Background

ABOUT THE ORCHESTRA

Orchestra

The Australian Discovery Orchestra (ADO) was established to give professional-level orchestral musicians from across Australia not holding permanent positions with any of the country’s major performing arts organisations,  an opportunity to engage with their passion: performing great orchestral music in a professional setting with their peers.

The ADO further prioritises, on occasion, identifying and performing new Australian music from composers with a passion for writing for large orchestral forces.

The ADO is open to all instrumentalists from around Australia who are Australian, New Zealand citizens or permanent residents over 18 years of age.

The ADO seeks to find new ways of engaging viewers and listeners by making the music it performs a catalyst for exploration through the development of interactive online experiences available across the Internet.  The ADO leads the world in the design and integration of these experiences.

The ADO is predisposed to tell stories – not solely about the music – but by using the music it performs to develop connections with ideas; with histories (both past and present); with social interactions, and through building cultural connections to other groups and organisations across the digital space.

Committed to the possibilities inherent in exploring and presenting orchestral music through alternative – and sometimes unconventional –  design models underpins the creative thinking at the Australian Discovery Orchestra.

Holding to the core belief that hearing and seeing live orchestral concert music is really one of the most humanly transformative activities imaginable – especially important to those audiences whose opportunity to experience the visceral thrill embodied within orchestral music-making is limited – we simultaneously acknowledge that this type of musical storytelling can be told across multiple media channels simultaneously.

“We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”
Paul Valéry, Pièces sur l’art (La Conquête de l’ubiquité)