MCO’s Daybreak can be heard on Thursday 6 March 7:30pm and Sunday 9 March 2:30pm at Melbourne Recital Centre.
With a long, celebrated career that has seen placements in orchestras and ballet companies across Australia and beyond, David Griffiths is bringing his unique experience as a clarinettist to the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra this March.
Opening the MCO’s 2025 season as a featured soloist, David will be performing Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto alongside works from Ravel, George Walker, and the MCO’s own Matt Laing.
“From early as I could remember,” David says of his mother’s influence as a clarinet teacher, “music was kind of all I ever did. That fuelled the passion, and it became all that I knew how to do, in a way.”
It was around the time of his move to Melbourne in 2004 that David first began playing for the MCO as a member. “They occasionally needed clarinets within the orchestra,” he recalls. “I always loved playing with them. I really think that they’re an incredible organisation that does really interesting and unique things.”
For David, the special appeal of a chamber orchestra, compared to the full-scale theatrics of a symphony orchestra, stems from its compact and contained nature. As such, his extended history with the MCO has led to a rewarding professional relationship with artistic director Sophie Rowell, whose skill as a violinist he has long admired.
“We’ve played a lot of different, wonderful chamber performances together over the years. Sometimes we’ve had her as a guest, with Ensemble Liaison on numerous occasions,” he says, referring to the musical troupe of which he is a member, “and we’ve also been teamed up in different festivals over the years.”
David’s performance of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto represents a steadfast fixture of classical repertoire, a piece he loves and feels has deserved its place within the soloist canon. As he admits, “All clarinet players have to live with it forever.”
The upcoming performance offers David the opportunity to revitalise the piece under Sophie’s creative guidance. The familiarity shared between the two players is what gives this classic work its potential, David says, “for creating something new and unique; for finding a new inspiration of a piece everybody loves and knows so well.”
David’s performance will be something of a rare treat for audiences, given the adjustments that are usually made for Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto by modern orchestras.
Originally composed for the basset clarinet, which has a slightly extended range beyond that of an ordinary clarinet, the incredible rarity of this instrument results in many performances taking place on a standard clarinet.
Not so in David’s hands. “I did manage to get myself a basset clarinet a few years ago,” he says. “It’s a beautiful instrument with, I guess, a slightly darker sound. It’s nice to explore the work in the way Mozart had originally intended it.”
Audiences can anticipate an enchanting opening of the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra’s 2025 season, with Daybreak performing on 6 and 9 March 2025 at the Melbourne Recital Centre.
See concert notes.
Liam Heitmann-Ryce-LeMercier