Experience intimate performances of chamber music as the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra tours regional NSW, performing Mozart, Schubert and Emilie Mayer in venues including Jervis Bay Maritime Museum, while mentoring regional orchestras and celebrating the South Coast’s vibrant cultural life.
“I personally love playing in regional areas, much more than playing in the city,” says Nicole van Bruggen, one of the co-founders of ARCO – the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra – and one of a quintet of leading players from the group on tour across the NSW South Coast this spring.
At the heart of the program is the famous Mozart clarinet quintet in A major, composed in the late 18th Century, with Nicole on the clarinet. The tour starts off at the Jervis Bay Maritime Museum in Huskisson, on Saturday 18 October.
“When we go to regional areas, people really appreciate that we’re there. I feel like it’s so much more impactful for us as performers and educators. It’s really one of my favourite things to do,” Nicole says, adding that regional touring has always been important to ARCO since its founding in 2012 by Nicole, Rachael Beesley who is a world-renown violinist, and the late Richard Gill AO.
Venues such as the Museum, which seats around 120 in the audience, and community halls in towns such as Kangaroo Valley and Bowral create an intimate setting that echoes the origins of the music. Nicole says these small venues are a special part of regional touring.
“This is much more intimate [than playing for 2,000 people at the Sydney Opera House], we can connect directly with the audience, talk to them during the concert and meet them after.
“The music we perform on this tour is music that was played in the salons or in the court, in the ballroom. Those audiences were about the same size as on this regional tour, so in a way it’s a more authentic way of performing it.”
Historical Interpretations
ARCO is a proponent of “historically informed performance”, which means they use instruments and musical interpretations from the era in which the music was composed. The HIP movement also brings the players and the audiences closer again, after “classical” music was put on a pedestal in the 20th century.
Nicole says, “Musicians got stuffed into tuxedos and weren’t allowed to talk to the audience anymore! But really, making music is about moving the emotions of your audience, and you need to connect with the audience to do that really well. This kind of tour is perfect for that.”
At the Jervis Bay Maritime Museum, director Diana Lorentz says the value of music performances such as this encourage visitors to view the museum’s collection through a different lens.
“The museum provides arts and culture. Classical music is a different way of enlivening a collection. People look at objects and they have one point of view and they see them in that context. But music brings things alive, it brings life to collections.” The museum’s Halloran collection is largely 17th and 18th century with a vast number of maritime instruments included. Diana points to the similarities between these items and musical instruments, with both sharing qualities of accuracy, materiality and the culture of their eras.
Diana is hopeful that the museum will become a regular venue for tours such as this, to bring these performances to the Jervis Bay & Basin locals. “I’m excited because it’s an opportunity for the museum with its collections, but it’s also a great opportunity for the local community to have access to that,” she says.
Celebrating Female Composers
Also on the program is a piece by a female composer of the 19th Century, Emilie Mayer, String Quartet No.1 in G minor. Nicole says performing music by women has always been a focus of ARCO.
“There were plenty of female composers and they’re not in the canon today so they don’t get played night after night which is a shame.
“We are performing a piece by Emilie Mayer, and audiences today don’t know much about Emilie but that’s mostly because of her gender. I have such pride that we are able to put the spotlight on [these women]. You can only imagine what kind of hardships they had to endure because of the era they were born into. But even the male composers that we celebrate today … Mozart sent his manuscripts to his sister for her opinion, Schumann would ask Clara, Mendelssohn would ask [his sister] Fanny. All of those women had an impact, it’s an overlooked part of that period of music.”
Nicole says that shining light on lesser-known works by male composers is also an artistic aim for ARCO, and that she has enjoyed many occasions to search through old European libraries for obscure or forgotten music.
“The best trip I ever had was to Prague to the Klementinum Library. I was down in the basement, looking through an old cabinet in the back corner, which had a load of abstract Bohemian 18th century chamber music. I found quite a few little gems in there.”
The third work on this tour’s program is Schubert’s String Quartet No.7 in D major, composed in 1812.
Music in the Regions
This tour is made possible, in part, by the organisation Music in the Regions, which was founded in 2022 with the support of The Hon. Don Harwin MLC, NSW Minister for the Arts, 2017-2021 and the current chair. But education has always been a core principle for ARCO.
“Education is a really important part of what we do,” says Nicole. “We have equal streams of performance and education. We’re all really passionate about inspiring others. When we visit [youth and regional] orchestras, we bring a little flavour of what ‘historically informed performance’ is all about and how that will add to your toolkit to inform different ways of interpreting the music you’re playing.”
One regional orchestra that is benefitting from such a visit is MUSO – the Milton Ulladulla String Orchestra conducted by Fiona Thompson, since its inception in 2022.
Fiona says, “The value of ARCO is they concentrate on the finer points of creating a Classical and Romantic sound. I’m looking forward to them providing that emphasis on how to get the right sounds and the colours that Peter Warlock was trying to create in the Capriol Suite.”
For the string players in MUSO, Fiona is keen for them to learn more about being sectional players – that is, playing together in a cohesive and accurate way. She says, “I know Rachael Beesley will be absolutely brilliant at providing that professional educational slant to developing the string sections of our orchestra.”
Last year, MUSO was lucky to have one of these sessions with the Goldner String Quartet on tour with Music in the Regions. On a personal note, I had just joined MUSO at that time (violin) and I found the experience of playing with professional musicians embedded within our orchestra to be exhilarating.
Fiona says, “Having a professional player playing next to you can be intimidating but it can also be incredibly inspiring. It can be tremendously confidence-building, that you can play the pieces they are playing. And by the way they play, they demonstrate the energy and the style you need to use. It lifts the whole orchestra to have those professionals sitting in each section.”
ARCO will also be visiting the Shoalhaven Youth Orchestra, which recently celebrated 25 years with a special concert at the Nowra School of Arts.
Nicole says that she and Rachael also run a youth orchestra, the Young Mannheim Symphonists, and they consider working with young musicians to be so much more than just musical training.
“For me, it’s not about getting them geared up for a career in music, but more about what playing in an ensemble, in an orchestra, and making music in general does for your character strengths – for teamwork, communication, emotional awareness.
“All of these things, whatever line of work they go into or whatever they come across in their lives, those skills they learn in a music ensemble they will take with them.”
Music’s Place in Our Society
Nicole says that the covid pandemic really brought home the immense value of music in our lives. “Not only were people not able to listen to music, musicians weren’t able to play music with each other. That shone a very stark light on how important it is to our society. To make music together and to listen to music together and the shared emotion.”
She says it’s hard to put into words what the audience can expect by coming along to a performance on this tour, because it will be different for everyone.
“I think the way ARCO performs is unique. We use expressive devices from the past, which were designed to connect at a more deep emotional level than the way classical music is performed today in the modern style of performance. I hope that people will come and be deeply moved, whichever way their emotions take them during the music. To me, that shared emotional connection, that is the most important thing.”
Book Now
Tickets to these performances are now available from $35 at the Jervis Bay Maritime Museum at 5pm on Saturday 18 October. The venue will be open from 4pm for drinks and mingling. Find more venues and ticket information from Music in the Regions.
