At the November council meeting on Thursday, council agreed to provide the Town Hall for free to the Mitchell Conservatorium for the concert series which will see 14 performances throughout 2015.

This is a significant increase on the four performances the Mitchell Conservatorium hosted this year, which attracted audiences of between 250 and 300 people.

Mitchell Conservatorium of Music executive director Graham Sattler is thrilled that council have agreed to offer Town Hall for the concert series.

“It’s fantastic because we want to be providing and presenting a good, solid, regular concert program in Forbes,” he said.

“Town Hall is such a beautiful venue, a great place to perform and a beautiful environment - in fact, I can’t think of a better performance space in our whole region.

“We’re really grateful that they’re giving us this opportunity to demonstrate the depth of talent in the region...we simply could not do it if we didn’t have complimentary access to Town Hall.”

Forbes Shire Council’s director of tourism, community and cultural development, Richard Morgan said this will be a great boost for Forbes tourism and will attract people from all over the Forbes Shire, as well as from surrounding towns.

“The bottom line is, the Mitchell Conservatorium can provide a wonderful range of musical opportunities for Forbes and the wider region,” Mr Morgan said.

“Council and the Mitchell Conservatorium will work hand in hand...it’s very exciting stuff for those people that enjoy good music.”

The Lachlan Concert Series will include 10 Sunday afternoon performances (with one exception on a Saturday), which will mostly feature visiting musicians but will also include some local musicians. The concert series will feature a range of different musical items such as a chamber music recital, cello recital, flute recital, Macquarie String Quartet concert, Omega Ensemble concert, and the Andrew Robson Jazz quartet.

There will also be four Wednesday performances - one each school term - which will be free lunchtime student concerts featuring Mitchell Conservatorium students from around the area.

“This will be a great opportunity for students to perform and have an audience, which is a great learning experience,” Mr Morgan said.

Mr Morgan said on top of the 14 concerts already locked in, Forbes Shire Council are organising additional performances at Town Hall. 

One of these will be the inaugural pipe organ recital by Robert Ampt, the Sydney City organist, who played that very organ 30 years ago when former owner Paul Coles had it at the Mezzanine building.

Both Mr Morgan and Mr Sattler agree that this is an important partnership between council and the Mitchell Conservatorium.

“It’s an important joining for forces to create this opportunity for the greater public to see and experience and hear great music,” Mr Morgan said.

“Great things will emerge out of this partnership - they’re experts of the musical side and we’ve got a great venue.”

“This sort of relationship is a really wonderful thing - we’re a not-for-profit organisation, so not only is it important for us to save money but it’s important to demonstrate the partnership to the community,” Mr Sattler said.

“I’m committed to this being a long-term reality and confident that it will happen.”