A storm of applause shook the iconic Sydney Opera House as the sold-out Concert Hall crowd took to their feet and gave a five-minute standing ovation to the 99 Australian professional musicians on stage. The musicians had come from across the world to make history, for the first performances of the Australian World Orchestra (AWO) held over three evenings in late August this year.

Alex Briger, a world-class conductor who has led orchestras from Canada to Paris to Japan, and his sister Gabrielle Thompson, a film producer, spent nearly two years working full-time contacting Australia’s premiere instrumentalists from around the globe and securing sponsors to cover the large budget needed to turn this dream into a reality.

 “The place just erupted with applause,” Thompson says, describing the first evening. “The most beautiful thing was that the audience was not clapping for an opera or a theatre production, they were applauding directly for other Australians who
had come home to perform. It was so welcoming.”

The idea was planted in Briger’s mind about five years ago. “I was invited to conduct the Japanese Virtuoso Symphony Orchestra; the crème de la crème of expat Japanese musicians, who come home on an annual basis to perform,” he says. “The Japanese audience really got behind them. I was completely blown away… and I thought, ‘It’s a proven model that works. We have just as much Australian talent.’”

So in 2009, Briger pitched the idea to their uncle and mentor, Sir Charles Mackerras, Australia’s most internationally renowned conductor. “Our uncle thought it sounded fantastic and, after all, everywhere he went, to the Berlin Philharmonic or the Vienna Philharmonic, he met Australians – he knew them all,” he says. “He also wanted to be the conductor of the inaugural concert himself, but he died last year.”

As a consequence, the AWO’s concerts were dedicated to Mackerras’ memory and the programme included his favourite piece, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which involved the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, as well as four incredible soloists – soprano Cheryl Barker, mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Campbell, tenor Steve Davislim and baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes. When the choirs, the AWO and the soloists performed en masse for the finale, they created a diverse tapestry of sound.

Just before his death, Mackerras expressed his support for the AWO: “I have spent my whole life making music with my fellow countrymen and women and I regard them to be amongst the greatest orchestral players alive, holding major positions in the world’s premiere orchestras,” he said. “Bringing them all together from around the globe will produce an orchestra of the highest quality with a truly unique and Australian sound. What an exciting prospect!”

In his own right, Briger has an extensive reputation, having conducted the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Academy of St Martin’s in the Fields, the Salzburg Camerata, the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra, the Royal Swedish Opera and the Canadian Opera Company, among many others.

In Australia, he’s also conducted Opera Australia and the Melbourne, Sydney and West Australian orchestras, over the past decade. As the AWO’s Artistic Director and Chief Conductor, he conducted two of the three concerts. But Briger and Thompson also got in touch with Simone Young, Australia’s most well-known and successful female conductor. “Simone loved the idea and she’s a Wagner expert, that’s one of her great loves, so we included the Tannhäuser – Prelude & Venusberg Music, a chunky 25-minute piece in the program, and she conducted the first concert on the Friday night,” Briger says.

He also wanted to have a strong Australian component to the programme, so he contacted composer Brett Dean. “Gabi and I flew down to Melbourne to see him and said we wanted to perform his Vexations and Devotions with choirs and children’s voices,” Briger says. “And I said to him, ‘You should conduct it Brett’, because he’s a damn good conductor and he said he’d love to.”

The Gondwana Voices (an ensemble of children aged 10-16 years old who have performed at many national events, including the Melbourne Commonwealth Games) and the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs formed the chorus for Dean’s symphony – which was a very modern and, at times, atonal performance that included unusual instruments such as a long strip of aluminium foil that the percussionist shook, and huge gongs immersed in water that she beat.

The AWO also performed Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe’s Earth Cry, which featured William Barton playing the didgeridoo. At the beginning of the performance, Barton walked down the side aisles of the stalls towards the stage playing his instrument, enveloping the concert hall with eerie, melancholy tones.

In total, the AWO musicians came from 45 orchestras across the globe; 42 were Australia-based while the other 48 were contracted to orchestras across North America, Asia and Europe that include the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Danish Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
“Almost every musician we got in touch with was 100 per cent behind us; for them it’s not just coming back and playing in Australia, but the fact that it’s never happened before and it showcased what Australians have accomplished,” Briger says.

The logistics of bringing the musicians together was mind-boggling. Luckily major sponsors such as Qantas, Sofitel and Menzies assisted with the airfares and accommodation costs, respectively. In addition, Events NSW joined as a Strategic Partner. Briger and Thompson also held countless fund-raising dinners to rally donors to sponsor the conductors, singers and musicians individually.

On Sunday 21 August the AWO musicians gathered in Sydney for the very first time on the steps of the Opera House for a group photo. “After the photo, they converged on one another. People burst into tears and were hugging,” Thompson says. “Some hadn’t seen each other for 15 or 20 years.” Already Thompson and Briger are planning the next AWO spectacular to be held in Melbourne and Sydney, this time in December 2013.

THE DIASPORA

So why is there such a diaspora of Australian musicians overseas?  “It’s because, while we have great training here initially, most musicians leave to study with a superstar,” Thompson says. “They learn a different language and then a job comes up, in the Munich Philharmonic or whatever.”

She gives the example of a clarinettist; there are about 10 senior jobs in Australia and they only become available once the sitting clarinettist leaves, about once every 10 years.

For aspiring conductors, the story is similar – Briger says there is no real option but to go overseas for a period of time if you want any significant classical music career: “In Australia we have one major opera house and six symphony orchestras and that’s not a lot of choice. In Europe, they have hundreds.”

EDUCATION

Inspiring the next generation of Australian musicians, and passing on some of their expertise, was also an important part of the AWO’s work when they were all together here in August. Their education program included two family concerts, one at the Sydney Opera House and the other at Riverside Theatre in Parramatta, aimed at families and schoolchildren.

Children got to meet the musicians before the show, and at the Parramatta concert about 75 budding musicians, selected by the Department of Education from schools across NSW, learned pieces in advance and then got tuition from 40 AWO members. In addition, four students from the Australian Youth Orchestra shadowed AWO members for the whole week Thompson, says: “They got to live and breathe what it’s like to be in a professional orchestra. It was like a 24/7 Master Class.”

Thompson filmed the whole process and hopes to create a documentary of “a day in the life of the AWO”, to give viewers a real taste of all the effort, challenges and rewards that go into being a professional musician and taking part in an event of this magnitude. The AWO is hoping to release a live recording of their concerts for Christmas.

FRANCESCO (FRANK) CELATA

Frank Celata has had a love affair with the clarinet since he was 12 years old, when he first received his brother’s second-hand instrument. More than three decades later, he is now the associate principal clarinet in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a lecturer in clarinet at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and performed in the Australian World Orchestra.

“I first heard about the AWO a year ago and I became very excited; it was a coming together of people I studied with and people I’ve only heard about, all in one location to play great music,” says 45-year-old Celata. “It was intense in the rehearsals, like a pressure cooker, but the excitement and enthusiasm transcended all of that and brought a very special quality to the music we created.”

Celata was born into an Italian-Australian family, who ensured that early on he developed an interest in classical music. Almost immediately after he started learning the clarinet, the young Celata decided to pursue a career path as a professional musician. “I made an early decision but I’ve never changed my mind. Music is my life,” he says.

After finishing a Bachelor of Music at the Victorian College of the Arts, Celata went on to first attend summer school in his parents’ hometown of Siena in Tuscany, with Giuseppe Garbarino, and then spent a year in Amsterdam studying under Piet Honingh of the Concertgebouw Orchestra.

“I think Australian musicians are drawn to study in Europe, to go to the source of classical music, be in another culture and learn another language,” he says. “I already knew how to play clarinet but I went there for music interpretation and inspiration.”
After returning to Australia in 1991, Celata was appointed principal clarinet with the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra, until he got his current role with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1993. He’s also been a guest principal clarinet with the London Symphony Orchestra since 2003.

While Celata adores playing music, teaching is also an important dimension of his career and he is the artistic director of the Australian International Symphony Orchestral Institute, an annual project bringing more than 100 tertiary music students together at the University of Tasmania for a fortnight.

“Having lots of interests as a musician gives you a balanced life,” he says. “I feel teaching is my obligation, to contribute my service to the next generation. You learn about yourself as a musician when you teach.” Celata also participated in the AWO’s education program.

ALISON MITCHELL

As a child growing up in Melbourne, Alison Mitchell didn’t play the flute until she was 16. Instead she did ballet four hours a week for 10 years and played piano up to grade six. But after going on a family holiday to Europe for six months, she came back to Australia totally inspired.

“I was really taken with Europe,” she says. “Seeing many amazing concerts there was the impetus for me to play the flute and I saw it as a way to keep travelling.”

After doing Music in her HSC, Mitchell studied at the Victorian College of the Arts and then auditioned to study with famed flautist Professor Peter-Lukas Graf in Basel, Switzerland, and achieved a postgraduate degree as a soloist from the Basel Music Academy.
Since then Mitchell has held various positions in both Australia and Europe, including five years as principal flautist with the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, and five years as a freelance musician, until she got the chance to be the associate principal flute for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for the next seven years. She then returned to Scotland as the principal flute in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, where she’s stayed happily since 2003.

“I could never have chosen anything else,” Mitchell says. “I didn’t have quite the figure to be a dancer and it didn’t grab me enough. Once I started playing flute, I didn’t think twice about any other career. My great fortune is that dancing gave me fantastic discipline.”
As well as performing, Mitchell puts a lot of her energy into teaching and is a lecturer in flute at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and assists with the Baltic Youth Philharmonic. When she lived in Australia, she also taught at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

“Teaching is really a double-edged sword,” Mitchell says. “You have to be able to explain yourself well and help students overcome their difficulties, but when the student actually understands, it can be very rewarding.”

And to her delight, when Mitchell took to the stage of the Sydney Opera House in August with the AWO, one of her former students Emma Sholl, who is now the associate principal flute in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, was playing alongside her.

“I had really looked forward to it,” Mitchell says. “To be back with a symphony orchestra after being with a chamber orchestra after so many years was great, and to meet old colleagues and new ones and exchange ideas.”

NATALIE CHEE

Even though she’s only 35, Natalie Chee’s musical career spans three decades. She began playing piano at four years old, violin at six, and by the age of 16 in 1992, won the ABC’s Young Performer of the Year competition.

“After I started piano, I bugged my mother for a year until she let me learn violin too, but she insisted I had to give up dance classes first,” Chee says.

“I really loved playing. It was never a chore for me and I never had to be told to practice.”

Winning the Young Performer competition – Australia’s most prestigious accolade for classical musicians under 30 – was the launching pad for her career. “It was such a fantastic opportunity, and part of winning the prize was playing with all the six major orchestras,” Chee says.

“It was a bit overwhelming at first, but I soon realised that this was what I wanted to do with my life.”
Chee didn’t go to university in Australia but instead headed overseas to study with Professor Igor Ozim at the Musik Hochschule in Bern, Switzerland, where she received her Soloist Diploma with Distinction in 1998. “I didn’t really like the strange competitive atmosphere there,” Chee says, “but I figured out that I could learn a lot from these amazing people.”

In 2000 after a couple of years freelancing, she landed the job of concert master with the Camerata Salzburg, a well-regarded chamber orchestra. “It is an orchestra steeped in tradition, so it was close to a miracle that they took me on; someone who is a woman and half Asian. I was very pleased,” Chee says.

For the next eight years, she loved the role and toured all over Europe. But eventually she needed a professional change, so she landed two jobs at once: one as concert master of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and the other as concert master of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.

After a frenetic 10 months juggling both roles, she has now settled on solely working for the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and making other guest appearances at orchestras around Europe. “I love working with a symphony,” Chee says. “The repertoire is different from a chamber orchestra and very challenging. I also enjoy working with 100 people instead of just 20.”

Chee was also thrilled about joining the AWO in August, as she hasn’t played in Sydney for about eight years and lots of her relatives came to the concert. “The AWO was a truly amazing experience. What a tribute to the talent that Australia produces year in, year out!” she says. “The buzz in the hall was tangible. The moment the orchestra walked on stage you could feel the excitement in the audience and that made us give even more than we thought we could. Everyone involved, whether it be as a musician, part of the management or a member of the audience, was captivated and uplifted by the whole experience.”