World-class performers came together with young home-grown musicians in an outback iron tank for the inaugural performance of what has to be one of Australia's most unexpected music festivals.

Over the weekend of 13 and 14 October Cobar hosted its first ever Chamber Music Festival, featuring Georges Lentz, creator of the Cobar Sound Chapel along with Fellows from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO), and Cobar High School's award winning Sounds and Stories Project.

 The festival brings to life another part of the vision of Georges Lentz, world famous composer and the major driver behind the Cobar Sound Chapel.

"My music for the Cobar Sound Chapel is based on String Quartet recordings by the Noise Quartet and so to have live string quartet playing inside the space was always part of the dream for me, on top of the 24/7 sound installation inside the space," Mr Lentz told the Western Plains App.

Georges Lentz (right) inside the Cobar Sound Chapel on October 14 changing the sound installation to the Cobar High School's award winning Sounds and Stories Project [Image: Emma Datson]

Mr Lentz is a first violinist in the SSO and invited his colleagues in the SSO Fellows to join him in Cobar for the event.

"I had discussions with our education department, and it became clear that it might be an exciting possibility to send more than four players up to Cobar in our first year, and to have our enthusiastic and wonderful 2023 Fellows there this year was a thrill", he said.

While in town the SSO Fellows presented School Concerts at all three local schools – Cobar Public School, St Johns Parish Primary and Cobar High School, as well as the local retirement home, the Lilliane Brady Village.

They also worked with the Cobar High School Students to create a soundscape to accompany a story told by local historian, Kay Stingemore, which was then presented in a haunting performance at the Cobar Miners Memorial on Friday 13 October, attended by locals and visitors alike.

SSO Fellows working with Cobar High School Students during their visit to Cobar [Image: Cobar High School Facebook]

"It was a beautiful collaborative process in the workshop," Ms Laura Andrew, Music Teacher at Cobar High School, told the Western Plains App. "The musicians showcased the capabilities of their instruments and the students were the composers.

"There was an incredible buzz in the room as the Fellows moved around and worked with the different groups. Students were deciding what sounds they wanted in the story, considering the emotion that needed to be portrayed and workshopping different sounds with the musicians," Laura said.

Kay Stingemore, who is also Curator at the Great Cobar Museum, said that "the workshop at the High School with the Fellows was wonderful...Having the sound and music added to the story by the students and played by the Fellows gave it an added depth and meaning".

The SSO Fellows performing at the Cobar Miners Memorial on October 13 [Image: Emma Datson]

Mr Lentz plans to have an annual event each year at the Cobar Sound Chapel, and told the Western Plains App for these events are "extremely important, to involve the whole community and have them experience the inspiring and healing power of music and art".

Alhough he does remind people that the Cobar Sound Chapel is first and foremost an artwork - a sound installation - and not a performance venue.

"It is much too intimate for that," he said.

Ms Andrew agrees on the importance of music for a community.

"As well as welcoming the SSO musicians to Cobar, this festival is a celebration of the history of Cobar and the local community," she said. "Music has the potential to shine a light on and conserve and document the stories that exist in our local town. I think the Chamber Musical Festival is starting to do just that."

During the Cobar Chamber Music Festival, the SSO Fellows performed well-known string quartets by Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven as well as contemporary compositions by international composers, but importantly also by Australian composers Deborah Cheetham (an indigenous composer) and Alan Holley.

The SSO Fellows String Quartet performing within the Cobar Sound Chapel

The SSO Fellows who performed at the 2023 Cobar Chamber Music Festival were Lily Bryant, flute (24), Noah Rudd, oboe (25), Jamie Dodd, bassoon (21), Sophie Spencer, trumpet (24), Dominic Azzi, violin (24), Marcus Michelsen, violin (20), Aidan Filshie, viola (23), and Ariel Volovelsky, cello (23). To find out more about them see the SSO's Meet the Fellows page.