Welcome to the June 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

Ensemble Offspring’s The Oracle program features a fistful of Australian premieres, including English composer Tansy Davies’ Lost Science and two works from Australian composer Kate Moore – her percussion concerto Storm Oratory and chamber work Rose of roses. It travels to Sydney (3 June) and Canberra (5 June).

Australian Capital Territory

Guitarist Timothy Kain joins Alice Giles at Wesley Music Centre on 7 June, performing works including the Canberra premier of A View from the Eagle’s Nest by Canberra composer Marián Budoš.

New South Wales

Thomas Green‘s solo violin work So, I Am Shouting was originally composed for the 2022 ANAM Set. It gets taken for another spin on 2 June at Phoenix Central Park by violinist Anna da Silva Chen.

At the Concourse in Chatswood on 3 June (12pm), flautist Jane Rutter, pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska and composer Elena Kats-Chernin join forces for a concert named after Kats-Chernin’s Ancient Letters, woven with music inspired by her greatest influences.

Multi-instrumentalist and composer William Barton joins the Sydney Symphony Orchestra across 4-5 June in Sydney and Picton to perform a selection of his own compositions. The concer will also feature Andrew Ford‘s String Quartet No. 7, subtitled Eden Ablaze.

The Metropolitan Orchestra deliver the world premiere of Graeme Brown‘s Endangered Species in its second program for the year, Flare, on 6 June.

Harry Sdraulig. Photo © Charlie Sdraulig

Harry Sdraulig‘s Hat-Trick gets a brand new fitting with clarinet for Australia Ensemble’s 6 June performance. The work is draws inspiration from collective and individual efforts that go into scoring three in a row.

Presented under the Utzon Music banner on 7 June, Water Song is a special Studio presentation celebrating water as a symbol of connection and renewal through a cross-cultural soundscape blending Korean, Chinese, Iranian and Western instruments. Led by South Korean-Australian vocalist and composer Sunny Kim and Ensemble Ochaye, the work uses improvisation and collective composition to explore water as a force of mystery, survival, memory and shared human experience.

Flautist Melanie Walters celebrates Pride Month with a Radiant Music, a program of solo works from contemporary LGBTQIA+ composers on 7 June at Qtopia. It includes a collection of Cameron Lam‘s Palette Pieces; works inspired by the colours that made up his first palette of watercolour paints.

Holly Harrison‘s Fluro Electric gets its Australian premiere in a Musica Viva Australia tour with the Partridge Quartet across 10–13 June in Chatswood, Tathra and Yass.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra unleashes Beethoven’s Fifth from 17–20 June in a concert that opens with The Saqqara Bird by Melody Eötvös.

Over at Lazybones Lounge on 17 June, the New Dynamic Orchestra performs a string of works by Chiara Minotto, including the premiere of a brand new composition, Tree Curls.

Bel a cappella reunites for Sun, Moon and Stars on 20 June, a concert drawing a choral arc from dawn to dusk and back again. Works by Australian composers including Dan Walker, Iain Grandage and Alice Chance are featured.

You can also catch Andrew Ford‘s Cradle Song across 20–21 June in Burradoo’s The Rose Room in a duet performance by violinist Myee Clohessy and pianist Andrew Rumsey.

Northern Territory

Arafura Music Collective’s Netanela Mizrahi, Claire Kilgariff, Kate Stephens and Rhiannon Oakhill-Steel. Photo © Paz Tassone

Arafura Music Collective brings The Unbroken Thread, a new program celebrating composers and works with connections to Greek culture, to Gray and Darwin across 13–14 June. It features the world premiere of Peggy Polias‘s Eleni: The Kalymnian Water Bearer, alongside works by Ros Bandt and Klearhos Murphy.

Queensland

Music by Ensemble Q’s Paul Dean features in the June Whiskey Bar series program on 9 June featuring violinists Glenn Christensen and Doretta Balkizas.

In Carnival of the Animals on 14 June, Southern Cross Soloists pairs Saint–Saëns with Nardi Simpson‘s  of stars and birds, Brenda Gifford‘s Djana (Talk) and Gambambara and American-born, Australian-based John Luther Adams‘ songbirdsongs.

Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s Rising Stars program (26 June) features Alice Chance’s bright and expressive Colourburst and Holly Harrison’s high-energy Fizzin’ Fury.

South Australia

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Nature Untamed program (5–6 Jun) features a brand new work from composer Jakub Jankowski, titled Courante after the late Renaissance/Baroque era dance form.

Flautist Paula Custodio and pianist Haowei Yang play a program featuring Nura, by Ross Edwards, in the lunchtime slot on 13 June at North Adelaide Baroque Hall.

Also on 13 June, harpist Emily Granger takes to the stage at UKARIA Cultural Centre, Mount Barker, to play program featuring new commissions by Alice Chance, Anne Cawrse and Hillary Kleinig, each exploring a distinct aspects of harp writing.

And, in the second concert of ASO’s She Speaks program on 20 June, Anne Cawrse sees the world premiere of her song cycle The King Walks in the Orangerie, borrowing its name from a narrative poem by the late Canadian-Australian poet Kathryn Purnell.

On 23 June at Burnside Ballroom (Tusmore), oboist Celia Craig and cellist Thomas Marlin present Pared to Two, a program featuring the world premiere of Sally Whitwell‘s Miniature.

Tasmania

The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (with conductor Alan Buribayev) presents a program of Haydn and Schumann on 26 June with The Saqqara Bird, by Melody Eötvös, as an opener.

Victoria

Aaron Wyatt. Photo © Sophie Kesteven

On 3 June, the Melbouren Symphony Orchestra’s annual First Voices Showcase takes place under the baton of Aaron Wyatt. You’ll hear the world premiere of Nicholas Astill‘s Mutations alongside James Howard‘s Nyirrimar Ngamatyata / To Lose Yourself at Sea and Wyatt’s own The Things Which are Most Important Don’t Always Scream the Loudest.

The next day, the MSO takes the same three works over to Narre Warren on a program that also features Holly Harrison‘s Hellbent, Naomi Dodd‘s Cerulean Dances, James Henry‘s Wiidhaa and Alex Turley‘s River.

Violinist Beatrix Parton and pianist-composer Calvn Bowman perfrom a lunchtime concert on 3 June at St Paul’s Cathedral, which will feature the Australian premiere of Katharine Parton’s L’étang.

Melbourne pianist Georgina Lewis performs an exclusive lunchtime recital for 3MBS subscribers and UniMelb’s Graduate House on 4 June. The program features Robert McIntyre‘s Time, a passage and Anne Cawrse‘s Time’s Long Ruin.

Armadale’s Nightingale Gallery presents an inaugural festival in June in celebration of Pride Month, featuring four concerts curated by Australian composers and performers spanning 5–26 June. Australian composers on the program include Meta Cohen, Cameron Lam, Bryn Renard, Robert McIntyre, Alex Turley, Sam Williams, Sally Whitwell, Nicole Murphy, Hew Wagner and Belinda Coomes.

On 20 June at the same gallery, oboist Jasper Ly and pianist Peter Dumsday present the all-female program Alimentare (food, in Italian). Morsels on the menu include Nat Bartsch‘s Brightness in the Hills, Imogen Ferdinando‘s Autumn Leaves, Sally Greenaway‘s Poem II and Jane Hammond‘s Songs Without Words.

The Bowerbird Collective makes its Melbourne debut with Where Song Began at the Melbourne Recital Centre on 6 June. In an exploration of the melodies of songbirds, it features Ross Edwards’ Ecstatic Dance No. 2 and Chris Williams’ bird, songs, seas.

Sally Greenaway. Body artwork by Anne Hind, photo © Ivor Hind

In the first concert of their Australian National Academy of Music residency on 5 June, the Lutosławski Quartet unites with ANAM musicians in an exploration of string chamber works. This performance brings together string quartets and quintets by Polish composers and the late Richard Meale (his Cantilena Pacifica from String Quartet No. 2).

The Woodend Winter Arts Festival takes place on the King’s Birthday Weekend (5-8 June). A major drawcard is Ancient Letters, a four-hands collaboration between ARIA Award-winning pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska and composer-pianist Elena Kats-Chernin, showcasing works from their chart-topping ABC Classic recordings alongside new material. Another is Seraphim Trio’s Variations and Remembrance, showcasing Aussie spins on a Schubert Waltz from Elena Kats-Chernin, Calvin Bowman and Andrea Keller.

Also in the festival, pianist Coady Green juxtaposes Franz Liszt’s Sonata in B minor with a contemporary sonata by Australian composer Linda Kouvaras (7 June), and The Seraphim Trio (8 June) will present a program pairing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor with a set of newly commissioned variations on a Schubert waltz by composers including Elena Kats-Chernin and Andrea Keller.

Cameron Lam. Photo supplied

On 11 June, Inventi Ensemble delivers the world premiere of Cameron Lam‘s MRI to Meditation* as a part of its residency at the Peter Mac Cancer Centre.

On 25 June, violinist Richard Tognetti performs a concert as a part of his residency with the Australian National Academy of Music. The program features Alex Turley‘s Mirage alongside works by Ives, Crawford Seeger and Schoenberg.

Western Australia

Presented by West Australian Symphony Orchestra, the annual Composition Project offers young Australian composers the rare opportunity to create new works for a 14-piece chamber ensemble under the mentorship of James Ledger. Following a series of lessons, workshops, and rehearsals, the composers’ works will receive their world premieres in a live performance by WASO musicians on 16 June. This is a free concert, but registration is essential. Click here to register.