About the Heidelberg Symphony Orchestra

Great music ... close to home!

The HSO is widely recognised as one of Melbourne’s most acclaimed non-professional orchestras, enabling it to attract talented and elite musicians from throughout Melbourne.

For over three decades, the HSO has been a valuable community asset by providing a venue for non-professional musicians to play and offering an exceptional series of concerts each year to members of the community.



The Orchestra's members include university students, instrumental music teachers and musicians of any age who wish to play in an orchestra which follows a challenging and exciting programme.

Its annual concert series excite, enrich and entertain the community with a wide range of orchestral repertoire from classical ballet and opera works, the most demanding orchestral symphonies, and much loved modern theatre classics. The Orchestra's repertoire has included such demanding and exciting works as:

• Pictures at an Exhibition - Mussorgsky
• The Planets - Holst
• A Young person’s Guide to the Orchestra - Britten
• “Organ” Symphony – Saint-Saens
• Scheherazade – Rimsky-Korsakov
• Symphony No. 5 – Tchaikovsky
• Carmina Burana – Orffy
• Appalacian Spring – Copland
• Rhapsodie Espagnole – Ravel

and many other symphonies, concertos, overtures and suites. Each season the orchestra is delighted to have the opportunity to perform with well renowned guest artists. Past soloists and guest artists have included

• Spiros Rantos
• Frederick Shade
• Rebecca Chambers
• Len Vorster
• Joe Chindamo's Jazz Trio
• the late Nehama Patkin
• Elyane Laussade
• Mark McGee
• Niall Brown
• Natsuko Yoshimoto
• Tristram Williams
• Amir Farid
• Jody Fisher

Heidelberg Symphony has toured both nationally and internationally. Internationally, Heidelberg Symphony has toured Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain and the UK, performing in a wide range of cultural venues.
Closer to home, it has also performed in Fiji and Singapore. Concerts are recorded by 3MBS and from time to time the HSO produces a CD with excerpts from various concerts.

The latest CD produced in 2011 is entitled "In Concert", which can be purchased here.