The first festival in Tasmania to be devoted to chamber music will be held at Evandale in the state’s north in October. The three-day Tasmanian Chamber Music Festival is an initiative of art gallery director Allanah Dopson and is being supported by a $20,000 grant from the State Government’s tourism arm, Events Tasmania.

The festival’s six concerts will take place in historic buildings in and around the township including a local winery and the magnificent colonial landmark, Clarendon. Performers will be Tinalley String Quartet, recorder player Genevieve Lacey, harpist Marshall McGuire, pianist Piers Lane, and the recently formed Hobart-based Van Diemen’s Band, which is dedicated to historically informed performance.

The loss of the high profile Hobart Baroque festival under controversial circumstances three years ago has left a void in Tasmania’s classical music calendar which this new, albeit smaller, annual event promises to help fill. The Island State already has MOFO (aka MONA FOMA and its winter solstice version, Dark Mofo), but this of course is aimed at contemporary music audiences.

As its director, Dopson says the Tasmanian Chamber Music Festival will be a “boutique” event that brings music-making to “intimate, beautiful surroundings” in the State’s north.