Regional touring making musical connections with communities

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra musicians on 2018 Regional Tour. Credit: Lucy Rash.

Throughout 2018, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) travelled to ten regional Victorian centres giving a total of 22 performances and 26 workshops for close to 13,000 people. Performances of Handel’s Messiah in Bendigo and Ballarat with members of the Ballarat Choral Society and Bendigo Chamber were sell-out successes and important collaborations between local communities and the MSO.

People living in regional Australia increasingly recognise the positive impacts of the arts on their daily lives and communities. Around seven in ten regional Australians agree that the arts make life more rich and meaningful and that it is exciting to see new styles of art.

Through connections the MSO has made with Traditional Owners via its annual regional touring program, the MSO is undertaking a unique project which will see the development of a musical Acknowledgement of Country for each of the 11 official First Nations language groups of Victoria. In partnership with Short Black Opera, led by Deborah Cheetham AO, the MSO is delivering a series of on-Country workshops with First Nations communities as part of the project, believed to be the first of its kind in Australia. The MSO is supported through the MPA Framework.

Learn more about the Contemporary Music Touring Program.