The Whitlams Will Perform With Melbourne Orchestra

Three-time ARIA winners with several platinum releases, The Whitlams enjoy broad audience appeal across all ages and tastes for over a decade now. The band’s distinctive style has been a unique soundtrack for generations of Australian music fans through their playfully poetic songs of love, loss and other issues.

From the unforgettable No Aphrodisiac which won them the 1998 ARIA award for ‘Best Song of the Year’, to classic hits like Buy Now Pay Later, Blow up the Pokies, Her Floor is My Ceiling and You Sound Like Louis Burdett. For these sensational concerts, The Whitlams will be joined by a 60-piece Melbourne Symphony Orchestra led by acclaimed Australian conductor, Benjamin Northey.

Seven Australian composers have created orchestral arrangements of classic Whitlams songs including Peter Sculthorpe and Brett Dean. The concerts feature arrangements from The Whitlams’ first collaboration with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in 2004 and some from their recent double album, Little Cloud including songs such as Fondness Makes the Heart Grow Absent, Year of the Rat and Keep the Light On.

From a three-piece band that started out playing at The Sandringham pub in Newtown back in 1992, The Whitlams have achieved phenomenal success. Under charismatic frontman, Tim Freedman, the band’s lineup has remained unchanged for the last six years and four albums, consisting of Jak Housden on guitar, Warwick Hornby on bass guitar and Terepai Richmond on drums.

Australia’s best orchestra, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is well-known to popular music fans for its collaborations with KISS, MeatLoaf, Harry Connick, Jr., Ben Folds and most recently Burt Bacharach. The Orchestra’s flexibility and willingness to ‘mix it up’ goes back to Elton John’s 1986 ‘Tour de Force’ in which the MSO was the first Australian orchestra to embrace crossover gigs, touring nationally with the singer/songwriter. -- www.mso.com.au