The thunder of a well-worn road. Dry blonde hills. The occasional cow. Such was the drive up from Sydney to Orange Chamber Music Festival for its Festival Gala.

From the warm welcome into the Kinross Wolaroi School’s Derek Pigot Auditorium from the KWS Thompson Ensemble, it seemed the change from city to country air flowed into the experience of listening. You could pin moments of the music onto the valleys and winding roads that brought you here.

Jay Byrnes and Camerata – Queensland’s’ Chamber Orchestra at the 2023 Orange Chamber Music Festival. Photo © Pip Farquharson.

The Festival Gala invited Camerata, Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra, for its first time ever in Orange. Something that resonated from the opening address from Artistic Director Brendan Joyce and throughout the night was the sense of pure fun that radiated out of the chamber orchestra in its performance, with a clear love of what it was doing.

The gala opened with Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C major. While some moments in the first movement weighed a little top-heavy – more due to a...