Now in its 34th year, this 9-day Festival of Chamber Music situated in tropical Townsville on the cusp of the Barrier Reef is a stunning example of cultural tourism.
Last year, the Festival drew 22,106 Queenslander, Interstate and overseas visitors to this tropical region. In 2024, independent research from Tourism and Events Queensland showed a boost to North Queensland’s economy by $20 million.
Remarkably, the Festival has cultivated loyal subscribers with a broad musical taste who give a contemporary piece the benefit of the doubt. Former artistic director, the London based pianist Piers Lane, once remarked how special it is to have an audience in a regional centre receptive to challenging, neglected and unusual music. This year’s Festival boasted six world premieres. Jack Liebeck‘s curation is adventurous.
Concert Conversations invites six AFCM artists to discuss topical issues. For instance, why orchestral musicians are so unforgiving towards conductors. For those string players assigned a valuable violin or cello centuries old what is it like learning to play these cherished instruments.
Cellist Michael Dahlenburg from the Australian String Quartet spoke about bonding with the Guadagnini cello on loan to him which he calls Luigi. Awkward initially he said it was like an arranged marriage.
Inevitably, there were a couple of musicians unable to attend. Charlotte Miles stepped in for Kyril Zlotnikov and gave a performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto at short notice. She has given several public performances of this work, immortalised by Jacqueline du Pres, as a child but not recently. Her performance gathered astonishing depth and the audience greeted this authentic and meaningful delivery with rapturous applause.
On the same program, soprano Carolyn Sampson revealed her gorgeous tone and authority in Strauss’ Four Last Songs, in a ground-breaking arrangement by James Crabb which featured the accordion which added textural depth. Im Abendrot, the final emotive song, was particularly noteworthy with all instruments able to shine in solo moments.
At another Concert Conversations, ABC broadcaster and composer Andrew Ford narrated his tongue-in-cheek Carnival for Insects, based on John Kinsella texts, it recalls Saint-Saens’ similarly titled iconic work. Each of the fourteen movements celebrated an insect. Sketches of a grasshopper, cockroach, bumble bee and stick insect were vividly portrayed by a scratch ensemble of string royalty.
The daily Ray Golding Sunset Series is popular because of its one-hour compact duration and programming of themed repertoire. Stefan Dohr, Principal French Horn with the Berlin Philharmonic, starred in Horn of Plenty in which he gave a staggeringly fine account of Messiaen’s technically fiendish Appell Interstellar for solo horn from Des Canyon aux Etoiles.
Dohr revealed an exceptional command of the microtonal passages and other horn specific sound effects. York Bowen’s Quintet for Horn and Strings showcased Dohr’s lovely soloing and his marvellous capacity to blend in with other players in this case the Australian String Quartet.
Goodman’s Clarinet featured the UK’s superstar clarinetist Michael Collins. The repertoire included Bartok’s Trio for violin, clarinet and cello. A significant work because it was the first time Bartok had composed chamber music involving a woodwind player.
Collins, violinist Adam Barnett-Hart and pianist Joseph Havlat explored the composer’s extremes to the hilt in this most accomplished interpretation. In Poulenc’s Clarinet Sonata the piano was replaced by accordion. Crabb made a reliable associate artist but the thicker-voiced accordion could not illustrate Poulenc’s intended dialogue between clarinet and piano with any sparkling clarity. This didn’t detract from Collins’ extraordinary instrumental finesse.
Always popular, the al fresco events included a Queens Gardens Concert with the Great Barrier Reef Orchestra conducted by Theodore Kuchar, the AFCM’s founding artistic director. Orpheus-Goolboddi Island is uninhabited and on the boat trip along the way patrons were thrilled to watch playful whales breach in a foaming sea.
On arrival, a recital on the beach presented memorable solos. Mark Smith aired Adolphus Hailstork’s Variations for Trumpet, Joshua Batty gave a vibrant reading of Flamenco Studies for Flute and Carolyn Sampson excelled in Something More Than Mortal by Cheryl Frances-Hoad.
This year’s noticeably inclusive Festival Program embraced more chamber works by women composers including Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Nicole Murphy, Lili and Nadia Boulanger, Deborah Pritchard and Joan Tower. Instrumentalists included a healthier ratio of women and male players. Double-bass players Phoebe Russell and Kirsty McCahon were both outstanding.
Pathways International Masterclasses, this year boosted by a $525,000 donation from the Ian Potter Foundation, accepts emerging artists to participate in masterclasses and perform on the Festival Gardens stage. Conditions were not ideal. Cedar Rose Newman from Manhattan School of Music (US) and pianists Rio Xiang, Sydney Conservatorium, performed Cesar Franck’s Violin Sonata. A road train thundered down the road behind the well-lit outdoor stage, roosting birds chirruped and a helicopter rattled overhead and yet the duo powered an unforgettably intense and moving account.
Highlights of the Evening Concerts included the sensational Andromeda Sax Quartet’s thrilling version of Dvorak’s American String Quartet. Martinu’s La Revue de Cuisine was cinematically captured by clarinetist Lloyd van’s Hoff, bassoonist Tasman Compton, trumpeter Mark Smith, violinist Emily Sun and Olga Zado on piano.
Carolyn Sampson and Ana-Maria Vera had marvellous rapport in channelling Brahms’ Von Eiger Liebe. Tchaikovsky’s Quartet no. 3 in Eb minor for strings, with violinists Adam Barnett-Hart and Jack Liebeck, the wonderfully soulful violist Milena Pajaro-van de Stadt and Miles on cello was world-class.
Standards were especially high this year with 36 classy musicians drawn from Australia, America, The UK and Germany. The AFCM is arguably Australia’s most significant chamber music festival and it has inspired others across the country.
Locals are saddened and, in some cases angered by the festival’s shift to Cairns in 2026. The move most likely prompted by Townsville City Council’s decision not to fund a long promised new performing arts centre with bespoke and much-needed acoustics for classical music performance.
The Australian Festival of Chamber Music took place in Townville from 25 July – 2 August 2025. For more information, visit: www.afcm.com.au for details.
Images: Highlights of the Governor’s Gala Concert: Heavenly Serenade – photos by Through The Looking Glass Studio
Words: Gillian Wills
Gillian Wills is a graduate and honorary associate of The Royal Academy of Music for distinguished services to the music profession. She is an author and arts journalist who writes for Australian Arts Review, InDailyQueensland and Limelight. Her debut novel Big Music, Hawkeye Publishing, was released in October 2024.