Dear friends,

It has been a while since our last update. A belated Happy New Year. We hope 2021 is a good year for all.

It’s encouraging to see activity in the arts industry, and we want to be a part of it! We are planning 3 concerts for June, September and November. Stay tuned for details.

We’re busy working through the logistics and contacting players to decide our concert programs. There will be health guidelines to follow of course, but we’re ready to start playing music together again.

If you’d like to join The Melbourne Sinfonia this year – as a new musician or volunteer – please email us at: orchestralmanager@melbournesinfonia.org.au.

Hope to see you soon.

Dear friends,

We hope you’re all well. Just a quick update from us.

Due to the current environment we didn’t perform our concert scheduled for this week, Friday 12th June. We have also cancelled our September concert.

It’s too early to know whether our last concert of the year will go ahead on Friday, 27th November. We are of course subject to all the issues of social distancing, government guidelines and venue availability, covering both the concert evening and rehearsals. Stay tuned for updates.

For our annual ticket subscribers, we’ll be in touch about arranging a refund for the June and September concerts. Thank you to those who are generously offering their ticket cost as a donation to the Royal Children’s Hospital.

Take care, and we look forward to sharing music with you again soon.

The Melbourne Sinfonia wishes everyone a very Happy and Musical New Year. Thank you all for making our 2019 concerts so enjoyable.

We can’t end the year without a trip down memory lane, because 2019 was our 30th anniversary year! We began as the Collingwood Chamber Orchestra, founded by Kevin Morgan in 1989 with the support of the Collingwood council. The group first rehearsed at the Organ Factory Theatre in Collingwood and then at Princes Hill Primary School. The first rehearsal comprised 9 string players and the group made its debut at Collingwood Senior Citizens Hall with 14 players. Later concerts were held in the Collingwood Town Hall.

Our name changed to The Melbourne Sinfonia in late 1990 and concerts moved to Melba Hall at the University of Melbourne, where they remained until November 2011. With Melba Hall no longer available, the venue changed to the James Tatoulis Auditorium at MLC.

Joannes Roose has been our Musical Director and Principal Conductor since 1998.

Since 2004 we have been an Auxiliary of the Royal Children’s Hospital. Our unique position as a fundraiser for the RCH unites us, as we join in the spirit of enjoying music for a good cause. We currently support the RCH Gatehouse Centre which provides a crisis service and ongoing support for children and adolescents who have been sexually abused. Gatehouse helps these vulnerable young people develop resilience and other coping skills.

We look forward to another year of music. Our 2020 concert dates are 20 March, 12 June, 4 September and 27 November.