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

A rising star in the opera world, dramatic soprano Anna-Louise Cole returns to Australia to perform some of the most exquisite late-Romantic Lieder in an intimate chamber setting.

Anna will perform Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, a cycle offering reflective meditations on love and solitude, alongside Strauss’s Four Last Songs, reimagined here for accordion and string trio to create an elegy of profound beauty and radiance.

‘The Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss is arguably one of the greatest compositions of all time, combining extreme beauty with a perfection of lyrical expression and astonishing depth.’

Joined by the virtuosi of Ensemble Liaison, renowned Spanish violinist Lina Tur Bonet (in their first festival appearance), the Australian String Quartet and one of the world’s leading accordionists, James Crabb, this is a concert of superstar musicians.

Together, these works form a journey through transience and transformation, where every note carries the fragile brilliance of life at its most luminous.