Next year the ACO celebrates 30 years with Principal Violin Helena Rathbone, and their latest tour, Postcards from Italy, shows just how huge her contribution has been to what has been dubbed the best chamber orchestra in the world.

After studying in England under the Suzuki system and then on to the Royal College of Music and Guildhall School of Music, she emigrated in 1994 to take up her “first and only full-time job to date”. Playing alongside Artistic Director Richard Tognetti for three decades, she has watched the orchestra grow in quality and range, frequently as a guest leader and especially mentoring young talent with its Emerging Artists program.

This latest concert series, with its modest forces of six musicians, bears all the hallmarks of the brand – tight ensemble work, individual brilliance, attention to detail and nuance and evident energy and enjoyment from all concerned.

The ACO’s Helena Rathbone. Photo Daniel Boud

The program is built around two major works with ties to Bel Paese: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Italian Concerto, arranged for string sextet by ACO Principal Cello Timo-Veikko Valve, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence.

Bach,...