Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra
The Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra was formed in 1967 by Peter Evans and Josef Ruecker to develop and maintain a mandolin orchestra in Melbourne. Besides regular performance it organises summer schools and workshops, trains new players, hosts visiting groups and commissions new music.
The mandolin’s reach in popular and folk music has grown over two centuries, yet the sweet-sounding acoustic instrument itself evolved in Italy in the Baroque period, used both as a solo voice and in small ensembles. Classical interest has waxed and waned, but mandolin ensembles—or “Zupforchesters”—still flourish in Europe, Japan, the USA and Australia. New works in many styles continue to refresh a repertoire that might otherwise stand still.
A mandolin orchestra is laid out much like a string quartet: first and second mandolin sections, with larger, lower mandolas tuned a fifth or a full octave below, and the still larger mandoloncello answering the cello. Classical guitars and double basses fill out the bass and often supply the rhythmic spine.
The Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra, founded in 1967 through the efforts of Peter Evans and founding conductor Josef Ruecker, has long charmed Australian audiences with that distinctive plucked sound. It has toured Europe and Japan and took several first prizes at the inaugural International Mandolin Orchestra Competition in Eupen, Belgium, in 1993. Training camps, including early gatherings in Bendigo, helped spark FAME, the Federation of Australasian Mandolin Ensembles, which promotes classical mandolin and mandolin ensembles across Australia and New Zealand.
Players are required to use Neapolitan-style mandolins rather than flat-back instruments. The almond-shaped Neapolitan body, awkward to hold but valued for its lower register, is held essential to the sweeter tone associated with this tradition.
Fred Witt, conductor of the MMO’s first Move CD, Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra, is among Germany’s most respected conductors, composers and performers of plucked music. Born in Dortmund in 1922, he learnt guitar, mandolin, zither and piano accordion with Theodore Ritter and Willi Althoff; after the war he studied guitar, accordion and singing at the University in Dortmund. He has led leading German mandolin orchestras—including Nord-Rhein Westfallen, Neuenhain, the Hessen State Mandolin Orchestra and the Beyer-Leverkuessen Mandolin Orchestra—as well as the Zither Orchestra-Bochum Langen Dreer and many choirs. In Melbourne he conducted the German Male Choir Arion and the German mixed choir. His compositions have won numerous awards and are played worldwide. After touring with the Deutsches Zupforchester in 1977 he returned for Federation of Mandolin Ensembles summer schools in 1978, 1979, 1981 and 1990, and from 1990 conducted the Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra, lifting its performances with that partnership of conductor and ensemble.
Later conductor Slava Iourgaev arrived in Australia in 1994 from Uzbekistan, where he took a Master’s degree (’92) in cello at the Tashkent State Conservatorium with Tschackvodze. He has performed with Melbourne orchestras, taught in schools and played in the string quartet “Unique”, and as a popular cello soloist with the MMO before taking the podium.
Artist's website: www.melbournemandolinorchestra.com
Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra is featured on the following titles
Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra
A prize-winning Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra programme of easy-listening classical works, with guitar soloist Slava Grigoryan and other featured players under Fred Witt.
Brolga Dances
The Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra presents contemporary Australian works written or arranged for mandolin and guitar, from landscape pieces and dances to chamber textures across the ensemble’s distinctive plucked sound.
Mandolino Italiano
The Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra presents a programme built around Italian melody and the Neapolitan mandolin tradition. Bitelli, a Bellini fantasy, period arias with soprano, a Verdi La Traviata fantasy, Toselli’s Serenade, and well-loved popular songs.
World Music
The Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra presents music from around the world: Latin American dances, Klezmer, Slavic folk and blues, in contemporary works that still draw on traditional song and dance.
Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra also appears on
Cosmosis
The album explores the many combinations throat singing can take. Dean Frenkel pairs overtone singing with a children’s choir, guitar and mandolin, Australian birds, contemporary piano, vibraphone duet, and a female vocal duo in song form.
The Marvellous World of George Dreyfus, Vol. 1
A survey of marvellous music by the well-known Australian composer George Dreyfus, one of the country’s most animated musical personalities, spanning concert, film, choral and children’s repertoire.
Members of Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra
Michelle Wright
Michelle Wright is a mandolinist associated with Melbourne’s classical plucked-string scene, appearing as a soloist with the Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra and related ensembles.
Kurt Jensen
Kurt Jensen is a Danish mandolin soloist who performed professionally from the age of twelve. In Australia he featured as soloist with the Melbourne Musicians, Chamber Strings of Melbourne, Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra and Guitar Ensemble.
Slava Grigoryan
Slava Grigoryan’s classical guitar brings colour, texture and a pleasurable weightlessness to chamber music, whether set against mandolin orchestra shimmer, late-night improvisation, or spare contemporary Australian scores.