Welcome to the April edition of Australian Accent, Limelight’s unashamedly parochial monthly round-up of the Australian music being played on our concert stages and in our recital halls.

Got a premiere to puff? A piece getting a repeat performance? Email editors@limelight-arts.com.aufor inclusion in next month’s round-up (subject to editorial discretion).

We’ve also have a week-by-week breakdown of the works being performed on our Instagram for something a little more digestible.

Australian Capital Territory

Nat Bartsch. Photo © Kristoffer Paulsen

The Canberra International Music Festival opens on 29 April, bringing with it the usual plethora of musical styles and voices. Among the art-song showcased in Songs Beyond Twilight (Snow Concert Hall, 29 April) is Noongar composer Aaron Wyatt’s sumptuous trio for clarinet, piano and viola Where to from Here? 

The Australian Youth Orchestras’ AYO Symphonists tackles Naomi Dodd‘s Run in a performance on 11 April at Snow Concert Hall.  Tapping on modern and classical influences, the work is intended to create a space where “people can process big emotions”.

Also under the CIMF banner, Ensemble Liaison presents Gassenhauer on 30 April at the Wesley Music Centre, a journey through time with works by de Falla, Gershwin and Nat Bartsch’s arrangement of Kate Ceberano’s Bedroom Eyes. 

New South Wales

Lisa Illean. Portrait supplied

Ensemble Apex is presenting its first program of the year on 2 April. Titled Behind Me Is the Dark, it includes a work by Lisa Illean. Read our interview with conductor Sam Weller here.

Jon Rose and Erik Griswold, two of Australia’s leading improvising experimentalists are playing together in Unnamed Road at Chippendale’s fabulous Phoenix Central Park on 9 April (enter the free ticket ballot here).

The recently-formed new music group Scalp Ensemble takes to the Living Room Theatre for its second-ever performance on 11 April. On the program are two world premieres from two of its own – Louis Wishart‘s No Death and Isabella Rahme‘s Cloud of Possibilities, both written in response to a radical work by the late Austrian experimental composer Peter Ablinger.

In the Sydney Conservatorium’s recital series is the intriguingly titled The Malfunctioning Joy Machine, or, States of the Soul (15 April), with pianist Lee Dionne playing a Scriabin-heavy program leading off with Elizabeth Younan‘s Piano Sonata No. 2.

Also at the Con, on 24 April in Verbrugghen Hall, the SCM Wind Symphony, led by Stephen Williams, presents a program including the world premiere of Concrete Shadows by SCM graduate Paul Nicolaou.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra and recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey come together to explore Labyrinths of Time at the City Recital Hall on 23 April and Wollongong Town Hall on 24 April. On the bill, a world premiere work by Lisa Illean. The program also features Alice Chance‘s Nose Scrunch Reel and Erkki Veltheim’s A Playford Maze.

Cyrus Meurant’s new work Sentio will be performed on 23 April at Sydney Conservatorium of Music by Matthieu Arama, Teije Hylkema and Grace Kim (piano). Commissioned by Sensory Concerts for neurodivergent audiences, the work forms part of a special presentation on “Rethinking Classical Concerts for Neurodivergent Audiences”.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra is also throwing open its rehearsal room doors on 28 April. Among the works finessed by conductor Benjamin Northey and the SSO, When the Clock Strikes Me, by Nigel Westlake.

The 2026 Blackheath Chamber Music Festival begins on 24 April. Located in the Blue Mountains, this festival features several Australian works including Resounding Bell (by Riley Lee) on 24 April, and Holly Harrison‘s Spitfire, in the Labyrinth program (25 April). On 26 April, by way of a Festival finale, you can hear Ross Edwards‘s rewritten Suite from Vespers for Mother Earth, sung and played by an all-star ensemble.

Queensland

Jessica Wells. Photo © Steven Godbee

On 21 April, Ensemble Q presents another in its Whiskey Bar series. Adam Chalabi leads a program of mostly Scandinavian works, a piece from Kate Moore and a new arrangement by Trish Dean of some of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces.

What’s up Gold Coast! Led by conductor Jessica Gethin and featuring Principal First Violin Johnny van Gend, Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s Spirit of the Violin concert at HOTA on 30 April features works by Waxman, Glazunov and Jessica Wells’ Suite from Butterfly Effect, a world premiere offering a fresh take on Madama Butterfly.

South Australia

Joe Chindamo. Photo supplied

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra opens its Nordic Lights program (10 and 11 April) with something distinctly Antipodean: Olivia Bettina Davies‘ Crystalline, a work originally commissioned by the Hush Foundation in 2018 for the album Collective Wisdom. Sam Weller conducts.

ASO is also airing the world premiere of a new concerto by Joe Chindamo in its In the Quiet program (17 and 18 April). Principal Clarinettist Dean Newcomb features.

Then, on 22 April, ASO’s Festivity concert in Elder Hall opens with a musical love letter to the city, Miriam Hyde’s An Adelaide Overture.

Tasmania

Cedar Collective plays in the Peacock Theatre, Salamanca Place on 30 April, a showcase of first string quartets from Australian composers. On the bill, works by Anne Cawrse, Jaslyn Robertson, Maria Grenfell, Dominic Flynn and Paul Stanhope.

Victoria

Katie Yap and Donald Nicholson. Photo © Albert Comper

Matthew Rigby, Marianne Rothschild, Cora Teeuwen and Karina Di Sisto A.K.A string quartet The Crossing Machine, play Brunswick’s Tempo Rubato on 9 April. On the bill works by Tim Dargaville, Stuart Greenbaum and Katherine Rawlings.

Choralfest, hosted by the Australian National Choral Association, runs in Geelong from 9–12 April. On the Sunday, you can hear the premiere of Melbourne-based composer Max Kielly‘s Someday I Will Find You.

Flugelhorn virtuoso Sergei Nakariakov performs his own special arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra on 16-18 April. Also on the program, a work from the MSO’s Cybec Young Composer in Residence, Andrew Aronowicz titled The Erl-King.

Bronzewing (Donald Nicolson on synths; Katie Yap on viola and vocals) play Tempo Rubato on 17 April. In a varied set, you’ll hear their Response to [Von Bingne’s] O tu illustrate and Penumbra. On 20 April, same venue, Ensemble Lumen presents Swivel & Swerve (read the Limelight review here), a program taking its name from Holly Harrison‘s piece for clarinet and piano

Also at Tempo Rubato on 24 April, classical guitarist Tommaso Girotto holds court with a program including works by Brett Dean (his Three Caprichos after Goya) and Romano Crivici‘s Sonata No. 1.

Melbourne venue fortyfivedownstairs is again hosting its Chamber Music Festival, starting on 21 April. On 22 April, you can hear the world-premiere of Gordon Kerry’s song cycle Dante and Beatrice. On 30 April, pianists Coady Green and Marc Peloquin take on Olivier Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen in a program opening with Melbourne composer Meta Cohen‘s Delphi Songs.

Western Australia

The Giovanni Consort are your guides for Baltic Sounds (17 and 18 April), a concert of music from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Works by Maija Einfelde, Nijole Sinkeviciute, Arvo Pärt and Vytautas Miskinis are programmed along with Australian-Latvian composer Ella Macens‘ When the world closes its eyes.