The Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) returns to Australia in October 2023, playing concerts in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane in what will be ASMF’s first Australian tour since 2017.

Academy of St Martins in the Field. Photo © Benjamin Ealovega

Led by the Grammy Award-winning American violinist Joshua Bell as Music Director, the orchestra will play programs of music by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saëns and Prokofiev.

The last time ASMF played in Sydney, Limelight critic Philip Scott was moved to a five-star review, noting the ensemble’s “precision, and unanimity of articulation and expression.”

Established in 1958 by the late Neville Marriner, the ASMF gave its first performance in its namesake church on the corner of London’s Trafalgar Square in November 1959. Its early concerts played a key role in the revival of Baroque music in the UK in the early 1960s.

The orchestra’s first recording was for the L’Oiseau-Lyre label in 1961. It has since accumulated an extensive discography and is now one of the most extensively recorded chamber orchestras in the world, with over 500 sessions for labels including Argo, Capriccio, Chandos,