The free concert at the QPAC Concert Hall on August 19 will celebrate the joy the orchestra has brought to people throughout Queensland, from performing in Concert Halls to town halls and open air stages by the sea, school classrooms, remote communities and dusty main streets of outback towns like Cunnamulla.

Double bassist Ken Poggioli isn’t the least bit surprised, as he has watched the QSO grow and evolve over his nearly 40 years playing with the ensemble.

“When I joined, it was in the early 80s, and it was a radio orchestra, basically. We worked for the ABC. We did a lot of in-house recordings and broadcasts,” Poggioli said.

“We did a lot of touring, but it was basically, we were a radio orchestra, like the BBC orchestras in England. Radio orchestras around the world were set up to provide music to be broadcast.

“But that’s changed over the years with technology changing and recording. Now we do more concerts and we also do the opera and the ballet.

“So, it’s a great job, because we got a broad section of repertoire to play.”

Poggioli harks from the Atherton Tablelands in far north Queensland, and has travelled the world for his craft.

After graduating from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music he studied with Francois Sabbath in Paris, where he was awarded a teaching Diploma from the Institut International de Contrebasse.

He said one of the great joys of his career since becoming a permanent member of the QSO in 1985 has been returning to the smaller regional and remote areas throughout Queensland, making sure other children consider playing for the orchestra as a possible career.

He tutors the Queensland Youth Orchestra, and for a while returned to teach at the Queensland Conservatorium after it became part of Griffith University.

“Last week I was out at Chinchilla and Roma and at Tara, doing regional stuff in a small group, playing concerts there and tutoring kids, and playing with the local community players,” he said.

“It’s so good to do all that stuff.”

He said looking back, his career highlights include the many Queensland Symphony Orchestra concerts with Luciano Pavarotti, and the opening of Sanctuary Cove with Frank Sinatra and Peter Allen.

But the biggest highlight, and also showing the depth of the contemporary QSO repertoire, was playing with his son, Sam Poggioli, an electronic/audio visual artist and DJ known as Sampology at the 2016 QSO Current series at the Brisbane Powerhouse.

“So that’s where it’s changed big time,” Poggioli said.

“Whereas we were a fully funded radio orchestra back from the 40s through to the 80s and 90s, it’s gradually changed over to being not so reliant on government funding.

“The other big change is that the standard’s got so much better, with the orchestra sounding great now. It always sounded good, but it’s at a completely different level than when I first joined. I’ve got to practice a lot now to keep up.

“To be honest, one of the joys of this job is, I’d hate to be a member of the Rolling Stones, because you’ve got to play the same thing every week for 60 years. In this job, every week changes, the music changes.”

The 75th anniversary concert on Friday will look forward and back by celebrating the history and future of Queensland’s state orchestra, featuring guest artists, interviews with musicians and historical imagery.

A wide selection of music will showcase the Orchestra’s signature style of playing, from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake finale to Australian composer Sean O’Boyle’s Concerto for Didgeridoo performed by acclaimed First Nations didgeridoo player Chris Williams, and a performance by QSO’s 2022 Young Instrumentalist prize winner Chantel Chen, all under the baton of conductor Guy Noble.

Cellist Craig Allister Young’s Fanfare – specially composed for the QSO’s 75th anniversary and which had its world premiere earlier this year – will also have another moment in the sun on this concert program.

In a fitting finale, Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser Johannes Fritzsch will conduct one of the great orchestral showpieces Respighi’s mighty Pines of Rome.

The celebrations will continue throughout 2022, with QSO programming 20 works from Australian composers, including Queensland composer Paul Dean’s concerto for double bass and orchestra, the premiere of Phoebe Russell in November, and the Australian premiere of Brisbane-born, Berlin-based composer Cathy Milliken’s Piece 43 For Now in August.