“The orchestra is Australian, but the music is distinctly American,” writes Rich Copley in Thursday’s (4/12) Herald-Leader (Lexington, Kentucky). “When the Australian Chamber Orchestra visits Centre College’s Norton Center for the Arts in Danville on Friday, audiences will hear the group and American soprano Dawn Upshaw perform Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks. ‘Maria Schneider’s music comes out of your country’s great jazz history,’ artistic director and group leader Richard Tognetti said Wednesday, hours after arriving in Atlanta from Australia. … In touring with Upshaw, the ACO is joining one of the world’s great advocates for new music. Among the Nashville native’s legendary recordings is Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs), which helped spur a renewed interest in contemporary classical music in the mid-1990s. Upshaw has since worked with virtually every other prominent composer of today, including John Adams and Osvaldo Golijov. … The chamber orchestra doesn’t get too outrageous in its concerts, but its musicians play while standing and eschew formalwear for concerts. Tognetti chuckled at a Time Out New York review that called the ACO ‘badass,’ but he also said he thinks the group is engaging modern music with a modern style. The North American tour takes the group from Atlanta on Thursday to New York’s Carnegie Hall on April 30.”
Posted April 12, 2012
