Welcome to the August 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? Submit your works via our Google Form or email editors@limelight-arts.com.au for 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.

Touring

Haneulle Lovell (violin) and Reuben Tsang (piano) are undertaking an Evolving Perspectives tour from 2-17 August, performing in Cairns, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Alongside works by Messiaen, Gershwin and Franck will be Alex Turley‘s Sonata for Violin and Piano.

Reuben Tsang and Hanuelle Lovell. Photo supplied

Pianist Kathryn Selby is on the road again, this time with cellist Julian Smiles and Susie Park on violin. The program, Bush, Borscht & Bonn, kicks off with Piano Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano by Ross Edwards. Catch Selby & Friends at the Fairfax Theatre, National Gallery of Australia on 28 August, Bowral Memorial Hall on 29 August and at Turramurra Uniting Church on 30 August (the tour continues into September).

Celebrating 15 years of performance, The Australian World Orchestra plays Hamer Hall, Melbourne and the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House on 19-20 August. Sandwiched between Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 is a work by Jonathan Mills – Songs for the Stranger.

AVÉ (Australian Vocal Ensemble) is on the road too – this time with a program titled The Long Moment. Shaped by the words of author Tim Winton it features compositions by Emma Jayakumar, Ruben Davies, Lachlan Skipworth, Aaron Wyatt, Andrew O’Connor and Katie Noonan. Hear them in Sydney and Adelaide (18 and 19 August).

Australian Capital Territory

BlockSounds Recorders presents Woodsong at Wesley Music Centre on 1 August. Robyn Mellor (recorders) is joined by Melbourne virtuoso Rodney Waterman (recorders and lute) in a program of recorder pieces featuring a work by Australian composer Lance Eccles.

Claire Edwardes. Photo supplied

Composer-percussionist Claire Edwardes performs her recent album Dual Attractor in a solo concert at The Street Theatre on 9 August. Along the works to be aired: Kate Moore’s Joyful Melodies, Emberstrike by Natalie Williams and the album’s title track, created by Edwardes and electropop artist Paul Mac.

New South Wales

Alex Turley. Photo © Forrest Research Foundation

Featuring musicians from The Sydney Youth Orchestra, the Symbiosis chamber music project (1 August) is a platform for young musicians to express their individuality and connect with their music. This edition features highlights from works by Australian composers Alex Turley (Mirage), Louisa Trewartha (Inspire) and Ruth Gipps (Rhapsody in E-flat for Clarinet and String Quartet, Op. 23).

Also on 1 August, at Carriageworks, Ensemble Offspring presents Lone Hemispheres, “a rare sonic universe – where solos and electronics fuse in real time to create a sum bigger than their parts”. Among some adventurous works, some kinda way: Part 3 by Connor D’Netto, Daybreak by Tristan Coelho, and Kate Moore’s Synaesthesia Suite.

Clarinettist Mitchell Berick and pianist Erin Sweetman open the 2026 Newcastle Music Festival on 6 August with a concert of lyrical works. Their program ends with Berceuse by Andrew Chubb.

Linda Barcan and Coady Green play the Newcastle Music Festival on 14 August. Scenes from Childhood features works by Ross Fiddes (Thyrie’s Lullaby), Ross Edwards (Christina’s Lullaby) and Stephen Lalor (Behind Hydrangea, from his Maroubra Song Cycle).

Robert McIntyre, Jessie Leov, Beth Roche and Thomas Misson. Photo © Gxbriellemxry

Developed through its CoLAB Composer Accelerator Program and now in its sixth year, Omega Ensemble’s New Now presents four world premiere works from rising-stars Jessie Leov, Robert McIntyre, Thomas Misson, and Beth Roche. Hear it in The Neilson, ACO on the Pier on 14 August.

Composer Adriel Sukumar sees his Organ Sonata performed by organist Patick Newman in a performance at St Mary’s Cathedral on 19 August.

On 21 August in The Art House Studio, Wyong, Ensemble Offspring plays a program devoted to new First Nations voices in contemporary classical music. To Listen To Sing features works by Brenda Gifford, Nardi Simpson, Eric Avery, James Henry and more.

Viola da gambists Liam Byrne and Laura Vaughan play the Utzon Room on 23 August. Hear Renaissance masters like Orlando Gibbons and William Byrd alongside contemporary composers and premieres of works by Australian composers Alice Chance and Brooke Green commissioned especially for this concert.

Percussionist-composer Gabriel Fischer airs his Makronomaly II at Phoenix Central Park, Chippendale on 25 August (ticketing is by ballot) – a work written for four snare drums and four speakers and one performer.

Harpist-composer Paul Nicolaou kicks off an Australian tour for his all-Australian, multisensory program Elemental Resonance in Bowral on 30 August. The program features compositions from Tristan Coelho, Ross Edwards, Christopher Larkin, Andrew Schultz, Mary Doumany, Natalia Mann, Stuart Greenbaum and Nicolaou himself.

Queensland

Elena Kats-Chernin. Photo © Jacintha Nolte

The AFCM Closing Night concert at the CPAC Theatre in Cairns on 1 August opens with a work from William Barton, Dialogue.

Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra presents Up Close and Personal at the Thomas Dixon Centre on 1 August, a tea-time chamber concert featuring Alex Turley‘s Sonata for Pianio and Violin.

Southern Cross Soloists play Stanthorpe’s Regional Art Gallery on 9 August. Songs My Mother Taught Me features music of Bach, Dvorak, Elena Kats-Chernin, Simon and Garfunkel and the Beatles.

Also on 9 August, Ensemble Trivium returns to Elm House, Mount Glorious with The Lark. Alongside Haydn’s beloved ‘Lark Quartet, a hot off the press Australian piece: Lee Bradshaw’s The Cardinal Number for flute, violin and viola.

Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra is on the move from 20-22 August. Brisbane-born pianist Anthony Romaniuk plays works ranging from JS Bach to Dave Brubeck and one of his own: Blue Poles.

Conductor Nil Venditti leads the Queensland Symphony in a Sunday brunchtime Symphonic Stories program on 30 August. Alongside Copland’s Clarinet Concerto and gems from Bernstein, Gershwin and Tchaikovsky, a world premiere from QSO Compose alumnus Jonathan Platz.

South Australia

Katia Beaugeais. Portrait supplied

Adelaide composer David Lang shines a light on the diversity of our nation, our amazing flora and fauna and the incredible landscapes unique to our island home in Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s family show based on Alison Lester’s book Are We There Yet? (1 August).

Australian-French composer Katia Beaugeais wrote her Piano Concerto No. 1, Bells of Time, specially for Stefan Cassomenos, who gives the world premiere in the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Framed in Sound concert at Adelaide Town Hall on 7-8 August.

On 14 August, the Australian String Quartet and pianist (and Elder Conservatorium’s Dean) Anna Goldsworthy air a new work by Charlie Wells in its lunchtime concert titled In Bloom.

Adelaide Chamber Singers perform at North Adelaide Baroque Hall on 14 and 15 August. At the heart of the program, Stellar, is the acclaimed song cycle All Flesh is Fire by composer Anne Cawrse and poet Kate Llewellyn. Joe Twist’s Hymn of Ancient Lands is also on the bill.

On 22 August, Adelaide Chamber Singers join accordion virtuoso James Crabb and cellist Umberto Clerici at UKARIA Cultural Centre, Mount Barker, for a late afternoon concert of Bach, Tavener and Esenvalds, alongside Anne Cawrse‘s White Petals (an excerpt from All Flesh is Fire) and The Peace of Wild Things by Joseph Twist.

Tasmania

Kettering Community Hall plays host to violinist Maria Lindsay and pianist Meriel Owen’s Dance and Romance Around the World on 14 August, a varied program ranging from Shostakovich to Piazzolla and including two works by Elena Kats-Chernin: Augusta’s Garden Waltz and Slicked Back Tango.

Returning to Tasmania for the first time since relocating to Amsterdam in 2013, composer and director Constantine Koukias presents VAST at the Beaker Street Festival on 12–13 August, transforming Hobart’s Theatre Royal into a 360-degree sonic universe inspired by the Nobel Prize-winning discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating under the influence of dark energy.

Victoria

Alice Chance. Photo © Soumya Subramanian

Affinity Quartet play the David Li Sound Gallery at Monash University on 7 August. Ahead of Shostakovich and Beethoven string quartets, they play Alice Chance‘s Gifts from a Thieving Bluebird.

The Australian String Quartet travels to Bendigo on 9 August for a performance of Paul Stanhope & Lou Bennett’s award-winning work nyilamum song cycles.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and conductor Jaime Martín present Mahler’s Sixth Symphony at Hamer Hall from 13-15 August. The concert opens with the world premiere of a new and as-yet untitled work by Cybec First Nations Composer in Residence James Henry.

Echo Mapping is duet of sound and movement created and performed by longtime collaborators, electronic musician and composer Jack Prest and dancer/choreographer Azzam Mohamed. See and hear it from 12-15 August, at The Substation, Newport.

On August 14, at Tempo Rubato, pianist Amir Farid and cellist Zoe Knighton will be playing two Australian works – Margaret Sutherland‘s Cello Concerto and a brand new Sonata by Lee Bradshaw.

Again at Tempo Rubato, on 21 August, guitarist Heathcliffe Auchinachie and soprano Chloe Lankshear perform works by Brett Dean and Lisa Illean.

On 21 August, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra presents Metropolis: Sounds of Cinema. Centred by the world premiere of an MSO co-commission in Thomas Meadowcroft’s Hollywood Parsifals Concerto for Foley Artists and Orchestra, it also includes works by Bryony Marks (Their World from Noise) and David Hirschfelder (The Dressmaker, Legend of the Guardians, and Strictly Ballroom).

You can hear Anne Boyd‘s Bali Mood No. 1 in a concert at Tempo Rubato on 22 August featuring flautist Masahide Kurita and pianist Adam Przewlocki.

Also on 22 August, at Boronia Road Uniting Church, The Blind Creek Ensemble presents a one-off concert for flute duet and piano. Featured works include Robert McIntyre‘s sanctionné.

In a recital for the Australian National Academy of Music on 25 August, cellist Max Wung will deliver the world premiere of Jakob Bragg‘s 2026 ANAM Set work, Amanece.

The MSO Classic Kids concert on 29 August, Carnival of the Animals, pairs the Saint-Saëns classic with a new work by Andrew Aronowicz, the MSO Cybec Young Composer in Residence.

Western Australia

Finnish conductor Kristian Sallinen helms Sibelius’ beloved Second Symphony on 1 August. Also on the bill is Elena Kats-Chernin‘s Piano Concerto No. 3, ‘Lebewohl’, played by Tamara-Anna Cislowska.