The much-loved and highly respected violinist was concertmaster with the SSO for 33 years, from 1956 until his retirement in 1998
The distinguished Australian violin Donald Hazelwood, long-serving former concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO), died on 8 March 2025, just one week after his 95th birthday.
The SSO wrote in a tribute on its website: ‘All of us at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra are enormously saddened by the death of our former Concertmaster, Donald Leslie Grant Hazelwood AO OBE, on Saturday 8 March 2025.
’A wonderful musician, colleague and friend, Don was Concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra for 33 years from 1965 until his retirement in 1998, an extraordinary career that assures his place among Australia’s best-known and most respected musicians.’
Hazelwood, who was named after the Australian cricketer Donald Bradman, was born on 1 March 1930 near Urana, New South Wales, 700km southwest of Sydney, and began playing the violin at the age of four. He studied at the Sydney Conservatorium from 1948, and first performed with the SSO in 1952 under conductor Eugene Goossens. He was appointed co-concertmaster in 1965 and concertmaster in 1967 upon the retirement of his co-chair Robert Miller. Between 1987 and his retirement Hazelwood shared the role with Dene Olding.
A highly versatile musician, Hazelwood also performed as a soloist over his long career, and was a committed chamber musician, playing with the Austral Quartet, Australian Trio and Hazelwood Trio. He was president of the Sydney Symphony Benevolent Fund – a retirement fund for musicians established in 1947 – for 23 years. He was married to SSO clarinettist Anne Menzies, who died in 1998; their daughter Jane Hazelwood was a violist with the SSO from 1995-2024. With his wife, he was an educator at Australia’s National Music Camps for many years, and was also involved in Australian Youth Orchestra programmes.
Hazelwood was appointed Order of the British Empire in 1976 for services to music as well as Officer of the Order of Australia in 1988.
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