Musica Viva

Australian music organisation

Musica Viva, also known as Musica Viva Australia, is a national organisation in Australia dedicated to chamber music.

Music Viva was founded in Sydney in 1945 by Romanian born Vienna educated violinist Richard Goldner, who had fled Nazi Germany in 1939. The co founder was a German born musicologist, Walter Dullo. At its inception, Richard Goldner's Sydney Musica Viva, as it was then called, was a string ensemble comprising 17 European immigrants, who were excluded from playing in Australian orchestra's by the Musicians' Union of Australia. Funded entirely by Goldner, the name was chosen in honour of Hermann Scherchen, conductor of an orchestra in Vienna named Musica Viva. Richard Goldner's Sydney Musica Viva performed 10 concerts in 1946, and 20 in 1947. In 1948, the ensemble toured Melbourne, Adelaide, and New Zealand, and eventually reduced to just five players, including Goldner as violist. They were popular with recent European refugees as well as locals. However, the schedule was exhausting, Goldner's financial resources were drying up,

The forerunner to the Asia Pacific Chamber Music Competition (APCMC first held in 1997 and held every four years alternately with MICMC. In 2001, the Seraphim Trio, an Australian trio co founded by pianist Anna Goldsworthy, won the trio and audience choice prizes in the competition. In 2009, the MICMC was complemented by the Asia Pacific Chamber Music Competition, with each held at the newly opened Melbourne Recital Centre (MRC) The expansion was initiated under Chamber Music Australia's artistic director Marco van Pagee.

In 2020, the "Strike A Chord" competition was established, a national chamber music competition for Australian school students. In addition to prizes, the winners are given opportunities for development with Monash University, the Flinders Quartet, and the Sutherland Trio. The finalists' concert is broadcast by the ABC. The third edition was held in 2022.

In 2012, Musica Viva ran a program called Rising Stars – an initiative that provides purposeful performance based and practical training opportunities for three emerging Australian chamber ensembles each year. The Rising Stars of 2012 were the Enigma Quartet, Sydney Camerata Quartet, and Streeton Trio.

Musica Viva runs a large music education program across Australia called Musica Viva in Schools. Talented and experienced musicians travel to all states and territories, including regional and remote areas, "to perform interactive, musically, and culturally diverse performances". The program includes teacher development and online resources. In 2014, The Guardian named Musica Viva in Schools' Interactive Whiteboard as one of the ten global R&D projects that were changing arts and culture. In 2016 Musica Viva announced the inaugural artistic director of education, Michael Sollis.

In 2015, a program called FutureMakers was launched. This is a two year program in which young musicians participate in intensive sessions with leading artists, directors, and consultants from a range of industries and sectors. as of 2015 Genevieve Lacey was artistic director of Musica Viva's FutureMakers program.