Page 128 - FINAL_Guildhall Media Highlights 2019-2020 Coverage Book

Richard Tognetti and the Australian Chamber Orchestra

The extraordinary 17-piece string Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) under Richard Tognetti,
which plays standing to give their often radical performances more vigour, had its second of
three annual residencies there in October, beginning with a “re-imagining” of Bach’s Goldberg
Variations followed by a new cross-discipline piece, and rounding up with Britten and Vaughan
Williams played alongside Guildhall musicians, all in the Milton Court concert hall and
programmed by Humphreys.

“It’s a completely visceral experience” says Vaughan of the ACO. “They are blood and guts, they
play with a stinging abandon but at the same time very precisely. For our students, they just love
that sense of passion and risk taking – you can disagree with what they’re doing but you cannot
ignore it.”

Alison Balsom is more than a virtuoso trumpet player, she is arguably the world’s best. She
learned her art at the Guildhall, is now a visiting professor there and this year an artist in
residence with a programme of astonishing range. In October she performed Baroque music with
the English Concert in the Barbican Hall; in March she joins the Guildhall Jazz Orchestra in
Milton Court for Sketches in Spain, Miles Davis’s jazz take on Rodrigo’s Gardens of Aranjuez;
and in May she is in Milton Court again to tackle Harrison Birtwistle.