A man with long curly dark hair playing the cello against a black background.

Nicolas Altstaedt

  • Classical Music
  • Australian Chamber Orchestra
  • Concert Hall
  • Seating map

Experience infinite possibility and extraordinary kinetic energy when the world-renowned cellist directs the Australian Chamber Orchestra

In the hands of Nicolas Altstaedt music is alive and centuries of tradition collapse into a single moment of profound clarity. 

Altstaedt is one of the world’s most exhilarating musicians, and his boldness, emotional depth and fierce musicality find a natural partner in the Australian Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble that shares his curiosity and delight in the act of music-making.

This program sweeps from the Baroque to the present, yet in the hands of Altstaedt and the Australian Chamber Orchestra it is one statement. At its heart is CPE Bach’s Cello Concerto in A major, a virtuosic showstopper of vivid emotion, sharp contrasts and unexpected turns of rhythm. The concert culminates in a string orchestra arrangement of Beethoven’s String Quartet Op.135, his final complete work and a piece of monumental foresight that holds the future of music within it. 

Altstaedt and the Australian Chamber Orchestra are master storytellers, unwavering in their pursuit of musical grace and adventure. They hold the future and the past in equal measure. Here they celebrate composers who pushed the limits of their time, and reached for something beyond it.

Event details

Altstaedt has technique to burn, near perfect intonation, superb control of extreme registers and harmonics… so impeccable is his rhythmic nuance, that one hung on every note as if they were the words of a master storyteller

The Australian

Program

Felix Mendelssohn String Symphony No.4 in C minor

Giacinto Scelsi Chukrum: I.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Cello Concerto in A major, Wq.172

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Adagio and Fugue in C minor, K.546

György Kurtág (arr. strings) Ligatura – Message to Frances-Marie (The Answered Unanswered Question), Op.31b

Ludwig van Beethoven (arr. strings) String Quartet in F major, Op.13

Artists

Guest Director & Cello Nicolas Altstaedt

Australian Chamber Orchestra

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Plan your visit

Address

Sydney Opera House
Bennelong Point
Sydney NSW 2000
Australia

Getting to the venue

The Opera House is a 7-10 minute walk from Circular Quay, and is easily accessible by car, train, ferry, lightrail, bus, bike and on foot.

Location and access

Concert Hall

The Concert Hall is located beneath the largest of Sydney Opera House’s roof sails, filling the upper levels of the west side of the building. Best accessed through the covered concourse. 

All Sydney Opera House foyers are accessible, with lifts to the main and western foyers. The public lift to all foyers is accessible from the corridor near the escalators on the Lower Concourse and also in the Western Foyer via the corridor on the Ground Level (at the top of the escalators).

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