ANBOC 2026

The Castle Hill RSL North West Wind Ensemble (NWWE) was born in 2003 and has grown to become one of Australia’s finest and most reputable wind orchestras.

With performance credentials of 16 NSW State and 9 Australian National Championship title performances, previous International CD release of ‘Wild Nights’ in 2008, and subsequent professional CD release of ‘No String’s Attached – A Date with the North West Wind Ensemble’ in July 2018, recordings for Manhattan Beach Music, Reed Music, ABODA - NSW Good Music Guide (Parts 1 & 2), the launch of Australian Sounds 2022, 2023, and 2025 together with and a host of reference recordings for fellow Australian composers, the NWWE are earnestly committed to performing and showcasing extraordinary Wind Orchestra repertoire and transcriptions from composers and arrangers around the world.

Under the baton of their Musical and Artistic Director Mr. James Brice OAM, the Castle Hill RSL North West Wind Ensemble (NWWE) are an exceptionally active and highly dedicated ‘professionally recognised’ community band, drawing their players from a wide variety of settings.  Many members are graduates from the nationally acclaimed Castle Hill RSL Youth Wind Orchestra (YWO), tertiary students, Sydney Conservatorium graduates, talented community musicians from varied and diverse occupations, and many local music teachers.

The Castle Hill RSL North West Wind Ensemble (NWWE) have gained and retained their international reputation as one of Australia’s premier wind orchestras, renowned for their interpretation of classic and new wind band and orchestral literature, whilst dedicated to the exposure and promotion of new Australian works for wind orchestra as part of their standard repertoire.

SCEGGS Darlinghurst is a singing school, with a wonderful tradition of whole school involvement led by our Director of Choirs Ms Allison Harrigan. This K-12 aural training feeds well into the instrumental program, with students starting string tuition from Semester 2 of Kindergarten.

Amati Strings is the top string orchestra at SCEGGS with musicians from Year 8-12. SCEGGS regularly commissions new works by Australian composers for performance. Amati Strings is proud to perform a musical acknowledgement of country today, commissioned for the SCEGGS 130^th birthday year in 2025.

yasha potanin - wake (ANYCC winning piece, 2025)
holly harrison — big things (2025)
connor fogarty — concerto for oboe & wind orchestra (2022)
Interval
warren benson — the solitary dancer (1966)
yasuhide ito — gloriosa (1990)

big, bold and glorious sounds of harrison and ito with an undercurrent of the electric and eclectic
 
Yasuhide Ito's Gloriosa ends in a blaze. It's the kind of finale that makes an audience sit up, and it gives this concert both its name and its character.

Two works by Australian composers, both commissioned by AWO, open the programme. Holly Harrison's Big Things is vivid and kinetic, crackling with energy. Connor Fogarty, the inaugural winner of the AWO Composition Contest, wrote us an Oboe Concerto that was lyrical and searching, premiered by Celia Craig. This time AWO's own Hannah Kovilpillai takes the solo chair, bringing something personal to a work that has already found its place in the repertoire.

Warren Benson's The Solitary Dancer sits quietly at the heart of it all: spare, tender, and hard to shake. Then Ito closes the night in that characteristic blaze of sound, ceremonial and electric, named for a flower of flame-like beauty.