As the 2024 Blackheath Chamber Music Festival comes to a close, one must reflect on the extraordinary achievements of its curator and director, Catherine Harker, who together with her team of dedicated volunteers has succeeded in creating a mainstay of Australia’s annual chamber music calendar.

With a growing audience year on year, this year’s festival played to near-capacity audiences with several concerts sold out.

An impressive lineup of virtuoso artists included John Bell with Tobias Brieder, former SSO Principal Harp Louise Johnson, Elena Kats-Chernin and Tamara-Anna Cislowska, international guests Pietro Locatto and Martina Biondi, and Ensemble Offspring with Eliza Shephard.

This year’s Quartet-in-Residence, Orava Quartet, also joined forces with retiring festival favourite, the Goldner String Quartet, but not before the principal players of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra returned to the stage of the Phillips Hall with a program of Berwald and Beethoven.

Both performances are reviewed separately below.

Symphony Septet at the Blackheath Chamber Music Festival 2024. Photo © Keith Saunders

SSO Principal Players: Symphony Septet ★★★★½

A highlight of last year’s festival, the Principal Players of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra return to perform septets by Berwald and Beethoven.

Scored for violin (Lerida Delbridge), viola (Justin...