During its 34-year history, the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s international standing has gone from obscurity to respectability to renown.
Today, major soloists clamor to collaborate with the 17-member ensemble, and classical audiences in the United States and elsewhere eagerly await its tours abroad.
“Coming from the end of the world, as it’s often referred to, it does take a little more to jump the distance, and people are more skeptical,” said artistic director Richard Tognetti. “But it just makes you work harder.”
On April 19, the chamber orchestra embarked on its latest tour to the United States. The nine-city itinerary, which included the ensemble’s debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on Tuesday, will bring it to the University of Denver on Thursday evening as part of the Newman Center Presents series.
Much of the orchestra’s heightened profile can be attributed to Tognetti. The violinist had just completed his studies at the Bern Conservatory in Switzerland and was amazingly only in his 20s when he was appointed in 1989 to re-energize what was then a little-known ensemble.
He brought heightened intensity and focus to the group’s playing, insisting that the musicians stand while performing. The practice has been adopted by other groups since, including the Emerson String Quartet.
At the same time, he put an increased emphasis on new and contemporary repertoire and began an active commissioning program.
“The chamber orchestra, as an entity, isn’t overburdened, like a symphony orchestra, with repertoire, especially good repertoire, so, therefore, we’re forced to go seeking,” Tognetti said.
But unlike some ensembles that focus either on the new or the old, he delights in mixing the two in unexpected ways.
“I like to juxtapose things,” he said. “To get the ancient and the new and put them side by side, sometimes in an explosive way, and sometimes in a way that forms an obvious and organic and synergistic relationship.”
Because it has been so successful, Tognetti has made few changes to this performing and programming formula since.
“We’ve just stabilized and fortified,” he said. “We find more stability in the players, so we’ve been able to concentrate more on maintaining or increasing our level of performance.”
The first half of the ensemble’s Denver program will combine works by two familiar composers — Franz Joseph Haydn and George Frideric Handel.
In what is likely to be a big draw in itself for many classical and operatic fans, Andreas Scholl, one of the world’s top countertenors, will perform a group of five Handel arias.
Then, the second half of what Tognetti calls a “typical, eclectic program” will consist of music of the 20th and 21st centuries.
It will open with “Footwork,” a work by Roger Smalley that is receiving its American premiere performances during this tour.
Culminating the concert will be Tognetti’s arrangement of Pavel Haas’ Quartet No. 2, Op. 7, “From the Monkey Mountains” (1925).
The avant-garde Czech (and Jewish) composer, who was a student of Leos Janácek and considerably influenced by his mentor, was imprisoned by the Nazis and died in Ausch witz in 1944.
“It’s a terrific work,” Tognetti said of the rarely performed quartet. “It’s like more expansive, expressionist Janácek. It’s quite a ride. It goes from extraordinary beauty to quite jarring, energetic music.”
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
Australian Chamber Orchestra, Andreas Scholl, Countertenor
Classical music. University of Denver, Newman Center for the Performing Arts, 2344 E. Iliff Ave. The Newman Center Presents series continues with a concert by this adventuresome touring ensemble from down under. 7:30 p.m. Thursday. $28-$52. 303-357-2787 or
