4th and 5th symphonies<\/a> in Melbourne and Sydney in September, Brooks is photographing two instruments on this crisp winter\u2019s morning: a cello, circa mid-1700s, and a viola made in the 1910s.<\/p>\nAWO cellist Molly Kadarauch looks suitably nervous as she hands over her instrument, which was crafted by Pietro Antonio Testore, a member of Milan\u2019s highly regarded Testore family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had it since 1989,\u201d she says. \u201cThere are a couple of cracks, which devalued it, so it\u2019s been under extensive repair.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kadarauch breathes a sigh of relief when she learns that Brooks is a former professional musician himself, having held principal cello positions in China, Chile and Brazil.<\/p>\n
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\u201cA didgeridoo is deliberately hollowed out by termites, which is why it looks like a cave,\u201d Brooks says.Credit: Charles Brooks<\/p>\n
He passes her cello to Bendigo-born violin maker Rainer Beilharz, who sets about cleaning its interior by pouring dry rice through the F-holes on either side of its bridge \u2013 so named because they resemble a cursive F \u2013 before gently shaking it and tipping the grains back out.<\/p>\n
\u201cStradivarius himself would have done this,\u201d Beilharz explains. \u201cIt\u2019s a time-honoured technique, which is why no one messes with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooks places the cello on a felt-covered table, which is surrounded by three flash bulbs. He hands Kadarauch the thermometer gun, inserts his laparoscope \u2013 which he has modified to capture high-resolution images \u2013 and begins shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are intensely powerful lights, so they put out a lot of heat,\u201d he says as he instructs Kadarauch to alert him if the temperature nears 30 degrees. \u201cI have to wait eight to 10 seconds between each photograph so I don\u2019t boil the varnish.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a painstaking process, requiring up to 300 individual photographs. Afterwards, he will stitch them together on his computer, allowing every detail to remain in sharp focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cI use all kinds of software to blend together the bits that are in focus, which is why parts of the image are angled,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019ll probably take me three hours just to do the photos, then another week to put them together.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/44ebf102e43469ccac776a870c1d29c331199659.jpeg\")
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The interior of a 1717 Stradivarius violin, with an estimated value of $20 million. In reality, it\u2019s priceless.Credit: Charles Brooks<\/p>\n
As Australian World Orchestra violist Lisa Grosman awaits her turn, Brooks mentions that he recently photographed a 1717 Stradivarius, which is on loan to her AWO colleague, Daniel Dodds.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a $20 million violin, so you have to take every possible precaution,\u201d he says, explaining how Beilharz carefully dismantled the end pin, bridge, strings and tailpiece in preparation for the shoot. \u201cThese instruments are held together by tension instead of glue, because glue would dampen the vibrations. When I remove that tension, there\u2019s a chance the sound post \u2013 the dowel in the centre that transfers vibrations, which is often called the \u2018soul\u2019 of a violin \u2013 could just tip over. That\u2019s why I need a luthier [a maker of string instruments] to get everything precisely back in place, because even if you move something by a millimetre, it really changes the sound.<\/p>\n
\u201cThankfully, I\u2019ve never actually had one fall over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brooks, who hails from New Zealand, began photographing the night sky about 10 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cAstrophotographers often want to capture the whole Milky Way, but it\u2019s hard to get in a single shot because it arches from one horizon to the other,\u201d he says. \u201cYou have to move the lens this way and that, over and over. Now, I use those techniques when I\u2019m photographing instruments. In both cases, you\u2019re trying to uncover hidden spaces and show details that you wouldn\u2019t normally see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the years, Brooks has documented the interiors of grand pianos, flutes, guitars, pipe organs, saxophones, clarinets, French horns and even a didgeridoo.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/5f362c73e88452d6eddf7469dec1f2379e4f2960.jpeg\")
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The interior of a Fazioli grand piano.Credit: Charles Brooks<\/p>\n
\u201cI was expecting to see a wooden instrument that had been chiselled out by hand,\u201d he says. \u201cBut of course, it\u2019s an incredible organic structure because it\u2019s deliberately hollowed out by termites, which is why it looks like a cave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each time he peers inside an instrument, he unlocks its secrets.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll find repairs and tool marks and even the writing of Stradivarius himself,\u201d he says. \u201cYou might discover thin wooden veneers that are a preventative measure against cracking, or you\u2019ll see scratches from cleaning or the signatures of people who\u2019ve repaired a cello or a viola.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look inside an instrument, you\u2019re looking at its history.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Australian World Orchestra performs Mahler 4 & 5 on September 3 in Melbourne and September 4 in Sydney. Tickets: australianworldorchestra.com.au<\/a><\/p>\nWHY THE AUSTRALIAN WORLD ORCHESTRA IS \u201cTHE SUPER BOWL OF CLASSICAL MUSIC\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2010, Alexander Briger founded the Australian World Orchestra with a simple aim: to allow homegrown musicians who currently play in the world\u2019s best orchestras \u2013 from the Berlin Philharmonic to the London Symphony \u2013 to perform together for one week each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bit like seeing the Rolling Stones live, or the best two tennis players in the Wimbledon final,\u201d says Briger, who serves as the AWO\u2019s chief conductor and artistic director. \u201cMost orchestras are like well-oiled machines because the musicians play together every day, but we run on excitement and tension and electricity. We\u2019re not the Berlin Philharmonic; we have a completely different energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The AWO\u2019s musicians agree: previous members have described it as \u201chaving a school camp vibe in the best possible way\u201d, \u201clike the Australian Youth Orchestra, but with wrinkles\u201d and \u201cthe Super Bowl of classical music\u201d.<\/p>\n
On September 3, the AWO will perform Gustav Mahler\u2019s 4th and 5th symphonies at Hamer Hall. This will be the first time these works have been performed in a single evening in the Southern Hemisphere \u2013 and the AWO will do it all again the following night at the Sydney Opera House.<\/p>\n
All up, that\u2019s four hours of Mahler in just 48 hours. This is no mean feat, given these symphonies have been described as \u201ccapturing almost the full range of human emotions between them\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size When people first encounter the art of Charles Brooks, they\u2019re…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":["post-78871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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