The past, the present but, most of all, the future are all brought into focus when the Australian Chamber Orchestra celebrates 50 years of providing cutting edge music in a 90-minute gala concert.

Artistic Director Richard Tognetti, who has led the group for 30 of those years, can barely keep his emotions in check as he reads a tribute to ACO founder and cellist John Painter – always “Mr Painter” to him – who died earlier this year. 

After the speech Tognetti directs the orchestra in the final movement of Béla Bartók’s Divertimento, a work which Painter and his colleagues performed on the same Sydney Opera House stage at their first concert on November 21, 1975.

Celebrating the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. Photo © Nic Walker

Emotions run high throughout the whole evening which highlights some of Tognetti’s adventurous collaborations over the years, starting with oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros and his brother James on riq joining in Summer from Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and ending in a tribute to the...