Join Breakfast host David Dowsett and ARCO co-artistic director Nicole van Bruggen as they chat about the Bohemian Dreams concerts in the Wide Bay area.
David Dowsett, ABC Wide Bay
Hear full interview. (starts 45:25)
Hear ARCO co-artistic director and clarinettist Nicole van Bruggen chat with Fraser Coast FM host Ann Hopwell about the Bohemian Dreams chamber music tour.
Ann Hopwell, Fraser Coast FM
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It’s hard to know what (James Joyce) might have called the small art gallery and indoor plant retailer in which the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra presented its Bohemian Dreams program, nestled among light industrial warehouses in suburban Brisbane – a plantbox? A musicbox?
Call it what you will, everything about this box felt cozy. […]
With their listeners sitting so near, there was no need for the players to force their instruments’ tone, and therefore the parts of the concert that most took the breath away were not the virtuoso fireworks (though there were plenty of those) as the moments when you felt that the musicians were inviting you to join conversations they’d been having in rehearsal already: the smooth imitative curves that opened Franz Krommer’s Clarinet Quintet, the birdlike chirps tossed between van Bruggen’s clarinet and Piccoli’s violin in the same work, Gregan’s infectiously joyous arpeggios in Giovanni Punto’s Horn Quartet.
Andrew Robinson, ClassikON
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With the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra sharing Bohemian Dreams with Bundaberg audiences, featuring sparking chamber music from an age of elegance, it is only fitting that local professional string quintet Bella Canna is included in this stunning performance.
With horn calls, lilting clarinet and strings, the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra’s Bohemian Dreams soars from joyful Mozart and Schubert to the freshness of Bohemian composers like Franz Krommer and Giovanni Punto at the St Luke’s Performance Centre on Saturday 29 August.
Angela Norval, Bundaberg Today
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Hear ABC Capricornia Breakfast host Karyn Wilson chat with ARCO co-artistic director and clarinettist Nicole van Bruggen about the Bohemian Dreams tour to regional Queensland.
Karyn Wilson, ABC Capricornia
Hear full interview. (start at 2:06:55)
The Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra (ARCO) is bringing chamber music from the age of elegance to Rockhampton’s St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral on Friday, 28 August from 7pm.
Bohemian Dreams features music from well-known 18th-century composers like Mozart and Schubert, as well as their lesser-known contemporaries like Haydn, Krommer and Punto, performed on the instruments of the period.
The Rockhampton Youth Orchestra will perform the opening composition, Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, following a workshop with ARCO the night before on Historically Informed Performance.
Matthew Pearce, CQ Today
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Co-founder and General Manager of Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, Nicole van Bruggen will step down at the end of 2026 after 14 years in the role.
Van Bruggen hopes the change will allow more time with family, and more opportunities for her own performance and professional projects. She will continue her role as ARCO’s Co-Artistic Director alongside Rachael Beesley, as well as performing and teaching as ARCO’S principal clarinettist, remaining closely connected with the organisation.
“After 14 years of building ARCO as an orchestra and not-for-profit organisation, I feel this is the right moment to hand over the business reins,” says van Bruggen, who will remain in the role until the end of 2026 to oversee the transition.
Georgia Andrighetto, Limelight
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The connotation of something described as Bohemian is the unusual, with an alternative take on the norm. This perfectly describes the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, which has returned to tour Queensland with Bohemian Dreams – beginning with this concert at Plant Empire, a plant- and art-filled warehouse in the industrial area of Tennyson in Brisbane.
[…]
ARCO’s gut strings…sounded richer and more resonant...The horn fanfares were accurate and magical in the Rondo, galloping alongside the strings for a photo finish. (And) Van Bruggen’s replica Theodor Lotz 1788 clarinet excelled in the now rarely performed Clarinet Quintet by Franz Krommer, which also used two violas instead of two violins, and Natasha Kraemer’s divine original 1743 English cello.
Gemma Regan, Limelight
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The Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra is set to take evocative classical chamber music for natural horn, clarinet and strings on tour from Brisbane, with one of its most popular stops being in Bundaberg.
[…]
For Emma Gregan, who began playing the French horn as young as eight years old and now plays the Modern French Horn for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, this is an instrument that she continues to love.
When she comes to Bundaberg though, she will be wowing audiences with an instrument not often showcased, the Historical Horn.
Angela Norval, Bundaberg Today
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Drive host Evan Wallace interviews clarinettist Nicole van Bruggen and horn player Emma Gregan as ARCO begins the Bohemian Dreams QLD tour in the Sunshine Coast.
Evan Wallace, ABC Sunshine Coast
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The Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra brings together talented players from Australia and abroad for HIP (Historically Informed Performances). They all play original instruments and strive to replicate the performance practices from when the works were originally written.
This concert program centres on five arias from the early 19th century, the performance and interpretation of which were meticulously annotated by Garcia and researched by Neal Peres Da Costa and his team of staff and postgraduate students at the Sydney Conservatorium.
[…]
Bellini’s Oboe Concerto in E flat was beautifully played by Professor Vinciane Baudhuin from the Brussels Royal Conservatory; stylistically true, lyrical and expressive. She invites the audience in, rather than trying to convince. The highlight of the concert was Greco’s Semiramide aria. It was the full monti vendetta drama. It was musically thrilling and expressive throughout the huge vocal range.
Daniel Kaan, ClassikON
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For their fifth album, the Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra (ARCO) bring their historically-informed expertise to a pair of neglected works from the first half of the 19th century.
In ARCO’s hands Farrenc’s Nonet undulates and glistens with a remarkable airiness, full of intricate twists and turns….(while Eberl’s Symphony in E flat) is a dazzler, hurtling along excitedly with crackers going off, brilliantly handled here with the same deft lightness of touch, spaciousness and attention to nuance that worked so beautifully in Farrenc’s Nonet.
These are the first Australian recordings of both works, and the musicianship and sound quality are superb.
Lisa MacKinney, Limelight
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Hear co-artistic director Nicole van Bruggen chatting with 2MBS Breakfast host Simon Target about the Sydney concert Love, Loss & Madness on 16 July.
Simon Target, 2MBS Fine Music Sydney
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Louise Farrenc is a name we’re hearing more and more of now that the attention of performers and audiences turns to repertoire by women that has fallen from favour between their time and ours. […] This is one of very few (recordings), however, on period instruments – another gathering of soloists, from Australia and Europe, drawn from the ranks of the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra led by violinist Rachael Beesley.
(Paired with Eberl’s Symphony in E flat,) these are largely enjoyable performances and the unique coupling makes a valuable calling card for this inquisitive young ensemble.
David Threasher, Gramophone
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Two reasons (out of many) to be grateful for the presence of Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra in our local live and recorded music scene are made as crystal clear as their interpretations with the release this month of Farrenc & Eberl, the orchestra’s fifth album.
Firstly, this group of Historically Informed Performance (HIP) experts, period instrument artists, researchers and mentors…brings us seldom-performed works by composers from their focus eras.
Also, we are thankful that recordings released have been predominantly from concerts recorded live on tour, with a cast of local and overseas HIP players. In this way the electricity of the events in which unearthed works were heard shifts effectively to exciting first-time recordings in Australia.
This recording is one to cherish…enlightening, dynamic, elevated and authentic.
Paul Nolan, Sydney Arts Guide
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The Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra releases its fifth album, Farrenc & Eberl: Beyond Classical Horizons on 8 May, 2026. The album releases internationally on the ARCO label and will be available in physical, digital and streaming formats at arco.org.au/farrenc-cd.
The album celebrates gender equality and unsung trailblazers with this recording of the Nonet in E flat major, Opus 38 (1849) by Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) and the Symphony in E flat major, Opus 33 (1803) by Anton Eberl (1765 -1807).
This latest album from The Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, conducted from the violin by Rachel Beesley, brings these pioneering works to life in their Australian premiere, with historically informed performance (HIP) on period instruments.
Sounds Like Sydney
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The Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra (ARCO) has announced the cohort of Emerging Artists for its 2026 Young Mannheim Symphonists (YMS) program, spotlighting five young musicians set to take part in an intensive period of historically informed performance (HIP) training and professional development.
Violinist Maya Homsma, violist Neil Wang, double bassist Jude Hill, alongside Jude Macarthur and Bryn Wood, have been selected for the 2026 intake. The program is designed as a bridge between advanced study and the professional music industry, offering participants mentorship, performance experience and industry insight.
Jason Blake, Limelight
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Alice Keith gives ARCO’s First Light NSW tour a shout-out on the What’s On program, along with the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No.7 in A, available on our Perspective & Celebration album.
Alice Keith, ABC Classic
Listen here (at 19:43)
Breakfast producer Meredith Kirton chats to ARCO co-artistic director and principal clarinettist Nicole van Bruggen about her historic clarinets and what they’ll be playing on the First Light NSW tour 5-8 March - plus a sneak preview listen of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet.
Meredith Kirton, ABC Mid North Coast
Listen here (at 1:35:29)
“FIRST Light” refers to music illuminated by the sunrise and it is about to be performed in Port Macquarie by principal musicians of the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra.
They are part of a larger orchestra of 40 to 50 Australian musicians, with occasional guest performers from Europe. The orchestra was formed in 2013 and performed last Easter at the Sydney Opera House. It will also perform at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in July.
Given the size of the orchestra, smaller groups of principals can take their performances to regional centres.
“We’re absolutely delighted to be bringing our First Light program to Port Macquarie’s beautiful Glasshouse Theatre for the first time,” said Co-Artistic Director and Principal Clarinet Nicole van Bruggen.
Bill Harrow, News of the Area
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