NEWS: The Whitlams take their orchestral collaboration on the road in 2026 -

In 2026, The Whitlams will take its renowned orchestral collaboration to audiences across Australia. Following three shows this weekend with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to over 6000 concert goers, the finest orchestra in each of the other states is now lined up to perform the show across the first half of next year.

The Whitlams has spent two decades reshaping its catalogue for the concert hall. What makes these shows remarkable is not just their scale, but how the drama of small moments is magnified by the beautifully written arrangements into something deeply poignant. Stories of friendship, romance, grief, and humour are conveyed by eight unique composers who each deploy the full arsenal of large ensemble dynamics in their own way, from the delicacy of 20 piece strings to the all-in power of the more grandiose moments, the effect of which Freedman has likened to “being hit over the head with a velvet hammer.”

As well as the capital cities, the band is thrilled to be able to pay back the long-term loyalty of Newcastle and Toowoomba with the full symphonic offerings.

HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra performing on the stage of the decadent State Theatre for the first time in over a decade.
The Queensland Symphony Orchestra welcoming the band back to its home at QPAC where they performed a memorable concert together in 2007, punctuated by frequent election updates on the night of Kevin07.
The West Australian Symphony Orchestra celebrating 21 years since they were the first orchestra to ask the band to perform with them, at King’s Park, Perth in March 2004, when a family of ducks flew in and settled on the pond between the band and audience in the middle of the lullaby ‘Breathing You In’.
Newcastle, the band’s strongest regional supporter since the mid-90s when the early lineup used to drop in every two months on its way up north, gets to experience The Whitlams’ orchestral version for the first time. The band is hiring buses to take over 30 musicians from the Sydney Philharmonic up the Pacific Highway for the date at the beautiful Civic Theatre.
Adelaide has an insatiable appetite for the arts, so the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra has agreed to fill that little gap between the Fringe and the Cabaret Festival with its Whitlams collab the weekend after Easter
Toowoomba’s homegrown outfit, the 44-piece Toowoomba Concert Orchestra, will fill the gorgeous Empire Theatre with local talent and enthusiasm on a Saturday night in June.

HISTORY

It was Richard Tognetti that first saw the potential to put The Whitlams’ repertoire into a classical setting. He developed a strings, piano and drums program of Freedman’s songs, which toured nationally with the ACO in 2003.

In 2004, The West Australian Symphony Orchestra had the idea to expand the ACO experiment, and it commissioned full symphonic arrangements first performed in Kings Park, Perth in March 2004, utilising the power of the complete 4-piece lineup of the band.

In 2007 four nights at the Sydney Opera House spawned a live CD, 100,000 of which were given away in newsagents with the Sunday papers in Sydney and Brisbane to mark the release of the Best of The Whitlams album.

Since then, the haphazard development of the program has been its strength. Over the years as new albums have been written and recorded, new arrangements have been commissioned as orchestral tours have been booked. The result is a welcome variety of styles, and a contemporary collaboration which delightfully challenges both the orchestra and audiences alike.

The centrepieces of the concert are two arrangements by the father of Australian modernism, Peter Sculthorpe. One was a co-write with Freedman of an oceanic celebration, ‘Out the Back’, in which Sculthorpe took Freedman’s composition down memorable byways with a seven-minute string interlude that showed off his love of Duke Ellington. The second was an interlocking string melody for Tognetti to play for the heart-wreck ballad ‘Ease of the Midnight Visit’, which has been expanded for woodwinds and strings especially for this tour. Freedman and Sculthorpe met at the 2001 APRA Awards and were close friends over the last decade of Sculthorpe’s life.

The set list has been shaped by some of Australia’s most respected arrangers – Benjamin Northey, Brett Dean, Iain Grandage, Sean O’Boyle, Daniel Denholm, Jamie Messenger, Julie Symonds and, of course, Peter Sculthorpe – each bringing a different style and perspective, from Northey’s Hitchcockian menace to Messenger’s sweet strings, and Grandage’s all-pistons firing instrumental passages.

As ever the new tour has given Freedman an opportunity to freshen the repertoire. He has commissioned Daniel Denholm to write full treatments of a song from each of the most recent albums of the band’s 2020s resurgence, Double J favourite ‘Nobody Knows I Love You’ from Sancho (2022) and ‘Fallen Leaves’ from Kookaburra (2024). The portrait of early 20s angst ‘Beauty in Me’ from Little Cloud(2006) has been reworked by Jamie Messenger as a lush orchestra-and-voice-only rendition. It tells the story of a young girl with big dreams, caught between self-doubt and determination, its refrain, “they’ll see the beauty in me”, made all the more moving by the fragility of the orchestration.

Tim Freedman says “Every seven years or so we get to be right in the middle of a beautiful storm of strings and brass. It’s the rarest and most powerful way to hear these songs.”

It’s an orchestral event that promises to linger long after the final note.

SHOW DATES 2026:

Friday 30^th & Saturday 31^st January – State Theatre – Sydney, NSW
Friday 27^th February – Wrest Point – Hobart, TAS
Friday 6^th & Saturday 7^th March – QPAC – Brisbane, QLD
Saturday 14^th March – Civic Theatre – Newcastle, NSW
Saturday 11^th April – Festival Theatre – Adelaide, SA
Saturday 6^th June – Empire Theatre – Toowoomba, QLD
Saturday 13^th June – Riverside Theatre – Perth, WA