2024 Concerts
19 October, 7:30pm | Concert 4
Single Tickets
Prices Adult $56 | Senior $43 | Concession $34 (All tickets are subject to booking fees.)
Tickets for individual concerts will be available online: ae.unsw.edu.au or by phoning 02 9385 4874,
on sale from Monday February 12, 2024.
Membership Booking [4-Concert Package]
Prices Adult $175 | Senior $131 | Concession $105 (All tickets are subject to booking fees.)
General public bookings closed on 29 January, 2024 for processing and distribution.
For all membership purchases after this date, please email your request to australia.ensemble@unsw.edu.au
In 2024, the Australia Ensemble UNSW turns a page to enter a new era, where we simultaneously honour our established past while pioneering a future path. Our four-concert program celebrates some exciting new performers with an international presence who will complement our highly acclaimed continuing ensemble members.
We begin in celebration of the legacy of our string players who first performed as a quartet with the Australia Ensemble in the 1990s. Our emeritus artists Dene Olding and Irina Morozova return in a vivid program with a recent, expressive and atmospheric quartet by the New Zealand composer Gareth Farr, contrasting with Beethoven’s mid-period, tight knit ‘Harp’ Quartet. Clarinettist David Griffiths on the basset clarinet joins the strings for the exquisite Mozart Clarinet Quintet, the instrument on which Mozart intended the work to be performed.
A new generation of performers will join us for the second concert. We welcome US-based Australian pianist, David Fung, described by The Edinburgh Guide as “impossibly virtuosic” and “prodigiously talented” as well as dynamite violinists Kristian Winther and Anna da Silva Chen, both well known for their chamber music and solo careers. We welcome back Melbourne-based cellist Svetlana Bogosavljevic who performed in our 2023 Layton Emerging Composer workshop and for the first-time, hear classical music trailblazer, Leipzig-based Australian violist, Tahlia Petrosian who is known for her KLASSIK underground series in Germany. The eclectic program features the glorious Piano Quartet by Robert Schumann, Mozart’s ‘Kegelstatt’ trio, a duo by Australian composer Stuart Greenbaum, and an inventive composition by US composer David Bruce based on the Gumboot dances of Southern Africa.
Classical accordionist James Crabb joins our three core artists in tango-inspired compositions of Astor Piazzolla in August. More surprising, perhaps are the Bagatelles of Dvořák, evoking musical elements of the Balkans, a set of Jewish prayers by Ernst Bloch, a meditation on life cycles by the Spanish composer Turina and an atmospheric work by Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina. This wondrous program evokes new soundscapes for the Australia Ensemble UNSW and gives an opportunity for each of the players to flourish.
In our final program for the year, Beethoven’s epic Septet sits alongside Carl Vine’s Strutt Sonata for cello and piano, marking the composer’s 70th birthday, Elena Kats-Chernin’s moving Piano Trio Blue Silence and Russian composer Mikhail Glinka’s unusually scored Trio Pathetique for clarinet, bassoon and piano. We will see the return of acclaimed pianist Andrea Lam, virtuosic French-horn soloist Carla Blackwood, regular esteemed guests Andrew Barnes, bassoon and Andrew Meisel, double bass, and to round out the year, violist Tahlia Petrosian. Join us for what can only be described as a transformative, new era as we continue to build on our established history of high-quality and invigorating performances at UNSW. We hope to see you at the Sir John Clancy Auditorium in 2024.
Paul Stanhope, Artistic Chair
