Help Put Sheet Music on our Stands

My name is Alastair McKean and I’m the Head of Library here at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Before our musicians can play a single note in the Sydney Opera House, it’s printed on a page. For all the wonderful music you hear – from Beethoven to John Williams – it’s my team’s responsibility to take the sheet music and check it, format it, mark it, catalogue it, correct it, license it, and occasionally rescue it from a coffee stain.

All this music lives in a magnificent shelving unit with over 100 metres of scores and parts, from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (which occupies about 20cm of shelf space) to Wagner’s Ring Cycle (two and half metres). We’re constantly renewing our collection, and next year alone, we’ll need to purchase the materials for 14 pieces of music – about 463 individual scores and parts.

Your support today helps us literally put music on the stands.

• $17 buys one string part for Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, to be performed by Benjamin Beilman in July 2026.

• $128 secures a conductor’s score of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.2. We do have a set of this, but it dates back to the Gorton Government and has seen better days.

• $370 buys a new set of parts for Tristan und Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod – just in time for our concert on Valentine’s Day next year. Yes, expiring from passion in German still counts as romance!

• $1,250 purchases the full set of score and parts for John Williams’ Attack of the Clones: Across the Stars. Because you can’t rule the galaxy without librarians.

All of this is dry paper. But every dollar helps turn this dry paper into music that fills the soul. If you’ve ever melted when the oboe sings, or if your heart has simply stopped when the strings take flight, or if your whole being has exulted with the glory of the brass – that’s your support in action. You make it possible, page by page, note by note.

Thank you for helping the Sydney Symphony Orchestra bring every concert to life (with a little help from the Nerdatorium).

P.S. A generous donor is matching all gifts made before 31 December, to a total of $50,000, so the impact of your donation will be doubled!