STUDENTS at The Hamilton and Alexandra College (THAAC) will receive professional feedback from members of The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra this Saturday as part of a musical workshop.

In a first for Hamilton, The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra will travel to town as part of their regional Victoria tour, with the group holding a workshop for selected THAAC students Saturday morning, before their performance at The Hamilton and Alexandra College Auditorium at 2pm.

As part of the workshop, students will play music from the Baroque and Classical eras, before receiving feedback from the world-class performers themselves.

THAAC director of music, Benjamin Hiscock, said the workshop would provide an excellent opportunity for students to receive expert advice from highly talented professionals. 

“All of these students play a pretty high level so to have professionals like the players in the Brandenburg Orchestra come and listen to them play and offer feedback is quite spectacular,” he said.

“We’ve planned for the students to play works which are from the Baroque period, so they will be playing some Bach and Vivaldi and Telemann.

“So, these experts in that music will be able to give them some constructive criticism about how to play that style of music particularly appropriately.”

Mr Hiscock said both students from the senior school and junior school would perform in the workshop, including the small chamber group and the quartet, with three students also performing as soloists.

THAAC voice teacher and singing member of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra for around 20 years, Craig Everingham, said The Orchestra perform using period instruments which are different to instruments commonly used today.

“They are very valuable instruments,” he said.

“It does produce different quality of sound … Baroque instruments are tuned at a slightly different pitch, so the students’ instruments are playing at concert pitch which we know today is 440 (Hz), baroque instruments are tuned at 415 (Hz).

“So, it’s almost like a semitone below and that was to do with the tension of strings - so it is a different sound again.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for the community to see instruments that they would not normally see, and hear them as well, and played well obviously.”

Both the student workshop at 10am and The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra performance at 2pm are free for the public to attend, with Mr Hiscock reflecting how lucky Hamilton is to have such notable musicians visit.

“We have such a great string program which Ben Singh runs and so we were the prime candidates really to host them,” he said.

Mr Everingham said he mentioned to The Australian Brandenburg Orchestra that they should add Hamilton to their regional Victoria tour list, which was how the performance came to be.

“It is a huge privilege to have a professional group come … I think Hamilton is extremely fortunate,” he said.

“I am just really looking forward to hosting them and showing them Hamilton and the beauty and the surrounds.”

As we approach the end of the year and the 150th anniversary of THAAC, Mr Hiscock said it was fantastic to add the Brandenburg Orchestra to the list of performances at College this year.

“It’s been a great year of concerts and visiting performers,” he said.

“We’ve also got the Australian String Quartet coming on November 29.

“They’ve been to us the last couple of years.

“They will be doing another workshop and then a concert.”

“It is certainly very special.”