Musicus Medicus presents an afternoon in vienna

Swapping their stethoscopes for strings and their tendon hammers for percussion, the medicos of New South Wales Doctors’ Orchestra takes to the stage again as Music Medicus to open the 2012 Sydney Eisteddfod season with An Afternoon in Vienna.

This year, the Eisteddfod celebrates 79 years of fostering and showcasing the talent of performers not just from Sydney and New South Wales, but from around the nation and the region in a formidable variety of genres and age groups. The New South Wales Orchestra has been supporting the Sydney Eisteddfod since 2008 with the proceeds from its benefit concerts supporting the NSW Doctors’ Orchestra Instrumental Scholarship, the largest orchestral prize offered through the Eisteddfod.

Conductor Dr David Banney will conduct the orchestra in An Afternoon in Vienna, performing the music of Schubert, Mahler and Strauss, featuring soloist baritone Christopher Hillier. Dr David Banney won the ABC-Westfield Australian Young Conductor of the Year Award in 1995. He is based in Newcastle, New South Wales where he teaches at the Conservatorium and conducts several orchestras, among them, the Newcastle Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra and the European Medical Students Orchestra. He is Artistic Director of the Hunter Sinfonia and Director of Hunter Strings, a youth orchestra.

Christopher Hillier is a principal with Opera Australia. After graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music he won the Opera Foundation Covent Garden Scholarship in 2006 and undertook further study at London’s National Opera Studio in 2007. Returning to Sydney he has sung the roles of Zurga in Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, Germont in Verdi’s La Traviata and Fiorello in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. His solo concert repertoire includes Monteverdi’s Vespers, Handel’s Messiah, Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, Haydn’s Mass in the Time of War and Orff’s Carmina Burana.

All proceeds from this concert will be directed to the Cancer Assistance Fund and the Sydney Eisteddfod.

Tickets:  Adult $40; Concession $30; Child $20; Family $90

Bookings: at  www.sydneyeisteddfod.com.au or call (02) 9261-8366