ABOUT
In nearly eight years Acacia Quartet has won great respect for their versatile and inventive programs which couple established repertoire with the unorthodox.
Acacia has recorded six albums – three of which earned nominations for an ARIA Award for ‘Best Classical Album’ and an APRA-AMCOS Art Music ‘Award for Excellence’. Their CD recordings ‘Blue Silence’, the complete works for string quartet by Elena Kats-Chernin, and ‘An AIDS Activist’s Memoir in Music’, by Lyle Chan, have both received ‘Editor’s Choice’ in Limelight Magazine.
Acacia is passionate about supporting Australian composers, working with young musicians and sharing their love of music with audiences of all ages. Their performances feature regularly on ABC Classic FM, Fine Music 102.5 and Qantas In-flight Entertainment. Acacia’s most recent recording ‘I Was Flying’ with ARIA award-winning pianist and composer Sally Whitwell for ABC Classics reached #2 on the Classical iTunes Top 100 Chart and became an ARIA finalist in 2015.
In addition to their special relationship with composers Kats-Chernin, Chan and Whitwell, Acacia has worked closely with composers Gordon Kerry, Joe Chindamo, Moya Henderson, Jeremy Rose, Nicholas Vines, Ross Fiddes, Nick Wales, Andrew Batt-Rawden and Joe Twist. They have collaborated with leading Australian pianists Phillip Shovk, Tamara-Anna Cislowska, Gerard Williams and Sally Whitwell, clarinettists David Griffiths and David Rowden, violist Emile Cantor, bassoonist Kim Walker, flautists Sally Walker and Jane Rutter, saxophonists Nick Russoniello and Michael Duke, didgeridoo player William Barton and sopranos Anna Fraser, Jane Sheldon and Amelia Farrugia.
Acacia’s engagements have included the Melbourne Recital Hall, Sydney Opera House, City Recital Hall, The Concourse Chatswood, the National Galleries of VIC and NSW (Resonate Series), the Peninsular Summer Music Festival, the Bowral Autumn Music Festival, Four Winds, Bellingen Music Festival, Music by The Sea in Brisbane and their international debut in Vancouver, Canada at the Roundhouse. In May 2017 Acacia Quartet was invited by the Christine Raphael Foundation to give their European debut, where they performed four concerts in Berlin and recorded a CD with three string quartets by Günter Raphael.
Ensemble Website: www.acaciaquartet.com/
Playlist Details
- Sally Whitwell, Winter Love
Performed by Acacia Quartet
Published on Mar 10, 2015 Recorded live at the Eugene Goossens Hall, ABC Centre, Ultimo. Sound engineer Virginia Reed. From the album ‘I Was Flying’, due for release by ABC Classics May 15 2015
2. Nick Wales, Harbour Light
Performed by Acacia Quartet in Yass, Australia, August 2017.
3. Elena Kats-Chernin, Fast Blue Village 2
Performed by Acacia Quartet
Flute Fast Blue Village 2 is part of Acacia Quartet’s first CD – Blue Silence, a recording of Elena Kats-Chernin’s complete works for string quartet. It was recorded by Vexations840 at Studio 301 in Sydney, Australia.
All these works and Acacia Quartet’s full albums can be streamed or downloaded via Spotify
If you’re a performer or concert programmer who would like to share a playlist or a concert program with Making Waves for inclusion in this Concert Hub, you can submit your streamable playlist links anytime.
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