EMMA WILSON, TRVEL EDITOR
I ATTENDED the Candlelight concert on a Saturday evening recently at the lovely William Inglis Hotel at Warwick Farm and was blown away by the experience.

I’d heard of this candlelight concert before, maybe you have too? Hundreds of candles of various sizes illuminating a darkened room, a string quartet sitting at the centre of it all, and an audience gathered around them. Aesthetically, Fever’s Candlelight concerts piqued my curiosity. The music, however, was where I initially hesitated.

I enjoy classical music, but I’m probably representative of plenty of people whose encounters with string instruments fall into two fairly distinct camps.

There’s the formal classical concert, which can mean committing to a lengthy performance of music you may not know particularly well and gets you glancing discreetly at your watch.

And then there are the school assemblies, recitals and concerts many parents have sat through, listening to young musicians still learning their craft.

Neither had me racing to book a seat. What I hadn’t understood was that Candlelight has come up with a rather clever way of meeting people like me somewhere in the middle.

“We want to preserve the beauty of the classical repertoire and offer an authentic experience, which is why we present Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Programs celebrating artists such as Queen, The Beatles, or Joe Hisashi, give the art form fresh energy and invite audiences who may not previously have explored classical music to experience it in a new way” says the Fever Team

An hour changes everything

The musical options offered during my visit were Vivaldi ( I was genuinely tempted to try) and Queen and The Beatles. This second option took familiar popular music of Queen and the Beatles and handed it over to a string quartet.

Maybe I was playing it safe to choose Queen and the Beatles but for me, was where the concept suddenly made sense.

The concert lasted around an hour. There were roughly 10 pieces rather than an intimidatingly long program, and the songs were ones I already knew - extremely well. Instead of asking an audience unfamiliar with classical music to learn how to appreciate an entirely new repertoire, Candlelight gives you another way into it.

What a concept. Start with music you already love and then discover what highly accomplished classical musicians can do with it.

Suddenly you’re listening differently. You notice what the violin is doing. You hear the deeper, warmer sound of the viola. Then the cello takes over a melody you’ve heard countless times before and somehow makes it feel different.

There is something quite wonderful about recognising a song almost immediately, without hearing a single lyric. And there is no escaping the setting.

The room is dark, the musicians are surrounded by what appears to be a sea of candles of different heights, and for an hour there is very little competing for your attention. It was every bit as beautiful as the advertising had suggested.

“Our selection process is guided by two questions, is this music that audiences genuinely want to hear, and can it be meaningfully reimagined for a string quartet? Candlelight’s wide-ranging programs extend beyond classical music to include genres such as jazz, pop, movie soundtracks, and ballet, featuring hits from artists like Adele, Coldplay, and Ed Sheeran”. (The Fever team)

Then there was the violin

One of my favorite moments had nothing to do with the program itself. The lead violinist spoke to the audience between pieces and told us about the life of the quartet, including the extraordinary number of performances they can play in a year (I remember it being something like 300). Then he mentioned his violin.

It was more than 300 years old. As someone fascinated by history, that stopped me in my tracks. Here we were in Western Sydney in 2026 listening to an instrument created before European settlement of Australia.

I found myself wondering where it had been, who had owned it and played it? What concert halls, private homes and cities had it passed through? How many musicians had held it before this one and what wars and calamities had it seen?

Tracking down the lead violinist, Dan Russell from Phoenix Collective, he explains: “A few years ago I went to London to look for an amazing violin. I tried out 120 violins and came home with my wonderful circa 1730 Carlo Antonio Testore violin which is now the main violin I perform on”.

Dan’s affection for the instrument was obvious, and that added another dimension to the evening. The songs may have been familiar, but the instruments producing them came from a musical tradition stretching back centuries.

“When the lyrics are removed, just the melody, harmony and structure remain, which often reveals something new in a song people have known and loved for years. Strings can reveal particular details and emotions that audiences may not have recognised in an original recording.

"We often see lyrics as the primary way mainstream music communicates meaning, and there can also be a perception that mainstream and classical music are worlds apart but In reality, great music often shares the same fundamental qualities, regardless of genre - a memorable melody, emotional depth and the ability to connect with people."

Well worth checking out. Visit: www.everup.com/en/sydney