Leeuwin Estate Concert Series During the 1980s there were also aspirations to create an event that would attract more visitors to Leeuwin Estate and the Margaret River. With a 220-acre-bearing vineyard and plans to plant more vines, a market needed to be found. The idea of the Leeuwin Estate Concert Series was another madcap idea that most vignerons of the time would have shirked. But Denis and Tricia Horgan were different, possessing grand visions and the mettle to back themselves. The first attempts failed, but a chance approach by Perth Festival’s David Blenkinsopp for Leeuwin Estate to ‘underwrite a prospective visit to Australia by the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO)’ laid the foundations of a new Margaret River tradition. Denis Horgan, in typical swashbuckling form, offered to help if the LPO were prepared to schlep 300 kilometres to the winery to give an outdoor concert. To everyone’s surprise the orchestra agreed. Over 100 LPO musicians and crew made their way to Leeuwin Estate in February 1985 and gave ‘the most extraordinary concert ever held in Australia’ to a sell-out crowd. Thus began the coveted and ground-breaking Leeuwin Estate Concert Series held at the winery every summer (except during the pandemic years). Some of the world’s most loved entertainers have played under the star-spangled southern skies, including Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Ray Charles, Tom Jones, James Taylor, Carole King and Sting.
Leeuwin Estate 7
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