Richard Tognetti on being an Antipodean in Oxford

I thought that our unique geographic identity would be taken as exotic and therefore: enticing. That wasn’t the case. A review on our first tour in Vienna was entitled: ‘Vom ende der Welt aber gut’ – from the end of the world but good. We also played in Oxford on that trip and a group of us stopped to ask an old don if he could recommend a good restaurant, ‘Do I detect an Australian accent, what are you doing here?’ ‘Indeed you do, Sir,’ we replied. ‘We’re performing in your town tonight as the Australian Chamber Orchestra’. ‘Goodness me,’ he scoffed, ‘that’s a contradiction in terms’. ‘So is a good restaurant in Oxford’. Things have changed.

Richard Tognetti

(Hat tip: GMT at Reeling and Writhing).