Richard Gill, music educator

"It's a paradox. Music has this incredible power to evoke, but we don't know what it evokes. You can't talk about it as being 'very emotional' or 'very passionate' because that's bullshit.  So I only ever talk about it in its own terms - technical aspects of the music and the way the orchestra works and the way the keys work." 

Richard Gill (photo Limelight magazine)

That is typical Richard Gill, in an excerpt from the Discovery Series program.

Gill is a passionate and internationally acclaimed educator who has captured the hearts of the many Australians who have either been given a chance as young musicians or educated into classical music through his efforts. 

I attended the last of his concerts yesterday and his audience gave him such a wild clapping and stamping ovation as I have ever heard in the Angel Place concert hall, all the more remarkable because most of  the audience at this 6:30 performance were well over retirement age, not usually a foot stamping age.

Yesterday was the last of the Discovery Series concerts and also the very last concert by the Sinfonia, which is the SSO mentoring orchestra established by Gill in 1996.  Gill expressed some surprise that both are finishing. Let's hope they are replaced by equally vibrant alternatives.