Artistic Director Eugene Ughetti’s 2026 program is deeply rooted in place, from site-specific bell works at Parliament House and the National Carillon to chamber and choral premieres.
Anna-Louise Cole sings Wagner Lieder and Strauss’s Four Last Songs, the Australian String Quartet surveys British music from Purcell to Britten and Rebecca Clarke, and Switzerland’s Ensemble Contrechamps delivers a meditative performance of Jürg Frey’s Récit des sensations fragiles at Snow Concert Hall. Luminescence Chamber Singers unveils a program built around a bespoke vocal-processing system, while The Rite of Spring closes the festival in Stravinsky’s own arrangement for two pianos and percussion

Limelight Editor’s Choice

Bell Curve is a powerful sonic intervention that places Victoria’s iconic Federation Hand Bells, a gift marking the centenary of Federation, into a symbolically charged national setting. In this reimagined context, the bells become the centre of a spatial work that listens deeply to history, power and possibility.

Composed by Eugene Ughetti, Bell Curve is now being offered to Noongar musician, conductor and composer Aaron Wyatt to be decolonised throughout 2026. Through this process, the work will be re-examined, reshaped and expanded through First Nations knowledge systems, cultural practice and community consultation.

The performance features twelve local community members, trained by Aaron Wyatt and Speak Percussion, who activate the Federation Hand Bells in a spatial choreography of sound. Surrounding the audience, the performers are guided by networked click tracks and a quadraphonic sound system that enables perfectly calibrated attacks, resonances and timbral shifts.