From L to R: Richard Tognetti (Director & Violin), Satu Vänskä (Principal Violin & Vocals), Eliza Sdraulig (Cello), and Elizabeth Woolnough (Viola). Image courtesy of the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
Experience the Australian Chamber Orchestra up close in CLVB ’33, Banff Centre’s cabaret-style venue.
Join Richard Tognetti (ACO Artistic Director), Satu Vänskä (Principal Violin & Vocals), Elizabeth Woolnough (Viola), and Timo-Veikko Valve (Principal Cello) as they step outside the bounds of tradition in a program that blurs the line between concert and cabaret.
This is music as provocation and memory: a journey through centuries of sound and subversion. Vänskä trades her Stradivarius for the microphone, channelling the smoky defiance of a vanished era, while the ensemble moves between precision and abandon. A musical theatre of ideas—where history is felt rather than narrated, and where the boundaries between performer and persona, past and present, are deliberately blurred.
Artists
Richard Tognetti, Director & Violin
Satu Vänskä, Principal Violin & Vocals
Elizabeth Woolnough, Viola
Timo-Veikko Valve, Principal Cello
About the Australian Chamber Orchestra
Australian Chamber Orchestra
“The Australian Chamber Orchestra is uniformly high-octane, arresting and never ordinary.”
The Australian.
The Australian Chamber Orchestra lives and breathes music, making waves around the world for its explosive performances that redefine orchestral music. With their fearless leader of 35 years, Artistic Director Richard Tognetti, in 2025 the Orchestra celebrates 50 years of invention, disruption and unforgettable music-making.
The ACO performs more than 100 concerts each year, with programs that embrace celebrated classics alongside new commissions and ground-breaking collaborations, working with artists and musicians who share their ideology: from Emmanuel Pahud, Steven Isserlis, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Pekka Kuusisto, Nicolas Altstaedt and William Barton, to Jonny Greenwood, Neil Finn and Meow Meow; to visual artists and film makers such as Bill Henson, Shaun Tan, Jane Campion, and Jennifer Peedom, who co-create unique, hybrid productions for which the ACO has become renowned.
The ACO has its own streaming platform, ACO On Demand, which hosts the Orchestra’s award-winning cinematic concert films, ACO StudioCasts, alongside live concert streams. The Orchestra also has an active recording program. Its recordings of Bach’s violin works won three consecutive ARIA Awards. Recent releases include Water | Night Music, the first Australian-produced classical vinyl for two decades, Beethoven 1, 2, & 3 Eroica and ARIA award-winning albums River and Indies & Idols.
In 2022 the ACO opened a new, world class venue, ACO On The Pier, continuing their dedication to creating and presenting transformative experiences for all music lovers.