I’m off to Hobart to record concertos by Malcolm Williamson with the Tasmanian Symphony for the Hyperion label in London. My partner in crime will be Howard Shelley, the British conductor and pianist of surpassing natural musicality and intelligence. It will be a week of intense concentration, culminating in a public performance of the second concerto on Saturday night. The following day, overseas artists for the Australian Festival of Chamber Music will start to arrive in Australia. Some won’t arrive until Wednesday the 25th, the first day of rehearsals. As always, they’ll somehow cope with the crazily demanding schedule of rehearsals and performances – but those who can, and who know what jetlag means, will get here as early as possible! Williamson’s Second Concerto will feature in the Governor’s Gala concert on the first Saturday evening of the festival. It is orchestrated just for strings, so it qualifies as a “chamber” concerto and will complement a second half of zany and attractive Aussie pieces by Nigel Westlake and Matthew Hindson, with the Goldner String Quartet and the Camerata of St John’s hotting things up in Hindson’s The Rave and the Nightingale, where disco meets Schubert! That’s not a bad representation…