Academy of St Martin in the Fields to Tour Nationally in April

Led by virtuoso violinist Joshua Bell, Academy of St Martin in the Fields will tour Australia in April 2017, their first national tour in nearly three decades, performing at Melbourne Recital Centre, the Sydney Opera House and Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), Brisbane.

Established in 1958 by the late Sir Neville Marriner, the orchestra takes its name from the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, where the Academy gave its first performance.

In the decades since, the Academy has become one of the world's most revered and recorded chamber orchestras - familiar to music-lovers everywhere for their classic recordings of Vivaldi's Four Seasons and the soundtrack of Miloš Forman's Amadeus.

A native of Bloomington Indiana, Bell made his orchestral debut aged 14 with Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was an incognito performance in a Washington DC subway station in 2007, however, that transformed his reputation from musician's musician to household name.

Bell will lead the Academy players in two dynamic and spellbinding concerts in each city with two separate programs, catering to both aficionados and those newly awakened to the beauty of classical music.

Program One in Sydney and Melbourne features Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, where audiences will be immersed in Bell's iconic performance of this pinnacle of the Romantic repertoire. The slow movement of Schumann's Violin Concerto then provides a lyrical showcase for Bell and the Academy's strings.

Audiences at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) have a different Program One titled The Mighty Bruch on 26 April, when Bell performs Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, a much-loved masterwork demonstrating his stunning vivacity and power.

Program Two (all states) opens with Mozart's darkly stormy and operatic Symphony No.25 heard in the opening moments of Amadeus, while the violinist is the star of Mozart's dramatic Fourth Violin Concerto - a bravura display of swagger and elegance for soloist Joshua Bell. The highlight of this program is Beethoven's Third Symphony. A revolution in sound, it is an explosion of heroic determination without equal.

Joshua Bell, AD of the Academy, is one of the most celebrated violinists of his era. It was an incognito performance in a Washington DC subway station in 2007, however, that transformed his reputation from musician's musician to household name.

Complementing a busy international schedule, the Academy continues to reach out to people of all ages and backgrounds through its learning and participation programmes. The Academy's flagship project for young people provides performance workshops for primary and secondary school children.

Highlights of the Academy's 2016/17 season included a month-long tour of the United States and Canada with Inon Barnatan, European and Australian tours with Joshua Bell, several short tours with Sir Neville Marriner, and a complete cycle of Beethoven's Piano Concertos with Murray Perahia in London. Additional touring engagements include performances with Julia Fischer, Kit Armstrong, Yulianna Avdeeva, Renaud Capucon, Arabella Steinbacher, Martin Fröst, and Cameron Carpenter.