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Welcome to the Woollahra Philharmonic Orchestra website The Woollahra Philharmonic Orchestra (WPO) is an established community orchestra in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. With around 50 playing members, we perform a regular program of four concerts a year and often feature nationally and internationally acclaimed guest soloists, as well as local musicians. The Orchestra also has a strong program of chamber groups and smaller ensembles. The WPO is supported by Woollahra Municipal Council. Next concert: Our next concert is at 2.30pm on Sunday 19 September 2010 at The Scots College, Victoria Road, Bellevue Hill. This concert will be the final concert conducted by founding conductor Mathias Rogala-Koczorowski (pictured right). Our resident composer Joe Wolfe also features on the program with special guest Anthony Heinrichs from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Download or view the Concert Flyer. Sign up for our new E-news for orchestra news and concert reminders! Our next concert will be very special and one which I am sure you will enjoy very much. Mathias has been an integral figure in both the history and the success of the Woollahra Philharmonic. As a professional horn player, he was known to the orchestra’s founders and gratefully accepted an invitation to be the inaugural conductor in the middle of 1996. With such an exotic name and flamboyant looks, he already had a lot going for him! He was there at the first rehearsal on Monday 9 September 1996 at All Saints Chuch Woollahra and conducted the orchestra’s first concert at Wentworth Memorial Church in Vaucluse on 10 November 1996. The programme for that first concert was Beethoven’s Egmont Overture, Richard Strauss’s First Horn Concerto, Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and Sibelius’s Finlandia. Since then Mathias has conducted all but three of the orchestra’s concerts - in excess of 50 concerts.
During that time, he has barely missed a rehearsal – some achievment as in winter months he has had to battle snow and ice travelling from his home near Oberon. Over the years the orchestra has performed a wide range of interesting and ambitious works not often contemplated by community orchestras – works by Janacek, Shostakovich, Britten, Mahler, Poulenc and Stravinsky as well as some big symphonies of the late 19th century by Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Bruckner. Mathias has worked well with such distingushed soloists as Wanda Wilkamirsks, Rachel Valler, David Pereira and Roy Howat to name a few.
Through his wide range of contacts in the music world, Mathias has always been able to track down a player to fill a hole. And not withstanding the stresses of the position he has always maintained his sense of humour and love of music.
Do come along and join us in a Festive Farewell to Mathias Rogala-Koczorowski.
Best regards, Nigel
Nigel Price
President, September 2010
NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING The Agenda for the AGM will as follows:
2. Reports by Office-Bearers and Conductor
3. Election of Office-Bearers and Committee
4. General Business
Tom Beale
Secretary
Woollahra Philharmonic Orchestra
5 August 2010
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Upcoming Concerts
19/09/10 - Spring Sounds
Don't miss founding conductor Mathias Rogala-Koczorowski's final concert. More...
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