Ulrike Klein's Ukaria concert centre in the Adelaide Hills her special chamber music gift to South Australia

Ulrike Klein and the Ukaria Art Centre she funded in the Adelaide Hills setting at Mount Barker.
Images courtesy Ukaria Arts Centre

Ulrike Klein funded the multi-million-dollar Ukaria Arts Centre, a 220-seat auditorium designed for chamber music and set at the summit of Mount Barker, opened in 2015.

Horticulturalist Klein and her scientist and naturopath husband Jurgen had started a business in Germany using natural plant essences for skincare and wellbeing. They and their four children moved to the Adelaide Hills in 1983 and founded Jurlique cosmetics, made from biodynamically-grown plants, in 1985.

When the marriage ended 20 years later, Jurgen Klein left Australia and Jurlique was gradually divested to overseas interests. Ulrike Klein sold her remaining share to a Japanese buyer in 2012.

Klein, who grew up in the German countryside during the war years as a child violinist, had previously hosted concerts in the seminar room at Jurlique’s Ngeringa property.

With the sale of Jurlique, Klein announced the purchase – with help from public funding – of two violins, a viola and cello by the 18th century Italian instrument maker Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, valued at more than $6 million, to be loaned to the Adelaide-based Australian String Quartet. (A fourth instrument was bought by Maria Myers.)

Klein’s next move was to have those instruments heard at their best in a European-standard concert hall in bushland at Ngeringa. She engaged Adelaide architect Anton Johnson to set the venue in a natural environment with Cameron Hough from Arup advising on acoustics for the hexagon-shaped auditorium with a domed ceiling and a four-metre window giving views of Mount Barker summit. The name of the centre was changed from Ngeringa to Ukaria (Klein's initials plus "aria") in 2016.

Klein’s other love, the garden, was redesigned by South Australian Winnie Pelz, with a centrepiece sculpture by Australian artist Luke Zwolsman. Klein subsidises the concerts at Urkaria because she wants the tickets to be affordable and musicians to be paid a decent fee.