Fiona Giles Archive

This joyful opening concert of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s 2018 season celebrates 16th and 17th century English choral and chamber music by Byrd, Gibbons, Purcell, Locke and Handel, and closes with the Australian premiere of Vaughan Williams’ ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis’ …

Picture, if you will, a medieval Italian countryside at dusk. It is the height of summer, the harvested wheat stands in sheaths, and the hum of insects fills the air. The light is gauzy with lingering heat and lengthening shadows. Such is …

The Brandenburg’s trademark joyfulness was in full flight from the beginning of their performance on opening night. The decorative lighting in shades of orange and rose gold provided an apt backdrop to Paul Dyer’s irrepressible enthusiasm and personal warmth, and brought cosiness …

To kick off its 2015 season, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra presents an all-Handel program with its centerpiece the famous “Cantata Ode for St Cecilia’s Day”, first performed in the middle of a freezing London winter in 1749. Handel was hugely popular in …

  James Thierree’s latest work to grace the Sydney Festival, Tabac Rouge, is by far his most ambitious and, in many ways, his most serious. This is not to say that the whimsy, warmth and comedy we’ve come to expect following his …

Whirling dervishes may not commonly be associated with the baroque chamber repertoire, but the versatile Brandenburg Orchestra invited a troupe from Southern Turkey to tour Australia as part of its project to explore the musical traditions of other cultures across the 16th, …

I sometimes wonder if artistic director Paul Dyer chooses his troupe and soloists on the basis of good looks. The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra (ABO) is a cut above the usual aesthetic standards of classical ensembles.  But maybe their palpable cheerfulness just lends …

Renowned for their frolicsome take on what could be misjudged as fustily antique Renaissance and Baroque music, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra has found soul mates in Ensemble La Chimera, an Argentine group formed by lutenist Eduardo Eduez to celebrate a fusion of …