Welcome to the August edition of Australian Accent, Limelight‘s unashamedly parochial monthly roundup 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.au for inclusion in next month’s roundup (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.

Touring

The University of Melbourne Wind Symphony is going on tour, with three performances across Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney (17–23 August). Melody Eötvös’s Hun Tur makes all three programs, with the state exclusives unpacked below.

Cathy Milliken. Photo © Annika Bauer

Celebrating its 50th year, Takács Quartet is visiting Australia touring a program of masterpieces by Beethoven and Haydn framing a new commission from Australian composer Cathy Milliken, inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s Sonnet in Emigration and narrated by actor Angie Milliken. For tour details visit this link.

Australian Capital Territory

The Australian War Memorial, Canberra hosts a WWII memorial concert on 15 August called Greater Love, marking the signing  of the Declaration of Peace in the pacific on 15 August 1945. For the occasion, it has commissioned a series of new works from Elena Kats-Chernin, Graeme Koehne, Andrew Schultz, William Barton, Dr Cyrus Meurant, Julian Yu, Peggy Polias and the British-Australian composer Paul Carr.

Andrew Schultz. Photo supplied

Flautist and Kingsland Fellow alum Issie Brown performs a fundraising concert on 17 August as she prepares to jet off to Switzerland to undertake a Master’s degree in Performance with flautist Dante Costa and pianist Jojo Yuen. On the program is Leah Blankendaal‘s Improvisation for solo flute.

New South Wales

Ensemble Apex sets up shop at ACO’s Walsh Bay home on 9 August with pianist Ronan Apcar for a celebration of the music of late Australian composer Dulcie Holland. Her Serious Procession, Conversation for Piano and Concertino for Piano and Strings are accompanied by two more Aussie works – Daniel Rojas‘s La Gran Salsa and Nigel Westlake‘s out of the blue.

The next day (10 August) at the ACO, the Australian Vocal Ensemble performs a set of new works from Australian composers Stephen Leek, Anne Cawrse, Sally Whitwell, Perry Joyce, Paul Stanhope, Kevin Baker, Joseph Twist, Elena Kats-Chernin, Andrew O’Connor and Thomas Green, all inspired by the poetry of Gwen Harwood.

AVÉ. Photo supplied

AVÉ then moves to the Sydney Opera House as guest performers at the NSW Department of Education on 18 August, performing An Instrument of Peace by Katie Noonan and Andrew O’Connor, commissioned by Sydney Philharmonia Choirs for ChorusOz 2024, and works by Jessica Wells and Sally Whitwell. In the same event, the Combined Secondary Choir (NSW) performs Whitwell’s We Too and Luke Byrne and Dan Walker‘s You, me and the wide open sky, and the Hunter Singers perform Byrne’s The six swans.

At Four Winds on 10 August, guitarist Karin Schaupp and Alex Raineri perform Flavours of Spain. Australian works have been sprinkled in for good measure – Ann Carr-Boyd’s Stars Over New Norcia, Erik Griswold’s Los sueños del niño y la niña and a brand-new work from Thomas Green.

The Newcastle Music Festival wraps up on 17 August with a program that includes Natalie Nicolas‘s Something From Nothing.

In the Utzon Room on 17 August, violinist Emily Sun and guitarist Slava Grigoryan will peform Prism, a brand-new work from composer Andrew Howes.

Pianist Jeanell Carrigan performs at The Women’s Club (overlooking Hyde Park) on 21 August. She’ll be performing Keyna Wilkins’ piano music from the album Open Horizons, before joining the composer in conversation. Wilkins also takes part in a fundraising concert presented by Hearts for Gaza on 24 August, which features music from composers and musicians Antonio Aguilar, Chloè Charody, Pavle Cajic, Maissa Alameddine, Chloe Chung, and Maxeem Georges, as well as works by Gazan refugee Hala Samak.

In its Sydney stopover at Verbruggen Hall on 23 August, UniMelb’s Wind Symphony performs Catherine Likhuta‘s horn concerto Sure-Fire, with Carla Blackwood as soloist. Also on the program are three old Sydney songs by composers Miss E.C Wilson, Georgina Isabella Keon and Tempest Margaret Paul, as arranged by students Will Hartley-Keane, Mieke Florisson and Hayden Taylor.

On 30 August at Church St Studios, pianist Rob Hao performs Dominic Flynn‘s The Delacourt Bucket; down in Four Winds at Barragga Bay on the same day, Richard Lawson‘s How to Read a City, Your Place of Last Resort is will be performed by the Acacia Quartet as a part of its residency.

Harpist-composer Paul Nicolaou‘s orchestral work Of Gates No Longer Known, paying tribute to those displaced or killed in war, will be performed by the Ku-ring-gai Philharmonic Orchestra on 31 August.

Queensland

Muses Trio celebrates the release of its album 10 Years with a performance of works from the album at the Brisbane Latvian Hall with two performances on 2 August. The program features works by Nat Bartsch, Louise Denson, Ella Macens, Sally Greenaway and Elena Kats-Chernin.

Lior and Nigel Westlake. Photo © Craig Abercrombie

On 3 August, Ensemble Q performs Calvin Bowman‘s Curly Pyjama Letters, with text by Michael Leunig at the idyllic Elm House in Mount Glorious. On the same day in Brisbane, a Queensland Symphony Orchestra chamber concert gives stage to composer and QSO violist Bernard Hoey‘s Enkindling.

First premiered in 2013, Lior and Nigel Westlake‘s Compassion is a work that’s never since fallen out of fashion. Two Queensland Symphony Orchestra concerts on 9 August bring the work back to the stage, next to the first movement of Mary Finsterer‘s Stabat Mater.

Paul Dean‘s Symphony No. 4 for Winds receives its world premiere when the Queensland and Melbourne Conservatorium Winds band together on 21 August on UniMelb Symphony’s Brisbane port of call. Also on the program is Katherine Parker‘s Arc-en-Ciel.

As a part of Queensland Art Song Festival, Springboard Opera presents The Domestic Sublime on 22 August. It features a new arrangement of Katy Abbott’s work of the same name and the world premiere of Alys Rayner‘s The Orange Tree.

Catherine Likhuta‘s Tides of Silence: Three Songs for Mezzo-Soprano will be given its world premire at FourthWall Arts on 31 August. The work, exploring themes of “despair, hope and human fragility” has been written for mezzo-soprano Morgan Rosti, who travels to study at the Royal Northern College of Music the very next day.

South Australia

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Press Play concert of game soundtracks including Tetris, Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda also includes the Hollow Knight music by Adelaide composer Christopher Larkin (2 August).

The Elder Conservatorium of Music’s After Hours Concert series hosts several Australian works. Mark Simeon Ferguson‘s Live and Die With the Butterflies gets a spin on 12 August,

On 30 August, pianist Aura Go and cellist Timo-Veikko Valve perform ever-weaver, a work by Lisa Illean inspired by orb-weaver spiders.

Keir Nuttall and Kate Miller-Heidke

UKARIA celebrates its 10th birthday in August with a concert series reflecting on that first decade. In Concert 1 (22 August), you’ll hear Matthew Hindson’s Ngeringa  in a program curated by Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto.

In Concert 2 (23 August), Kate Miller-Heidke shares new songs from her forthcoming album, alongside much-loved hits from her huge back catalogue. She is joined onstage by longtime collaborators Keir Nuttall, Sam Pankhurst, Iain Grandage, the Australian String Quartet and Kuusisto.

Concert 3 (24 August) is a showcase for the many instruments held in trust by UKARIA. In that you’ll hear another Matthew Hindson work, FourScore for four violins, played by an all-star ensemble.

Tasmania

Tasmania’s resident Van Diemen’s Band is back again with a new winter series of Lunchbox concerts at the Hobart Town Hall. Across August, this includes a brand new work by Brooke Green featuring the baryton (5 Aug) and a performance by pianist Georgina Lews with  music by Anne Cawrse, Stuart Greenbaum and Andrea Keller (12 Aug).

Joseph Twist. Photo © Pascal Haim

The TSO has a handful of Australian works in store for August. First up is Joe Twist‘s The Flying Orchestra in a kid-friendly concert on 9 August.

Then, composer Gordon Hamilton‘s co-composition Loop Guts features in The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s Obscura 2: Electronica concert at the Odeon in Hobart on 21 August. Hannah Solveij’s violin becomes a voice, a drum, a snare, whatever she wants. Sam Weller conducts.

Later that week on 27 Aug, you can also hear Alex Turley‘s orchestral arrangements as pop rock band Lime Cordiale takes the stage with the TSO.

Then, on 30 August, the TSO Choir performs at Franklin’s Palais Theatre, fresh off the back of its UK tour. On the program are Frederick Septimus Kelly, Joe Twist and a Sandra Milliken arrangement.

Victoria

In August, there’s another round of ANAM recitals that feature Australian works. First up, clarinettist Karen Chen plays Miriam Hyde and Corrina Bonshek (1 Aug). On 18 Aug, cellist Jack Overall plays Connor D’Netto and an Ian Monro premiere, while bassoonist William Hanna premieres his own Bassoon Trio; on 19 Aug, trumpeter Stephen Mosa’ati plays a new Tristan Coelho, and on 20 Aug, oboist Joshua Webster premieres May Lyon‘s Fantasia for Oboe and Piano.

Also on 1 August, the Changing Winds Ensemble performs a program entitled Our Duty To Care, borrowing its title from Artistic Director Robert McIntyre‘s work of the same name. Also on the program is McIntyre’s A Sea Spray of Ash and Every third dawn, Nat Bartsch‘s Homecoming, Laura Abraham‘s A Hazy Memory and Anne Cawrse‘s Time’s long ruin.

Flautist Issie Brown brings her overseas study fundraising concert to Toorak on 3 August. Leah Blankendaal’s Improvisation for solo flute is one of the works on the program.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra presents Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on 7–8 August. Also on the program, a brand new work from MSO Cybec Composer Klearhos Murphy titled Ascent.

Melody Eötvös. Photo supplied

The Flinders Quartet’s Musical Friends tour of Victoria (3–12 August, details here) celebrates connections forged through music. At its heart is The Unspoken Eight, a new work by Melody Eötvös and Rishin Singh in which the composers, who have never met, communicate solely through the language of string quartet writing. Also featured is By the Tide of the Moon by Natalie Nicolas.

The Australian Chamber Choir has commissioned a brand0-new Requiem from composer Gordon Kerry for its Renaissance Requiem program at Macedon (9 August), Geelong (10 August) and Middle Park (17 August).

On 9 August, oboist Jasper Ly and pianist Peter Dumsday team up for a program that features Australian composers Nat Bartsch, Jessica Wells, Laura Abraham and Helen Gifford at MRC. The venue also sees The University of Melbourne’s Wind Symphony kick off its national tour on 17 August. Played alongside Melody Eötvos‘s Hun Tur is Cathy Likhuta‘s horn concerto Sure-Fire (featuring horn player Carla Blackwood) and two works by the late Katherine Parker: Down Longford Way and Arc-En-Ciel. 

On 16 & 17 August, violist William Vyvyan Murray and percussionist Peter Neville perform Australian, American and Armenian works in Melbourne and Queenscliff. Works by Ruby Hunter, Katia Tiutiunnik & Ross James Carey, Andrew Ford and Anne Boyd are on the program as is the world premiere of Vyvyan Murray‘s Rip.

Then, on 17 August, composer Annie Hui–Hsin Hsieh‘s Swell, a work for viola d’amore and electronics, gets its world premiere at the David Li Sound Gallery with violist Phoebe Green.

The Australian Wind Quintet plays the Hanson Dyer Hall, Southbank, on 19 August. Sandwiched between works by Ligeti and Nielson is a world premiere performance of Streams by Matt Laing.

Tempo Rubato in Brunswick is regularly airing Australian music in its programs this month. You can hear works by composers Julia Potter and Katia Mestrovic in a program played by Trio Lyra on 7 August. Gordon Kerry‘s Trio for Clarinet, cello and piano features in a program played by Zoe Knighton, Justin Beere and Amir Farid on 15 August.

Composer-saxophonist Anusha Yellapragada launches her EP Snapshots on 16 August, and y0u’ll hear a “quintet of quintets” by Aussie composers Arthur Benjamin, Peter Sculthorpe, Ian Munro, Percy Grainger and Jabra Latham on 22 August.

Composer Chloé Charody‘s song cycle Truth in the Cage and Limbo, for acrobatic violinist, will be performed on 17 August at Melbourne Recital Centre in Stories That Must Be Heard.

Nat Bartsch. Photo © Kristoffer Paulsen

Then, on 20 August at MRC, Nat Bartsch‘s When All is Still and Quiet gets its world premiere performance with Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School next to two works from Emily Sheppard – Light Bathing and Maatsuyker Keep.

On 30 August, Excelsis, Chime Choir and the Yarra Philharmonic Orchestra all band together to deliver the Australian premiere of Dan Walker‘s Creation at Monash University’s Robert Blackwood Hall.

Western Australia

Bookended by Brahms and Shostakovich, Elena Kats-Chernin‘s String Quartets including Grotesk, Blue Rose, Drinking Song, Eliza Aria, Pink Breasted Robin, Slicked Back Tango and Russian Rag feature in a West Australian Symphiny Orchestra Chamber Series program titled Rapture (3 August, Government House Ballroom, Perth).

Also from WASO, the world-premiere airing of Mahāsāgar by Paul Stanhope, in a program of Ravel, Debussy and Richard Wagner, conducted by Asher Fisch (Winthrop Hall, Perth, 29 and 30 August).

Mungangga Garlagula is a theatrical production co-created and performed by Yamtji artist Mark Atkins and Finnish-Australian violist-composer Erkki Veltheim. The work has its Perth premiere on 11 August.