The creation of diverse chamber music recitals now being streamed into our households is providing a highly appreciated musical experience for lovers of fine music performances. The Faces of Our Orchestras series from Melbourne Digital Concert Hall, currently being screened from Melbourne’s Athenaeum Theatre, is delighting and exciting listeners who tune in, giving them the opportunity to be “up close and personal” with the orchestral musicians who are taking centre stage as soloists in their own right. We are hearing music rarely performed in the concert hall, and we are also enjoying a new type of intimacy with the performance and, I feel, the composer, devoid of the “greasepaint and the roar of the crowd”.

Ann Blackburn

For the Enchanted Woodwind concert, which streamed on May 4, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra musicians Ann Blackburn (oboe), Wendy Clarke (flute) and Leigh Harrold (piano) teamed up to perform a super selection of 20th-century works for flute, oboe and piano. We can sometimes feel a slight awkwardness with the silence of the empty concert hall as musicians first enter, but here the involvement of each musician introducing us to each piece, sharing their insight and affection...