‘Welcome to a season where time bends, breath holds, and music remembers what the clock forgets’
There comes a point – somewhere past the age of 23 – when you stop trying to outrun time. Instead, you start listening to it, noticing how it bends and blurs in memory, how it sharpens in stillness.
Music has always been a way to hold onto time, or at least to touch it differently. This season, we travel through music that doesn’t simply mark time, it questions it. Pieces that remind us of what music has always done best: to hold a moment just long enough to feel outside of time.
From the fierce, spiritual urgency of Sofia Gubaidulina, to the elemental vastness of John Luther Adams, to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio where time feels both eternal and newly born, these works are invitations to step outside the ticking of the clock, to feel how music can stretch a moment, suspend it, let it linger long enough to alter memory. Because sometimes, a phrase, a silence, a single note, can make time feel like it’s listening back.
So welcome to a season where time bends, breath holds, and music remembers what the clock forgets.
We’ll meet you in the hall.
Richard Tognetti AO
Artistic Director
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‘Life within the ACO isn’t for the faint of heart’
In 2026, the ACO brings you a Season that spans a millennium of music, from the ancient hymns of the frozen North to the majestic symphonies of the 18th- and 19th-century masters, right through to trailblazing new works. This traversing of music across cultures and centuries is a calling card for Richard and the ACO and, accompanied by their exceptional standard of playing, has come to define the group and the unique place it holds as one of the world’s great chamber orchestras.
Life within the ACO isn’t for the faint of heart. As Australia’s most travelled orchestra, both nationally and internationally, the hours are long. Life is often lived out of a suitcase and the standard of performance is ever higher, year on year. But, for the musicians, their role within the Orchestra is not just a job; it’s a vocation, a calling that can only be met with full-throttle enthusiasm and indefatigable commitment – to their craft, to one another and, most importantly, to you, our audience.
Accordingly, I urge you to browse the season and consider making a commitment of your own to what will be an extraordinary season of music, brought to
Richard Evans AM
Managing Director
