Doors open 6pm, performance beings 6:30pm.

“Lyle Chan’s string quartet is a very ambitious work born out of a seemingly endless plague. Its composer has taken his experiences of living through the enormous tragedy of AIDS and from them has molded a serious and deeply felt work of art.” – John Corigliano (Grammy, Oscar and Pulitzer-winning composer)

Lyle Chan's unique AIDS Memoir Quartet is a visceral musical portrait of the peak of the epidemic. Between 1991-1996, Chan and fellow activists couriered AIDS treatments from the US that were unavailable in Australia, fiercely lobbied federal government to approve experimental treatments more quickly, and collaborated with drug companies to design clinical trials of promising new treatments. During those years, Chan writes, “I’d given up music to be an activist. But a composer is always a composer. I still sketched a lot of music. The music were my diaries, a way of writing down feelings. As a composer I think of music as the sound that feelings make.” Performed by the Acacia String Quartet and narrated by Chan himself, the 90-minute work is a tour-de-force of emotionally powerful music, containing portraits of famous activist friends now dead, and unusual effects like the use of police whistles to recall street demonstrations by ACT UP, the direct action protest group of which Chan was a core member.

“A crushingly powerful work of musical history … A towering piece.” – Limelight magazine

“triumphantly articulating a story of humanity amid the gloom of disaster” – The Age.

Lyle Chan:

Lyle Chan's compositions are known for their combination of intellectual rigor and powerful emotional impact, even for audiences unaccustomed to classical music. His most personal and confronting work is his 90-minute String Quartet, a memoir of his years as an AIDS activist in the 1990s. It was hailed by American composer John Corigliano as "a serious and deeply felt work of art born out of a seemingly endless plague.” He was awarded the Art Music Awards’ prestigious Orchestral Work of the Year prize for his acclaimed 40-min orchestral song cycle "My Dear Benjamin", based on the wartime letters between a young Benjamin Britten and his first love, Wulff Scherchen. For the Debussy Centenary of 2018, he was commissioned by the Australian National Academy of Music to compose the remaining 3 Sonatas of Debussy's unfinished final project. Sydney Symphony Orchestra recently premiered his response to the covid pandemic, "Gravity and Levity on the Sunbreathing Earth".

Acacia Quartet:

Lisa Stewart - violin

Myee Clohessy - violin

Stefan Duwe - viola

Anna Martin-Scrase - cello

"Acacia Quartet performed so well that at times they seem like only one instrument, such is their clarity and unison." (City News Canberra)

In eleven years Acacia Quartet have won great respect for their versatile and inventive programs.

Acacia have recorded ten albums, with ‘Blue Silence’ earning a nomination for an APRA-AMCOS Art Music ‘Award for Excellence’.

Acacia are passionate about supporting Australian composers, working with young musicians, and sharing their love of music with audiences of all ages. Their performances feature regularly on radio stations around the world. Acacia’s engagements in Australia include the Sydney Opera House, City Recital Hall Sydney, Melbourne Recital Hall, as well as extensive touring through regional NSW and Victoria.

Acacia had their international debut in Vancouver, Canada at the Roundhouse in June 2016. The following year, Acacia Quartet were invited by the Christine Raphael Foundation to give their European debut, where they performed concerts in Berlin and recorded a CD with three string quartets by Günter Raphael.

Two CD’s were released at the end of 2018, ‘Muse’ in collaboration with recorder player Alicia Crossley and ‘Imaginations’ with guitarist Matt Withers.

Their most recent CD was released in January 2020, ‘Günter Raphael Edition Volume 7 - String Quartets’.

Acacia Quartet is proud to be the Ensemble in Residence at the Orange Regional Conservatorium.

Contact the host of Acacia Quartet & Lyle Chan | AIDS Memoir Quartet