Page 132 - FINAL_Guildhall Media Highlights 2019-2020 Coverage Book

22 October 2019

The ACO has returned to London for its

Barbican Centre residency

The Australian Chamber Orchestra returned to London for its second residency at the
Barbican Centre’s Milton Court, with an eclectic series of performances.

The Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) has once again taken its unique musical vivacity –
with a splash of its usual theatre – to London during the second of its three annual
residencies at the Barbican Centre. Its return to the Milton Court Concert Hall at the
Barbican Centre as International Associate Ensemble from 3–5 October promised to
showcase again the ACO’s musicality. It also highlighted its forays into unorthodox territory
for chamber orchestras.

At the ACO’s residency last year The Times’ music critic, Richard Morrison, wrote of their
performance of Mozart’s last three symphonies: “Standing to perform, swaying exuberantly,
the fiddlers’ bows flamboyantly flourished at every final cadence, this orchestra exudes an
energy that, in fast and loud passages becomes almost feral in its ferocity.” Expectations this
year were much the same.

The 2019 Barbican Centre residency’s first concert program on 3 October included Bernard
Labadie’s string orchestra arrangement of Bach's Goldberg Variations, with Erin Helyard on
keyboards. Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for String Quartet also featured.