What’s this? Bruckner’s massive Te Deum? Performed by the Adelaide Hills Chamber Players? In UKARIA, a specialist chamber music venue? On the one hand it sounds absurdly ambitious, even foolhardy. On the other hand, it shows a wonderfully unpretentious commitment to making good music, in any way possible.

The Adelaide Hills Summer Festival of Fine Music is not just another festival jostling for the only remaining space in Adelaide’s arts calendar. It’s much more grass-roots than that, a labour of love in which devotion to good music-making trumps a clunky name and awkward graphic design. Artistic Director Brian Chatterton has nothing to prove or gain, but is simply continuing what he did for many years at the helm of Co-Opera – making fine music accessible to regional audiences and to hard-working musicians who would otherwise be missing out.

Adelaide Hills Chamber Players

Adelaide Hills Chamber Players

Of the four diverse programs comprising the festival (each being performed in multiple locations in Adelaide and surrounding regions), this one is the most unusual and ambitious: a rarely-heard combination of voices and wind instruments. Bryan Griffiths, Brian Chatterton and Kim Worley share the conducting duties,...