Musica Viva Australia’s 2020 season is chock full of “A-Grade” artists, plenty of Australian content and “a great swag of newly commissioned music”, Carl Vine tells Limelight. Next year is the organisation’s 75th birthday, but it’s also Vine’s final season as Artistic Director after a tenure of 19 years, so he’s pulling out all the stops.

Garrick Ohlsson. Photo © Dario Acosta

“That’s how we finished up with, in the one season, Garrick Ohlsson, Cho-Liang Lin, Les Talens Lyriques, Siobhan Stagg and Chanticleer,” Vine says.

It is American pianist Garrick Ohlsson who opens the season, touring programs of Beethoven, Prokofiev, Chopin and Brahms in February and March (in association with the Perth and Adelaide festivals) before Musica Viva’s second tour of the year, in April, celebrates yet another anniversary: the Goldner String Quartet’s 25th. “That has been in the pipeline since they celebrated their 20th,” Vine laughs. “Just been waiting for the next milestone.”

The Goldners will perform Elgar, Brahms and Korngold Piano Quintets with Piers Lane, as well as Dvořák’s ‘American’ String Quartet No 12, and a brand new...