Cremona Summer Festival 2025 - Clarence Valley Orchestra (Australia) in concert

The Cremona Summer Festival 2025, in collaboration with Cremona Musica, concludes its 15th edition with a special event: the Clarence Valley Orchestra (CVO) from Australia, conducted by founder and artistic director Dr. Greg Butcher. The concert, scheduled for Sunday, September 28th at 3:00 PM in the evocative Cortile Federico II in Cremona, is free and subject to availability.

Founded in 2014, the Clarence Valley Orchestra is a unique organization that brings together volunteer musicians of all ages and backgrounds—from students as young as twelve to established professionals—and has become a cultural hub in regional New South Wales in just over a decade. Alongside its artistic activities, the orchestra has raised and donated over $100,000 for charities, established scholarships for music students, and launched an innovative program to support rural doctors.

Classified as a Pop’s Orchestra, the CVO offers an eclectic repertoire ranging from the great classics to Gershwin, Bernstein, and Strauss, including jazz and big band pieces from the 1940s and 1950s, not to mention the Latin influences of Piazzolla, Schifrin, and Cugat. This formula has won over Australian audiences and promises to thrill audiences in Cremona as well.

The conductor – Dr Greg Butcher

An eclectic musician, trombonist, and jazz singer, Greg Butcher began his career in the Australian Air Force, performing at international festivals, official ceremonies, and major sporting events such as the Olympics. After more than twenty years of service, he continued his career as a conductor, composer, and teacher, founding the Clarence Valley Conservatorium and the Clarence Valley Orchestra. His compositions, published and held by the National Library of Australia, have been performed on three continents and included in the Australian Music Examinations Board programs. In 2015, he was named Clarence Valley Citizen of the Year and in 2017, he received the NSW Premier’s Community Service Award.

With this concert, the Cremona Summer Festival confirms its international vocation, hosting a group that combines social commitment and artistic quality, and sealing its collaboration with Cremona Musica 2025, the most important global trade fair dedicated to musical instruments.

The initiative is part of the broader project of dialogue between cultures that characterizes the Cremona Summer Festival, and represents a unique opportunity for the Italian public to approach the formal elegance, refined music and visual poetry of one of the oldest and most influential scenic traditions in the world; the Cremona Summer Festival 2025 is promoted by Chamber of Commerce Cremona-Mantova-Pavia as part of the “Masterclass” project, with the support of Municipality of Cremona, Crema e Casalmaggiore and the collaboration of the International School of Violin Making, the Violin Museum Foundation, the Touring Club – Cremona Section, the Cremonese Taste Route of the Shops in the Center, the Urban Commerce District, Confartigianato, the Cremonese Dramatic Association, the Consortium of Violin Makers “Antonio Stradivari” Cremona, the Cremona International Music Academy, the Casalmaggiore International Music Festival, the Festival of Youth Orchestras of Florence, and BeMyMusic Cremona.

Whole Programme and updates on: www.cremonamusicfestival.it
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