Paul Dyer talks to Limelight about friends old and new and the joys of programming.

There’s no doubt that the Baroque has been one of classical music’s boom industries over the last three decades. New repertoire turns up all the time, exhumed from dusty corners of European libraries, and the roster of talented, specialist period instrument practitioners grows by the day. The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and their Artistic Director Paul Dyer have been at the forefront of our own discoveries here at home, regularly premiering music by the great composers and bringing us the crème de la crème of overseas talent. Their 2016 programme is no exception: rarities by Conti, Fasch and Geminiani but also first Australian performances of music by lesser-known masters such as Gallo, Ritter and Firenza, unearthed by Dyer himself.

Maurice Steger

The new season opens with a special guest director in the form of baroque recorder wizard Maurice Steger. The Swiss virtuoso comes trailing an award-winning discography and  likely bearing a suitcase packed with up to 20 recorders of different shapes and sizes. “People tend to think they know the recorder and its connotations,...