Donald Hazelwood OBE AO

The Australian musical community mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished artists, the violinist and orchestra leader Donald Leslie Grant Hazelwood OBE AO.

Donald Hazelwood celebrated his 95th birthday with his family on March 1 2025 and passed away a few days later on March 8. Hazelwood was one of Australia’s most influential musical leaders who touched the hearts and souls of several generations of musicians in Australia and beyond.

As a concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony for more than three decades, Donald Hazelwood lived a commitment to music and music making that consistently inspired fellow musicians, teachers, generations of audiences and many of the greatest visiting international conductors and artists. His exemplary professionalism and artistry served as a beacon of cultural aspirations. Hazelwood shared this vision through a natural leadership in many of the organisations he served, including notably the Australian Youth Orchestra’s Music Camp Organisation. A consummate leader, he exemplified qualities that are frequently talked about but rarely lived with his attention and discipline: a commitment to universal humanity, compassion and inclusive, social harmony.

Donald Hazelwood was born in 1930 in Urana in the Riverina of NSW to Leslie Hazelwood, a farmer, and Emily Harris, a schoolteacher born in Tumut (NSW) in 1903 into a Scottish family that had migrated to Australia via Argentina. The early years of Donald’s life were marked by aftershocks of the Great Depression. Unable to sustain a family on the farm in the Riverina, Leslie and Emily determined that Donald and his mother relocate to Sydney where Donald received first violin lessons from Marie Donelly in Earlwood who guided the keen young musician well and purposefully. With economic conditions improving in the mid nineteen thirties, Donald and his mother were able to return to the Riverina to join husband and father on the euphemistically named “Little Plain” farm (in reality, of extensive size).

Following some notable success as a boy violinist in Sydney, Hazelwood continued to pursue his violin studies against significant social and developmental odds in rural Riverina. He attended Albury Grammar School were his teacher Marie Thérèse of the Convent of Mercy continued to support his musical development. However, in 1947 Donald’s adored father Leslie died unexpectedly. Hazelwood’s responsibility as the eldest son increased dramatically as he was called upon to support the successful operation of the family farm.

Notwithstanding these challenges, in 1948 Donald Hazelwood determined to commence violin performance studies at the NSW State Conservatorium. His violin teacher at the Conservatorium was Florent Hoogstoel who had been appointed to the Conservatorium in 1920 by the eminent founding director Henri Verbrugghen. The director of the Conservatorium at the time, Eugene Gooosens, who combined the artistic leadership of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra with the directorship of the NSW State Conservatorium of Music seemed to have been an unambivalent supporter of Donald Hazelwood’s artistic potential.

Contracting Poliomelytis in 1949, a common and potentially debilitating disease at the time, Donald Hazelwood nevertheless persevered and returned to health and a vigorous sense of coordination. In 1952 he was appointed to the first violin section of the Sydney Symphony under Goosens’ direction, however soon determined to pursue further studies in Europe with the support of a Vasanta Scholarship. In 1954 Hazelwood travelled to Paris to study with Rene Benedetti, a dazzling French violinist who was also an exponent of the eclectic French musical modernism. Benedetti represented a commitment to French aesthetics of violin playing that would continue to resonate with Hazelwood who also developed a lifelong enthusiasm for the French language and its musicality. He encountered the works of Honegger, Martin, Milhaud and others and developed a lasting musical curiosity. During his time in Europe, Hazelwood also travelled to Siena to participate in masterclasses with Milstein and to London, where he connected with his friend, New Zealand violinist Haydn Beck who had played in Verbrugghen’s Orchestras some decades earlier. In 1956 Hazelwood returned to Sydney and to a position in the Sydney Symphony. It was also the year of the ignominious departure of Eugene Goosens from Sydney and a commencement of private and artistic developments that culminated in the appointment of Hazelwood as Concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1965.

Hazelwood married the clarinettist Anne Menzies, second clarinet with the Sydney Symphony, in 1956. The couple had met at the Conservatorium before his departure to Europe. Menzies was related to the great Australian cricketer Sir Donald Bradman – a feature that was significant in the public imagination for the central position Donald Hazelwood was about to achieve in Australian musical and cultural life. Together they raised two children – Jane (born in 1959), who became a distinguished musician in her own right and Roy Hazelwood (born 1961).

In 1965 Hazelwood was appointed as co-concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony jointly with Robert Miller, to fill a position left vacant by the departure of the eminent Ernest Llewelyn who had left the Sydney Symphony to become director of the Canberra School of Music. While initially suggesting that the succession of leadership of the Sydney Symphony should be assumed by Miller, Hazelwood recognised that the mantle of leadership of the orchestra had fallen on him ultimately – all things considered. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra was part of the ABC at the time and its management embedded in a public service mentality. Hazelwood understood that in order to realise artistic visions and ambitions in such a context one had to negotiate delicate situations with circumspection and tact. When “push came to shove” individual concerns and social demands had to be brought into alignment. Hazelwood was well equipped for this challenge and embraced it with curiosity and intelligence.

Donald Hazelwood’s life and work with the Sydney Symphony from 1966 onwards were marked by considerable achievements and by a sense of integrity and resilience he had acquired in his childhood and in his preceding time with his orchestra under conductors such as the charismatic, gifted Eugene Goosens or the intimidating, controlling Nikolai Malko. His solution to challenges ahead was simple and effective: Stick to your guns but don’t shoot! Hazelwood recognised that purpose and intent are fundamental in music and music making. At the same time, he realised that an orchestra consists of very diverse people with artistic temperaments, diverse motivations and passionate ambitions. Whatever intensity and passion musicians bring to music and music making, it must not destroy - but advance harmony!

Hazelwood’s approach, attitude and inclusive leadership turned out to be wise and highly successful. It enabled him to work with many different conductors and managements and unify musicians in their – often pathological- diversity. He continued to work successfully with a great variety of Sydney Symphony Chief Conductors, including Dean Dixon, Moshe Atzmon, Willem van Otterloo, Louis Fremaux, Charles Mackerras, Zdenek Macal, Stuart Challender and Edo de Waart. In 1973 Donald Hazelwood led the Sydney Symphony for performances of the opening of the Sydney Opera House, a building inspired by the vision of the Conservatorium’s and Symphony’s Director Eugene Goosens.

Donald Hazelwood’s career continued to flourish with national and international engagements as a soloist for concerto performances of major repertoire, including the violin concertos of Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, both Prokofiev Concerti, Elgar and Brahms as well as Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending and Sculthorpes’ Irkanda which he performed under the direction of the Australian conductor Stuart Challender. Hazelwood embarked on a remarkable range of chamber music concerts and international music tours at all times of his diverse career, including with the pathbreaking Austral Quartet, the Hazelwood Trio (with Anne Menzies and Rachel Valler) and collaborations with pianist Michael Brimer and cellists Georg Pedersen, Catherine Hewgill, Fenella Gill and Susan Blake. His recordings with pianist Michael Brimer of the Beethoven Sonatas for ABC Classics deserve wider appreciation. Hazelwood maintained a lifelong bond with the Australian Youth Orchestra’s Music Camp organisation where he would tutor and direct the National Music Camp for many years during his summer vacation. For a short period in the early 1980s he also directed a National Training Orchestra at the Conservatorium, an initiative by the director at the time, John Hopkins.

Donald Leslie Grant Hazelwood OBE AO is survived by his children Jane and Roy, by six grandchildren, nine great-grandchildren, and by his wife Helen, author of a comprehensive book on his life (From Farmer to Fiddler). The couple married following the passing of Anne Menzies after a battle with cancer in 2000.