Melbourne Chamber Orchestra

The Melbourne Chamber Orchestra (MCO) is a professional Australian classical music ensemble based in Melbourne, Victoria.

Each year MCO gives over 50 performances including seasons of orchestral chamber music and works for smaller ensembles in its home city and on tour within the state, it runs its own chamber music festival, participates in other festivals and events, and runs workshops and masterclasses.

Foundation and artistic direction
The orchestra was founded in 1990 under its original name, the Australia Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra (APACO), by oboist Jeffrey Crellin who served as its first artistic director. Crellin was also principal oboist of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO), and because of the close association between the two ensembles, a number of MSO musicians also played in the chamber orchestra.

In 2006, after 17 years in the position, Crellin resigned as artistic director and was replaced by violinist William Hennessy who held the position until his retirement in 2021. In the Queen's Birthday Honours of 2018, Hennessy received the General Division of the Order of Australia – AM award "for significant service to music as a concert violinist, artistic director, mentor and educator".

The current director is violinist Sophie Rowell, appointed from 2023, and prior to that was MSO's concertmaster.

Increase in Melbourne audience
In its early days, the orchestra concentrated its seasons in the Federation Square's The Edge theatre which seated 450 people. Because concert attendances had reached about 350 and were continuing to grow, the need was obvious for a larger auditorium. With the new Melbourne Recital Centre due to be opened in February 2009, the orchestra planned to make that its main performance venue.

At the time, commentator Robin Usher wrote in The Age, "There were doubts that the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra would survive its first year because it was felt the challenges of adapting to the Melbourne Recital Centre's 1000-seat Elisabeth Murdoch Hall would prove too rigorous. But the orchestra has thrived; attendances have more than doubled, with subscriptions up 60 per cent, and the best is yet to come. It has just announced two programs to be conducted by England's Sir Neville Marriner, 85, founder of the Academy of St-Martin-in-the-Fields, in November."

According to an annual report, by 2016, seven years after its move to the Recital Centre, audience support had grown to the extent that MCO decided to increase its annual season there from 11 to 13 concerts.

From when the first known case of COVID-19 in Australia was reported on 25 January 2020 until the pandemic was declared in September 2022 by the Australian government to be over, public movement was restricted and audience attendances at arts events dwindled. MCO was badly affected and only six of the 53 seasonal performances originally planned for 2020 took place. As the report for that year says, "'The orchestra pivoted to digital small-format chamber music performances for the majority of the year. In total the orchestra still presented 36 performances and events, not including its Facebook-based Moments Musicaux project. These performances included 11 digital streaming performances on Melbourne Digital Concert Hall. In December, MCO was able to present an 11-performance live-audience celebration of Beethoven’s 250th anniversary across eastern Victoria and Daylesford, with a string quintet.'" Little changed for MCO during the following two years, and the reports for 2023 are not yet available.

Change of name
In an Australian Financial Review report, journalist Katrina Strickland called the old name, Australia Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, "a clunky, confusing moniker",. This view was held by other view held by others including, significantly, the orchestra's then executive chairman, Brian Benjamin, who said, "We undertook an exhaustive research project, looking at chamber orchestras worldwide, and discovered that more than 80 per cent name themselves after their place of residence." As a result, the decision was made by Benjamin and Hennessy for the name to be Melbourne Chamber Orchestra.

Annual schedule and audience access
In Melbourne, MCO's orchestral season is presented at the Melbourne Recital Centre which lists the orchestra as one of its "Key Presenting Partners". Recitals of music for smaller chamber ensembles are presented at other city venues including The Edge in Federation Square.

MCO also tours regional centres in Victoria providing programs from their Melbourne season. The 2017 report cited earlier noted that in that year there had been "22 regional touring performances to communities from Mornington to Yackandandah, adding that the orchestra was "one of Australia's most active tourers of classical music beyond urban centres, adding significantly to the diversity of music that audiences are able to access."

In September each year, MCO runs a chamber music festival called A Feast of Music at Daylsford and other nearby towns. Another annual engagement is the Chamber Music Dining at Narkoojee a winery in Glengarry, Victoria.

Many concerts are accessible online through the Australian Digital Concert Hall (ADCH) subscription network and are broadcast and streamed online by Melbourne's music station 3MBS and Australia's national music network ABC Classic.

Move Records records and distributes CDs of both the MCO and its predecessor.

Repertoire
MCO's repertoire ranges from early music to contemporary works including those specially commissioned for their use.

Australian composers from whom works have been commissioned include Julian Yu, Christopher Willcock,  Ian Munro,  Gordon Kerry,  Paul Stanhope,    Keith Crellin OAM,   Linda Kouvaras,   Caerwen Martin,  and Ade Vincent. MCO has also given the world premiere performances of works by composers including Deborah Cheetham Fraillon,  Richard Mills,  and Matthew Laing.

New works commissioned for the 2024 season include an as-yet unnamed piece by Katy Abbott  and the world premiere of a Trumpet Concerto transcribed for chamber orchestra by its composer, Nigel Westlake,