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

Prohibition Rags plunges you into the musical, social and cultural ferment of the Prohibition Era, a time when creativity thrived underground and a simple backroom piano could become an act of quiet rebellion. Staged inside Lucky’s Speakeasy at QT Canberra, this concert channels the hidden bars and coded nightlife of the 1920s, where music shaped identity, defied authority and stitched communities together beneath the surface of the ‘dry years’. Cocktails flow, lights stay low and the room hums with the illicit glamour of a world that danced in spite of the rules.

At the heart of this experience is clarinet virtuoso David Griffiths, one of Australia’s most versatile and magnetic performers. A former New York resident who honed his craft with the Paragon Ragtime Orchestra and the New York Wind Soloists, Griffiths brings an insider’s fluency to this music.