Sue Edmondson, Dr Sue Packer AO,
Sue Terry & Len Whyte
NSW In memory of Dr Catherine Brown-Watt PSM,
Patricia Crummer, Pam Cudlipp, Dr Jennifer Donald &
Mr Stephen Burford, Charles Graham in acknowledgement
of his piano teacher Sana Chia, Katherine & Reg Grinberg,
Robert & Lindy Henderson, Newcastle Concert Champions,
In honour of the late Kenneth W Tribe AC
QLD Andrew & Kate Lister, Andrea & Malcolm Hall-Brown,
Barry & Diana Moore, Anonymous (3)
SA Don Aldridge & Veronica Aldridge OAM, McDougall
Telfer Foundation, Dr Susan Marsden & Michael Szwarcbord,
In memory of Lesley Lynn
VIC Peter Griffin AM & Terry Swann in honour of the
93rd birthday of Barry Jones AC, Penelope Hughes, Peter Lovell
& Michael Jan, In memory of Paul Morawetz, Mark & Suzy Suss in
memory of Dr James Pang, Dr Michael Troy, The late G D Watson,
Mr Igor Zambelli
WA A gift to share the love of music (2), Deborah Lehmann
(in memory of Michael Alpers), For Stephanie Quinlan (2),
Robyn Tamke, Valerie & Michael Wishart
AMADEUS SOCIETY
The Amadeus Society is a group of passionate music lovers
and advocates in Sydney and Melbourne, who have joined
together to support the extraordinary artistic initiatives of
Musica Viva Australia.
Tony Berg AM & Carol Berg AM, Tom Breen &
Rachael Kohn AO, Dr Annette Gero, Katherine &
Reg Grinberg, Jennifer Hershon, Fred Hilmer AO &
Claire Hilmer, Penelope Hughes, Stephen & Michele Johns,
Michael & Frédérique Katz, Philip Robinson,
Andrew Rosenberg, Ray Wilson OAM
19

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 also grateful to the following for their generous
support of this work: Katherine & Reg Grinberg,
D R & K M Magarey, Ken & Liz Nielsen, Playking Foundation,
Richard Wilkins, A gift to share the love of music, Anonymous.
LASTING GIFTS
We are deeply appreciative of those who have chosen to leave
a bequest to Musica Viva Australia in their will, to make a lasting
impact that not only celebrates their passion for music but
enables music for future generations of audiences and artists
alike. Your legacy will live on through our work.
LEGACY DONORS
We proudly honour the generous legacies of those donors who
are no longer with us, and the impact their support still has today.
NSW The late Charles Berg AM OBE,
The late Stephan Center, The late Janette Hamilton,
The late Dr Ralph Hockin in memory of Mabel Hockin,
The late Geraldine Kenway, The late Merle Joan Lambourne,
The late Judith Osborne Finalson, The late Kenneth Mansfield
Saxby, The late Elizabeth Varley, The late Kenneth W Tribe AC
QLD
The late Steven Kinston
SA The late Edith Dubsky, In memory of Helen Godlee,
The late Anne Hirsch, 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
CUSTODIANS
We thank those who have notified us of their intention
to leave a gift to us in their will.
ACT Margaret Brennan, Clive & Lynlea Rodger,
Ruth Weaver, Anonymous (3)
NSW Graham Blazey, Jennifer Bott AO, Lloyd &
Mary Jo Capps AM, Andrew & Felicity Corkill,
Peter Cudlipp, Liz Gee, Suzanne Gleeson, David &
Christine Hartgill, Annie Hawker, Dorothy Hoddinott AO,
Mathilde Kearny-Kibble, Elaine Lindsay, Trevor Noffke,
Dr David Schwartz, Ruth Spence-Stone,
Mary Vallentine AO, Derek Watt, Deirdre Nagle Whitford,
Richard Wilkins, Kim Williams AM, Megan Williamson,
Ray Wilson OAM, Anonymous (14)
QLD John Nightingale & Leslie Martin, Anonymous (2)
SA Monica Hanusiak-Klavins & Martin Klavins,
Anonymous (4)
TAS
Kim Paterson KC, Anonymous
VIC Elizabeth & Anthony Brookes, Julian Burnside AO KC,
Ms Helen Dick, Robert Gibbs & Tony Wildman,
Penelope Hughes, Helen Vorrath, Anonymous (7)
WA Janice Dudley, Anne Last, Graham Lovelock,
Robyn Tamke, Anonymous (2)
ANNUAL DONORS
We’re thankful to our annual donors who support our work where
it’s needed most and for all they enable us to do—both on and
off the stage—for Australian musicians, artists and music lovers,
including our extensive education and outreach programs.
MAJOR GIFTS
NSW The Berg Family Foundation,
Patricia H. Reid Endowment Fund, Anonymous
QLD
ACT
Ian & Caroline Frazer
Marion & Michael Newman
$100,000+
$50,000+
NSW J A Donald Family, Katherine & Reg Grinberg,
Elisabeth Hodson & the late Dr Thomas Karplus
NSW
WA
Nora Goodridge OAM
Anonymous
NSW Michael & Frédérique Katz, Vicki Olsson, Kim
Williams AO & Catherine Dovey, Anonymous
$25,000+
$10,000+
QLD Andrea & Malcolm Hall-Brown, Anonymous (2)
VIC Peter Lovell & Michael Jan, The Morawetz Family
in memory of Anita Morawetz, Marjorie Nicholas OAM,
Joy Selby Smith, Mark & Anna Yates
WA
WA Committee of Musica Viva Australia
ANNUAL GIFTS
ACT
Sue Terry & Len Whyte
$5000+
NSW Judith Allen, Maia Ambegaokar & Joshua Bishop,
Mrs Christine Bishop, Thomas Dent, Sarah & Tony Falzarano,
Charles & Wallis Graham, Karin Keighley, Catharine &
Robert Kench, Andrea Larkin, Lynda O’Grady, David &
Carole Singer, Ezekiel Solomon AM, Diane Sturrock,
Kay Vernon, Richard Wilkins, Anonymous
SA
Hugh & Fiona MacLachlan OAM, Anonymous
VIC Alastair & Sue Campbell, Mr Carrillo Gantner AC,
Linda Herd, Myer Family Foundation, Michael Nossal &
Jo Porter, Ralph & Ruth Renard, Greg Shalit & Miriam Faine,
Lyn Williams, Victorian Committee of Musica Viva Australia,
Anonymous
WA Jace Foundation, Deborah Lehmann
(in memory of Michael Alpers), Mrs Morrell,
David Wallace & Jamelia Gubgub
20

$2500+
ACT Odin Bohr & Anna Smet, Mick & Margaret Toller,
Anonymous
NSW D Barbeler & K Kemp, In memory of Dr Catherine
Brown-Watt PSM, Susan Burns, Hon J C Campbell KC &
Mrs Campbell, Richard Cobden SC, Howard Dick,
Dr James Gillespie & Ms Deena Shiff, Charles & Wallis
Graham, Kevin & Deidre McCann, Royal Hotel Dungog,
Dr Liz Watson & Mr Ben Skerman
QLD Stephen Emmerson, Jocelyn Luck, Barry &
Diana Moore, Barbara Williams & Jankees van der Have
SA DJ & EM Bleby, Ann & David Matison,
McDougall Telfer Foundation
VIC Bibi Aickin, Alexandra Clemens, Anne Frankenberg
& Adrian McEniery, Liz & Alex Furman, Peter Kingsbury,
Angela & Richard Kirsner, Prof. John Rickard, Maria Sola,
Helen Vorrath
WA Gavin Ashley, Dr Bennie Ng & Olivier David,
Dr Robert Larbalestier AO, Anne Last & Steve Scudamore,
Legacy Unit Trust, Zoe Lenard & Hamish Milne
$1000+
ACT Andrew Blanckensee, The Breen/Dullo Family,
Christopher Clarke, Dr Jean Finnegan, R & V Hillman,
Elspeth Humphries, Claudia Hyles OAM, Margaret &
Peter Janssens, Dr Sue Packer AO, Clive & Lynlea Rodger,
Kristin van Brunschot & John Holliday, Ms Theanne Walters,
John Warren & Emma Warren, Ruth Weaver, Anonymous (2)
NSW David & Rae Allen, Dr Warwick Anderson,
Gay Bookallil, Tom Breen & Rachael Kohn AO, Neil Burns,
Hugh & Hilary Cairns, Vanessa Cragg & the late Ronald
D Cragg OAM, Robin & Wendy Cumming, Greta Davis,
Nancy Fox AM & Bruce Arnold, John & Irene Garran,
The Hon. Donald Harwin, Bryan Havenhand &
Anna Kaemmerling, Annie Hawker, Lybus Hillman,
Fred Hilmer AO & Claire Hilmer, Dr Ailsa Hocking &
Dr Bernard Williams, Dorothy Hoddinott AO, Deborah Jones,
Jennifer Littman-Ferns, Ms Kathryn Magarey,
Prof. Craig Moritz, Frances Morris, Paul O’Donnell,
Trish Richardson in memory of Andy Lloyd James, Tom &
Dalia Stanley, Dr Robyn Smiles, Geoff Stearn, Graham
& Judy Tribe, Andrew Wells AM, Megan Williamson,
Anonymous (2)
QLD George Booker & Denise Bond, Prof. Paul &
Ann Crook, Bruce Davis, Robin Harvey, Lynn & John Kelly,
Keith Moore
SA Zoë Cobden-Jewitt & Peter Jewitt, Mrs Mary
Handley, Elizabeth Ho OAM in honour of the late Tom Steel,
Joan Lyons, Dr Leo Mahar, Geoff & Sorayya Martin,
Leon Pitchon, Jennie Shaw, Anne Sutcliffe, Colin &
Sandra Taylor, Robert & Glenys Woolcock, Anonymous (4)
VIC Russ & Jacqui Bate, Jan Begg, David Bernshaw &
Caroline Isakow, Alison & John Cameron, Alex & Elizabeth
Chernov, Dhar Family, Dr Elizabeth Douglas, Dr Glenys &
Dr Alan French, Mary-Jane Gething, Andrea Goldsmith,
Naomi & George Golvan KC, John & Margaret Harrison,
Lyndsey & Peter Hawkins, Virginia Henry, Doug Hooley,
House for Music, Angela Kayser, Ann Lahore, June K Marks,
Janet McDonald, Ruth McNair AM & Rhonda Brown in
memory of Patricia Begg & David McNair, Noel Renouf &
Robyn Duff, Christopher Menz & Peter Rose, D & F Nassau,
Barry Robbins, Murray Sandland, Ms Thea Sartori,
Ms Janet Souter, Kate Stockwin & Michael Bennett,
Darren Taylor & Kent Stringer, David & Gai Taylor,
Mr Charles Tegner, Ray Turner & Jennifer Seabrook,
Ian Watts OAM, Anonymous (3)
WA Dr S Cherian, Michael & Wendy Davis, In memory
of Raymond Dudley, Hugh & Margaret Lydon, Marian Magee
& David Castillo, Prof. Robyn Owens AM, Margaret &
Roger Seares, Philip Thick & Paula Rogers, Anonymous (4)
$500+
ACT Prof. Michael Bessell, Margaret Brennan,
Alison Craswell & Eric Craswell, Jill Fleming, Marjorie Gilby,
Robert Hefner, Lauren Honcope, Janet Kay, Margaret Oates,
Helen Rankin, Dr Paul & Dr Lel Whitbread, Anonymous
NSW Dinah Beeston, Christopher Burrell AO &
Margaret Burrell, Robert Cahill & Anne Cahill OAM,
Lucia Cascone, Lyn Casey, Pam Cudlipp, Peter Cumines,
John & Patricia Curotta, The Hon. Elizabeth Evatt AC,
Anthony Gregg, Kate Girdwood, Pauline Griffin AM,
The Harvey Family, David & Sarah Howell, Megan Jones,
Mathilde Kearny-Kibble, Jocelyn Kelty, Dr Bridget Mabbutt,
Dr Colin MacArthur, Ms Celia Murphy, Michael & Janet
Neustein, Dr Kim Ostinga OAM & Mrs Margaret Ostinga,
Christina Pender, Jennifer & Roy Randall, In memory of
Katherine Robertson, John & Sue Rogers, Penny Rogers,
Peter & Heather Roland, Nicola Shelley, Kate Tribe,
Matthew Westwood, Geoffrey White OAM &
Sally White OAM, Mrs Jenny Williams,
Mrs Margaret Wright, Anonymous (9)
QLD Janet Franklin, Prof. Robert G Gilbert,
Matthew Gillett, Ms Carol Groenenberg, Jennifer Kennedy,
Timothy Matthies & Chris Bonnily, Mr Jeffrey Willmer,
Anonymous
SA Richard Blomfield, Max Brennan, Elizabeth Hawkins,
Dr Norman James & Mrs Christine James, Dr Iwan Jensen,
Robert Kenrick, Julie Mencel & Michael McKay, Tony Seymour,
Dr Lesley Smith, Anonymous
VIC Joanna Baevski, Bows for Strings,
Coll & Roger Buckle, Pam Caldwell, Marie Dalziel,
Dr Anthea Hyslop, Nancy James, Eda Ritchie AM,
Prof. Lynne Selwood, Maureen Turner, The Australian
Strings Association (AUSTA), Anonymous (5)
WA Jennifer Butement, Fred & Angela Chaney,
Dr Barry Green, Dr Penny Herbert in memory of
Dunstan Herbert, Russell Hobbs & Sue Harrington, Alicia Park,
NevarcInc, Lindsay & Suzanne Silbert, Anonymous (2)
THANK YOU
We are grateful to our donors at all levels,
including those who contribute up to $500.
Every gift really makes a difference.
21

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).
CONCERT PARTNERS
Perth Concert Series Sydney Morning Masters Series Major Project Partner
Philanthropic Supporters
Chamber Music
Foundation
Jace
Foundation
Myer
Foundation
Legal
Piano & Tuning
Accountant
Wine
Broadcast
Print
Hotel
EMERGING ARTISTS PARTNERS
Competitions
FutureMakers Lead Partner
Principal Partner
Strategic Partner
Grand Prize Partner
Key Philanthropic Partners
Scobie and Claire
Mackinnon Trust
Chamber Music
Foundation
Perpetual Foundation
– Alan (AGL) Shaw
Endowment
22

EDUCATION PARTNERS
Government Partnerships & Support
National Education Supporters
Anthony & Sharon Lee
Foundation
J A Donald Family
Marion & Mike Newman
In Schools Performance, Education & Development Program
• Gardos Family • Godfrey Turner Memorial Music Trust • In memory of Anita Morawetz
• Margaret Henderson Music Trust • Marsden Szwarcbord Foundation
• McDougall Telfer Foundation • Perpetual Foundation • Anonymous
National Music Residency Program
The
Benjamin
Fund
The Marian & E.H. Flack Trust
Day Family Foundation
• Aldridge Family Endowment • Carthew Foundation • Foskett Foundation
• Jennifer & John Henshall • Anonymous
23

Untold Stories
BY MATTHEW WESTWOOD
No hard cell in love of music
Geneticist Jenny Donald finds infinite variety and
fascination in the evolving story of chamber music.
The years that Jenny Donald spent working on
her PhD in Adelaide in the late 1970s coincided
with the beginning of what would become a
lifelong devotion to chamber music.
By day, Jenny was working in the lab at
the University of Adelaide, peering into
microscopes and growing kangaroo cells from
marsupial blood and skin samples.
‘We grew them in cough-medicine bottles – we
couldn’t afford the fancy plastic flasks,’ Jenny
recalls. ‘I mapped a couple of genes onto a
kangaroo chromosome in my PhD. It seems like
a modest accomplishment these days, but in
those days it was cutting-edge technology.’
In the evenings, Jenny was cultivating her
love of chamber music. An aunt and uncle in
Adelaide were involved in the music scene,
and Jenny recalls there being piles of LP
records at their home, and dinners with the
likes of Edith Dubsky, who was for many years
the honorary secretary and chief organiser for
Musica Viva Australia in the city.
Jenny started going to concerts with her aunt
and uncle. One that has particularly stayed
in her memory was with the Sydney String
Quartet. ‘They played Ravel’s String Quartet
and I was completely blown away by it,’ she
says. ‘I’d never heard music like that before.
And that was it – I just kept going to concerts.’
Chamber music has grown on Jenny so
profoundly that she wants others to share
the enjoyment it gives her. With her family,
Jenny is a National Education Supporter for
Musica Viva Australia In Schools, helping to
deliver live music to thousands of primary-age
students across the country. Jenny and her
husband Stephen Burford also support Musica
Viva Australia’s mainstage concerts as Sydney
Concert Champions – most recently for the
Hollywood Songbook tour with the Signum
Saxophone Quartet and Ali McGregor.
After completing her PhD, Jenny moved
to London as a medical researcher and
immersed herself in that city’s cultural life.
An ‘Aha!’ moment, when she finally ‘got’
opera, was seeing Carmen at the Royal Opera
House with Agnes Baltsa and José Carreras.
But her main love was chamber music, and
she would go to several concerts a week if
she wanted to, at the Southbank Centre or
Wigmore Hall.
‘In my five years in London I must have gone
to several Beethoven cycles and a Bartók cycle
at Wigmore Hall,’ she says. ‘Everyone was so
serious, sitting there with their scores. The nice
thing about being in London was there were
lots of cheap seats if you were a young person.
I just went to an incredible array of things.
‘It’s chamber music that I find so enthralling
and I can get really immersed in it, listening to
a string quartet and following the four voices
as they interact with each other. Many times,
the music has moved me to tears. I really can’t
talk at the end of a piece.’
Jenny and Stephen have two adult children,
Claire and Andrew, both of whom studied
music through their school years. Claire played
cello and Andrew the clarinet, and they had
ample opportunities for joining orchestras and
chamber groups.
24

‘My kids had such fantastic musical
experiences in the state system,’ Jenny says.
‘We just happened to have a great local
primary school and they got into selective
schools with really talented musical kids.
‘I was on parent committees at the primary
school and the high school, so I got to see a
lot of kids and watch them on their musical
journey. I saw how much everybody got out of
the music, and I know that lots of kids at other
schools don’t have that opportunity.’
It explains why Jenny and the Donald family
have so generously supported Musica Viva
Australia In Schools.
‘It’s a wonderful thing if more children can be
exposed to music,’ she says. ‘Hearing a Musica
Viva Australia In Schools concert can inspire
these kids. If you don’t see people playing
music, you don’t know that you could do it, too.’
As a supporter of Musica Viva Australia’s
concert tours, Jenny says she is excited at the
variety of chamber music that Artistic Director
Paul Kildea brings to Australian audiences.
‘Paul has brought some really interesting
combinations of instruments that you wouldn’t
have thought of – like the Signum Saxophone
Quartet,’ she says. ‘And I love the visual aspect
in concerts such as A Winter’s Journey, which
was just stunning.
‘I enjoy the fact that we get the classics of
the repertoire and different sorts of musical
experiences. I feel that I’m still discovering new
things.’
Jenny’s work in medical research helped
identify the genetic contribution to diseases
such as testicular cancer and familial
hypercholesterolemia. She particularly
enjoyed the intellectual challenge of genetics,
working alongside teams of clinicians and
lab researchers and analysing the data they
produce. For many years she also taught
human genetics at Macquarie University.
Is there a particular gene for music?
‘There isn’t a gene for music, that’s for sure,’
Jenny says. ‘But as with a lot of things, there’s
a combination of aptitude and environment,
and things that come together in particular
ways – when people have a “good ear” and
can easily sing in tune, that is probably an
inherited ability.
‘But loving music is a different thing again.
You don’t need to have a really good ear to
love music. It’s about being exposed to musical
experiences that move you and excite you,
and that get you thinking.’
Blaž Kemperle, Jenny Donald, Stephen Burford and Alan Lužar
—
This is part of a series of Untold Stories, about the people behind the music at Musica Viva Australia.
Play your part in the future story of Musica Viva Australia by making a gift in our 80th anniversary year.
To discuss making a gift, please contact Matthew Westwood, mwestwood@musicaviva.com.au
25

Tribute
Charles J Berg AM OBE (1917–1988)
In loving memory
No history of Musica Viva Australia could
be written without paying tribute to a man
whose enthusiasm for chamber music was
unbounded, and who worked tenaciously to
see it grow and flourish in Australia – the late
Charles J Berg AM OBE.
Charles Berg was born in Berlin in 1917, son of
an orchestral conductor who was a champion
of the works of Richard Strauss and Alban
Berg. Charles studied violin, piano and
composition, developing a deep love of music
from an early age. A growing tide of antisemitism,
however, became an overwhelming
influence in his teenage years, and he was
forced to leave his studies at the age of 16 to
undertake an accountancy apprenticeship
in Berlin with a heavy industry firm owned
by a Jewish family. It was this that took him
to London in 1937, where he became fluent in
English.
In September 1937, Charles Berg came to
Australia with £200: £50 of his own and £150
borrowed. After a short period in Melbourne
he went to Sydney where he decided to stay,
selling his beloved violin for £30 to help
finance his new life. While working full time
he studied accountancy at night, and he
established his own accountancy practice
in 1945.
On 8 December 1945, Charles attended the
first Musica Viva Australia concert at the
NSW Conservatorium, never dreaming (he
admitted later) that he would be involved with
the organisation for so much of his life. Two
years later he joined the Committee of the
fledgling organisation.
Difficult economic circumstances forced the
organisation into recess from 1951 to 1954, in
which year Charles and a number of his local
colleagues (including Musica Viva Australia’s
former Patron, the late Kenneth Tribe) each
gave £100 as a guarantee against loss to
reinstate chamber music presentations by
visiting overseas artists. Charles acted as
Committee Secretary, keeping a watchful eye
on finances as the organisation began to thrive
again.
Musica Viva Australia branches were quickly
established by enthusiastic volunteers
in Melbourne and Adelaide, and the
organisation’s impressive national network
began to grow. It did so under Charles Berg’s
watchful, often conservative (but never timid)
direction. He was President of the Musica Viva
Society from 1962.
In 1973, Charles stepped down from his
Musica Viva Austalia office to take up another
arts challenge – the Chairmanship of The
Australian Opera (now Opera Australia),
which he took up in 1974. He served with
great personal commitment in that voluntary
capacity for a record 12 years, weathering with
grace the often tumultuous upheavals inherent
in any artistic organisation’s growth to depth
and maturity.
Throughout his years at the Opera, and after
his retirement as Chairman, Charles continued
to exhibit a keen interest in, and concern for,
Musica Viva Australia. His death in 1988 was
a loss not only to Musica Viva Australia, but to
the Australian arts community as a whole.
Charles Berg’s son, Tony Berg AM, was
Chairman of Musica Viva Australia from 1986
to 1999 and is now the organisation’s Patron.
The concert in Sydney on Monday 18 August commemorates
Charles J Berg’s contribution to the development of Musica Viva Australia.
26

Did you know over 90% of Musica Viva Australia’s
audiences are under 15?
That’s because every year, Musica Viva Australia In Schools brings
live music to life for more than 170,000 students across the country.
In 2026, we celebrate 45 years of delivering world-class music
education – connecting students to culture, creativity, and
each other through the power of music.
OUR AWARD-WINNING PROGRAM OFFERS:
• Live music incursions
performed by exceptional professional ensembles
• Curriculum-aligned digital resources
that support classroom learning
• Professional Development for teachers,
making music accessible to all
Whether it’s discovering instruments from around the world,
exploring identity through song, or simply experiencing the
joy of a shared performance, Musica Viva Australia In Schools
offers something for every classroom.
For more information, visit
musicaviva.com.au/education

Music
Makes
Memories
What impact has music had on your life?
Do you remember the first time Musica Viva Australia
performed at your school, sparking your curiosity about
instruments that opened new worlds of possibility?
Or the first time you heard a string quartet brought to
life at a concert?
As we celebrate 80 years of music and memories,
we invite you to make a donation in honour of the
cherished experiences you’ve shared with us.
Your support will ensure that we continue to inspire,
educate and create memorable moments for more
Australians, for generations to come.
GIVE A BIRTHDAY GIFT TODAY!
musicaviva.com.au/support-us