Although the first formal season of The Astra Chamber Music Society was in 1951, concerts by the “Astra” String Orchestra conducted by Asta Flack go back as far as 1944. A listing of Astra concerts under the direction of Asta Flack (to 1956) and George Logie Smith (from 1957 - 1977) is available here.
In 1978 John McCaughey succeeded George Logie-Smith as musical director of Astra, initiating Astra's third historical phase as a contemporary choral organisation. Since then, Astra has performed more than 1600 works by 500 composers in 320 concerts at 75 different performance spaces. In 2019 alone, around 80 works were performed, of which 18 were premieres from Australia, USA, Romania and Italy.
Browse by concert date or composer name to explore Astra's performance history since 1978.