Musica Viva has announced its 2018 season, with mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital returning to Australia, as well as violinists Nicola Benedetti and Ray Chen, clarinettist Sabine Meyer, Canadian Baroque stars Tafelmusik, pianists Joyce Yang and Sir András Schiff and more.

With so many stars on the programme, Musica Viva’s Artistic Director Carl Vine is hard-pressed to nominate highlights when talking to Limelight. “Tafelmusik is a major event in the year,” he says. “It’s another of their mixed multimedia presentations, Bach and His World. But at the same time, Sabine Meyer is a massive inclusion in the season, as is Ray Chen, and Joyce Yang. So there’s actually nothing missing – Nicola Benedetti is always wonderful to have. Now she appears with two equal young stars, Leonard Elschenbroich and Alexander Grynyuk.”

The season opens with clarinettist Sabine Meyer and the Alliage Quintett touring in February and March. “Sabine Meyer was here in 2010 and we have been trying to work out a way to bring Sabine back that wasn’t simply a duplicate of the last tour,” Vine says. “It’s tough for the clarinettists who either have clarinet and piano, or clarinet and string...