Ukaria centre grows
 as prestige music venue with bushland views of valley/Mount Barker

Ukaria Cultural Centre, a 200-seat auditorium for chamber music, set in bushland at Mount Barker.
Image courtesy Ukaria Cultural Centre

Ukaria Arts Cultural Centre, a 200-seat auditorium set in bushland at the summit of Mount Barker, is growing in prestige as a music venue. On the hillside of the Ngeringa property just outside Mount Barker, has hosted concerts for acclaimed musicians  since the mid 1990s.

In 2014, its modest concert room was demolished and replaced with 220-seat concert hall purpose built for chamber music. The $7 million rammed earth and timber building on Williams Road was funded by businesswoman and philanthropist Ulrike Klein, who was a founder from 1985 of the international skincare label, Jurlique.

Ukaria (formerly Ngeringa) cultural centre is attracting serious classical groups such as Australian String Quartet, Grigoryan Brothers, the Adelaide Chamber Singers, Goldner String Quartet, Adelaide Virtuosi, Los Angeles Philharmonic Wind Quartet as well American opera singer Dawn Upshaw, recorder virtuoso Genevieive Lacy and cellist Anthony Albrecht as well as jazz and cabaret performers.

Ukaria  is built the former Jurlique Farm, where many herbs, flowers and plants were grown for natural skin care products. Architect Anton Johnson has designed every aspect of the centre with the sensory experience in mind.

The centre is 40km from the Adelaide CBD and is an easy drive on the South Eastern Freeway, which takes about 40 minutes. Getting to Ukaria is now easier via the Bald Hills Road exit, which bypasses Mount Barker The Ukaria name is from Klein’s initials and “aria”.  It is hidden within the botanical name for hoop pine – araucaria cunninghamii – used extensively in the interior of the concert hall.

Also in the Hills, Brian Chatterton, a founding musical director of Co-Opera that he left in 2018, has started the Adelaide Hills Music Circle presenting orchestral, choral and chamber music in Hahndorf, Lobethal, Mount Barker and Strathalbyn.