Conservatorium Grand Orchestra

Heinecke’s Grand Orchestra was transferred to the Elder Conservatorium, and renamed the Conservatorium Grand Orchestra.  The orchestra ran into financial problems because the professional members were being paid 5/- a rehearsal and 10/- a performance.  The University Council had approved payment for 30 members, but the orchestra increased in size to 55 members, and 40 of them were being paid!  Eventually, the involvement of paid members was discontinued.

At a concert given by the Conservatorium Grand Orchestra on July 30th, 1898, an Adelaide audience heard Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony for the first time.  Elder Hall’s foundation stone was laid by the Governor, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, on September 26th, 1898, and the building was opened on September 26th, 1900, constructed at a cost of £18,751.  The Elder Conservatorium Orchestra, as it became, was mostly a string orchestra in the early 1900s.  The orchestra performed Joshua Ives’ Symphony, L’Australienne, on July 20th, 1901.  Heinicke continued as the conductor until he resigned from the Conservatorium in 1916 after being bound and gagged by nine students in a wave of anti-German sentiment .  The Elder Conservatorium continues to operate the Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra for the purpose of training students in orchestral playing.  This is the oldest continually operating orchestra in the State; 1993 marked the centenary of its foundation as Heinecke’s Grand Orchestra.

- Robert Brown