The Australian city of Bendigo “is about to get a new, international chamber music festival boasting a long-term partnership with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe,” writes Barney Zwartz in Wednesday’s (12/11) The Age (Melbourne, Australia). “The first Bendigo Chamber Music Festival will host 14 concerts from February 5 to 9 next year, along with extensive community and education programs. It is the inspiration of two Melbourne-based cellists: Australian National Academy of Music lecturer and long-term COE member Howard Penny, and his former student Chris Howlett, who founded and has run the successful Sanguine Estate Music Festival in Bendigo for several years. [The Chamber Orchestra of Europe] has agreed to send several musicians a year. [Penny] has been part of COE himself for 30 years and, like all members, has divided his time between the ensemble and other music-making…. Howlett … divides his time between playing, being chairman and artistic director of classical music station 3MBS, running four music festivals and taking classical music to China…. Howlett says most works in the [upcoming] program are lesser-known gems by great composers.”
Posted December 12, 2019
