On Sunday 3 May, twenty residents from the Montville, Mapleton, Maleny and Nambour region boarded a Mystic Mountain Tours coach and headed south to the Queensland Performing Arts Centre at South Bank. Their destination was Music on Sundays 2: Spirit of the Violin, the second instalment of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s acclaimed mid-morning concert series in the QPAC Concert Hall. What they returned with, by all accounts, was something considerably more than a pleasant Sunday outing.
Twelve Months in the Making
The coach service that carried the group to QPAC is a QSO initiative, coordinated in partnership with Mystic Mountain Tours, and it did not happen overnight. Paul Sweeney, who manages group bookings for the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, has spent the past twelve months developing the concept, conducting phone calls, face-to-face conversations, and a formal mail survey with Sunshine Coast and Hinterland concert-goers to understand what was stopping them from attending.
The answer was consistent. “The train, whilst cost effective, is at times unreliable, particularly on weekends,” Paul explains. “Some people arrived at concerts late or unfortunately missed their concerts altogether. In short, transport is an impediment to some patrons attending our concerts.”
A dedicated coach was the logical solution. “With enough people it keeps the cost down, it’s comfortable, and stress free,” he says. Both Mystic Mountain Tours, which services the Hinterland group, and Wests National Coaches, which operates a parallel service from Buderim and Dicky Beach for the QSO’s Friday Morning Masterworks concerts, are Sunshine Coast-based operators, a detail Paul clearly values.
The inspiration for the Hinterland service came in part from an unlikely source: Val Bradfield of Caloundra, who has been organising the Buderim and Dicky Beach group for the Friday concerts for over twenty years. “I now help Val with her group,” Paul says, “and I have also been able to help the new group from the Montville/Mapleton/Maleny/Nambour Hinterland region to attend our Music on Sundays concerts.”
Hinterland to South Bank
The logistics are straightforward. The Mystic Mountain Tours coach collects passengers at two pickup points, both offering free parking: the Montville Tourist Information Centre and Nambour Train Station. On the 3 May trip, the coach departed Montville early, collected additional passengers at Nambour, and made the two-hour journey south to South Bank in time for the 11:30am concert start.
The group of twenty was a convivial mix. Most knew each other, though a handful were meeting for the first time. Introductions were made in the sunshine outside QPAC before the group moved into the Concert Hall.
The Program: A Violin in Many Voices
Spirit of the Violin was precisely the kind of program that rewards an audience willing simply to listen. Led by conductor Jessica Gethin and featuring Principal First Violin Johnny van Gend, the concert took the violin through a series of contrasting personalities across ninety minutes of music without interval.
It opened with Tchaikovsky’s stately Polonaise from Eugene Onegin , the violin in formal, ceremonial mode, before the same composer’s Valse-Scherzo drew the instrument into more playful, fleet-footed territory. The mood then shifted markedly with the centrepiece of the first half: a world premiere.
Jessica Wells’ Suite from Butterfly Effect, a ballet suite inspired by Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, received its first public performance, and Wells herself was present in the audience. The MC, who guided the audience through the program with skill and warmth, invited her to the stage to speak about the work before it was performed. Audience response to the premiere was striking. One concert-goer described it as “much more pleasing than the initial verbal description was suggesting,” adding that Wells’ use of Puccini’s original material was “thoughtfully executed”, and that their companion was very moved by its conclusion.
Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasie followed, a work of ferocious technical demand that draws on Bizet’s opera and serves, in effect, as a showcase for everything a virtuoso violinist can do. It was here that Johnny van Gend made his most indelible impression. A Toowoomba-born musician who spent five years honing his craft in Germany and Austria before returning to Queensland to take up his position with the QSO, van Gend is, by any measure, an exceptional talent. One audience member wrote simply: “It was perfection. You know you’re in the presence of a master when you hear and see playing like that. Totally in awe of Johnny’s musical genius.”
The program closed with Glazunov’s Scènes de ballet, graceful, sweeping and deeply satisfying as a final musical statement.
For the Hinterland group, the effect of the full program was immediate and lasting. As one member of the group put it: “No sound system recording can come anywhere near the sound and sight in the concert hall. It’s a physical and emotional experience.” Another reported that her companion had a grin on her face from the start of the concert to the finish.
Paul, who attended independently, described seeing the group afterwards as one of the highlights of his year. “The obvious joy that was on the Hinterland group’s faces and their feedback after last week’s concert was wonderful to see and hear,” he says.
A broader audience review perhaps captured the concert best: “One of the BEST EVER concerts we have attended by QSO. It took us out of current concerns for the period. It’s almost a shame it wasn’t a little longer. It will live with us as one of the great concerts in our near 20-year attendance.”
Looking Ahead: Three More Concerts This Year
The success of the 3 May trip has set the template for what follows. Three further Music on Sundays concerts remain in the 2026 QSO season, all accessible via the Mystic Mountain Tours coach service:
- Sunday 2 August: Fanfare and Flight Pickup: Montville Tourist Information Centre 8:00am | Nambour Train Station 8:30am
- Sunday 30 August: Symphonic Stories Pickup: Montville Tourist Information Centre 8:00am | Nambour Train Station 8:30am
- Sunday 11 October: Old World New Sounds Pickup: Montville Tourist Information Centre 8:00am | Nambour Train Station 9:30am
Tickets for individual concerts are priced from $83. Coach fares with Concession, student, child, youth, and family pricing is available. A minimum of 20 passengers is required to make the coach viable, which means community interest directly determines whether the service runs. Expressions of interest are encouraged as early as possible.
Paul is also looking beyond Music on Sundays, with ambitions to extend the coach service to Saturday Matinee concerts. “I hope that we can grow the Music on Sundays group,” he says, “and extend this offer to our Saturday Matinees to get more people to these amazing concerts.” On the current form of the orchestra itself, he is unequivocal: “I hear from many of our long-term constituents, some who have been with us for 20, 30, 40-plus years, that they have never heard or seen the orchestra in such great form.”
How to Book
To register interest for concert bookings, or for further information about the coach service, contact Paul Sweeney at the Queensland Symphony Orchestra:
Phone: (07) 3833 5054 Email: sales@qso.com.au
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for general informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy and timeliness, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, or availability with respect to the article or the information contained within for any purpose.