Musica Viva - bringing music to life

Quality, diversity, challenge and joy make life’s experiences richer and more enjoyable. These qualities also define Musica Viva, the independent organisation that has brought inspirational music to life for over 60 years.

Few experiences have more vitality than a live music performance. Musica Viva stages thousands of concerts every year, bringing the joy of music to more than half a million people. Each concert has the spellbinding quality of intimacy being “up close” to some of the world’s most brilliant performers. Unlike many music organisations represented by a single group of performers, Musica Viva presents hundreds of different musicians every year, as radically diverse as traditional English choirs and Japanese drumming ensembles.

Each is challenged to deliver performances of the highest artistry, stretching the boundaries of music and opening hearts and minds to fresh new interpretations of music that may be centuries old or being heard for the first time. These four values; quality, diversity, challenge and joy, are woven throughout every part of Musica Viva, drawing it together into a cohesive whole.

Musica Viva is perhaps best known for its National Concert Series. Each year, musicians of exceptional calibre from overseas, together with the finest Australian talent, perform in Australia’s main metropolitan centres. Each concert is a showcase of sheer virtuosity — a combination of interpretation, imagination and spirit.

The second part of Musica Viva, which manifests itself in a great many more performances, is Musica Viva In Schools. With a legacy reaching back over 25 years, many Australian adults recall these concerts from their own school days. Musica Viva In Schools is designed to stimulate a love of music in children — by discovering it, listening to it, creating it and performing it. Australian lives are enriched by the country’s cultural diversity which is forever growing and enhancing our way of life.

Musica Viva’s Café Carnivale delves into the wider world of music by offering a diverse program of concerts in Sydney featuring musicians from Africa to Asia and Europe to Latin America — all living right here in Australia.

Ménage brings classical music together with urban groove for a truly unique experience. Ménage is an exciting new concept in music events staged in great inner city venues. The performances occur in non-traditional concert spaces where unspoken ‘concert protocols’ are banished. Audiences join with friends, sample a glass of wine and enjoy the performance seated as close as possible to the artists.

Musica Viva CountryWide lives up to its name, staging concerts from Broome to Ballina, Cairns to Launceston. Over 90 ensembles perform before 20,000 people in Australia’s regional centres and remote outposts. A broad range of musical styles are represented — whether it’s a concert performance by a string quartet or piano soloist, a cabaret evening or a world music group headlining an outdoor festival.

Musica Viva is proudly associated with a wide range of Festivals from the Huntington Estate Music Festival to many exciting collaborative ventures with state-based arts festivals.

Musica Viva will present an innovative new Festival in Sydney which will turn the CBD into a living chamber music hothouse, combining some of Australia’s most accomplished musicians and students with stellar international artists to create five days packed with concerts, masterclasses, seminars and other events spread across the city.

Musica Viva is a non-profit organisation and relies on the “lifeblood” of generous support of its donors, sponsors, funding partners and the many volunteers who freely give their time on committees and in the office. This inspirational foundation augments the company’s commercial income to help fund the depth and breadth of Musica Viva’s concerts and education programs. ‘Lifeblood’ is an entirely appropriate descriptor, for Musica Viva is a living, breathing entity.

In 2006, it was awarded for Distinguished Services to Australian Music in the Australian Classical Music Awards — a first for an institution rather than an individual.

Musica Viva continues to challenge the boundaries of chamber music, turning it from its conservative origins into a rich celebration of intimacy, vitality and artistry. Music enriches our lives and often becomes inextricably linked with the most poignant moments in them. Musica Viva is on a remarkable journey that has delighted millions of music lovers along the way keeping live music alive!