Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra has announced its 2024 season, featuring four programs with a series of Australian and international soloists and a world premiere arrangement of newfound Australian cultural cornerstone Ngapa William Cooper. 

The conductorless chamber orchestra has revealed that it will perform with Queensland Ballet as its Live Music Partner for two of its 2024 productions – Liam Scarlett’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Coco Chanel: the Life of a Fashion Icon. It will also host a recital series, with details to be announced at a later date. 

With its mainstage programs to be performed in Brisbane’s QPAC and Toowoomba’s Empire Theatre, Camerata also offers its annual tour across regional Queensland across May and June 2024.

Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra. Photo supplied

To open the season, Camerata enlists young pianist Alex Raineri and wind, brass and percussion performers for a program delving into the virtuosic works of Beethoven. Raineri features in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, with the Coriolan Overture, and Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll to round out its February lineup.

In May, Australian guitarist Karin Schaupp joins the chamber orchestra in a showcase of music for guitar and strings. Mendelssohn’s solo piano work Songs Without Words has been arranged especially for the program and will be heard alongside Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings and Carl Vine’s Endless. Endless was premiered by Schaupp and Flinders Quartet with Musica Viva tour in February and commissioned in honour of the memory of Jennifer Bates.

Brendan Joyce. Photo supplied

Song cycle Ngapa William Cooper, born of a collaboration between Lior, Dr Lou Bennett and Nigel Westlake, was given its world premiere at Adelaide Festival in March. Described by Limelight’s Jansson A. Antmann as “momentous”, the work’s orchestral version was debuted by the Australian Youth Orchestra which garnered its second five-star review. 

This Australian masterwork gets a new outfit in September –  Camerata will premiere the first chamber orchestra iteration of Ngapa William Cooper, joined by Lior and Dr Lou Bennett, for Brisbane Festival in 2024.

The final program of Camerata’s season sees Baroque violinist Davide Monti return to the Sunshine State after a string of performances with the ensemble in 2018. Monti’s hand-picked program links pieces by their fascination with labyrinths, from their origins in Greek mythology and their echoes in the works of Baroque composers. Expect Locatelli’s The Harmonic Labyrinth, labelled by the composer as “easy to enter, difficult to escape”, as well as works by Bach and Handel.

Tickets for Camerata’s 2024 season are available here.