Orange Chamber Music Festival presents Cultured this Saturday

The 2025 Orange Chamber Music Festival (March 6–9) gets underway today with a diverse program of events to delight music lovers.

 A key feature of the Festival is the community event, Cultured, a full day of music in the cultural precinct on Saturday, March 8, which will be followed by a very special Festival Gala celebrating International Women’s Day.

Now in its fourth year, Cultured is all about taking classical music out of the concert hall and making it more accessible to people with more informal performances in locations throughout the cultural precinct.

“Part of the mission of Cultured is to show that classical music isn't scary and it isn't elitist; it can be for everybody,” Orange Chamber Music Festival producer, Jay Byrne, said.

“We know that classical music has a little bit of a stigma about it, and we're trying to break that barrier… And the exciting thing for me is that everything is free, so it's open to absolutely anybody that wants to come along and experience these performances in unique settings.”

Cultured begins 10am Saturday, March 8, in Orange City Library with Elemental Resonance, an interactive performance for all ages by harpist Paul Nicolaou, using sensorial elements to enhance the audience’s perceptions of sound, music and colour.

This experience is recommended for children, young families, seniors and neurodivergent people. 

Cultured continues at 11am with the newly established Cultured Youth Orchestra and the Wula Gurray Children’s Choir performing a program titled ‘Australiana’ at the Orange Civic Theatre, a celebration of Australian themes by Australian living composers.

At 2pm, the final event sees alumni of the acclaimed Australian Chamber Orchestra present a specially curated performance in the Anne Thomson survey exhibition at Orange Regional Gallery (North Gallery).

The climax of the 2025 Orange Chamber Music Festival is a very special Festival Gala celebrating International Women’s Day on Saturday, March 8.

Opus.Her, curated by Festival Director Carmen Nieves, weaves together archival footage, narrative and melody, in a tribute to women composers, singers and leaders from a diverse range of eras and backgrounds.

“It will be an all-women performance and mostly women composers as well,” Carmen said. “It’s an evening of high-calibre performances telling the story of women throughout time and it will be an audiovisual sort of show, so a little bit different from what we normally do – it's a really interesting show!”

The Orange Chamber Music Festival takes place March 6–9. For the full program of events and links to tickets visit www.ocmf.com.au

Cultured, the flagship community event of the festival on Saturday, March 8, is completely free.