Welcome to the November 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

Jon Rose & Hollis Taylor. Photo supplied

The Latvian Radio Choir tours this month (4-16 November), courtesy of Musica Viva Australia. Joined by recorder virtuoso Genevieve Lacey, their program includes world premiere performances of Bird on Byrd, an “interspecies collaboration where curiosity and humour meet”, created by Australian composers Hollis Taylor and Jon Rose.

Australian Capital Territory

Liza Lim and cellist Freya Schack-Arnott. Photo © Lauren Murphy

The Canberra Symphony Orchestra closes its 2026 Llewellyn Series with Verdi’s Requiem on 4 and 5 November. The concert will Liza Lim’s Dianna. “It’s a call to attention,’ says CSO leader Jessica Cottis. “A song to nature and life.”

Where better than the National Museum to explore what it is To Be Human? On 12 November, singer-songwriter Lior and pianist/composer Ade Vincent anchor a program inspired by the challenges lying ahead for human creativity. The concert includes Noongar composer Elizabeth Sheppard‘s Kalgoorli Silky Pear and Happy Deathday Mister Robot! by the late Michael Sollis.

The Miriam Lieberman Trio returns to The Street Theatre on 28 November, celebrating Miriam’s forthcoming album Bridge in Time and the release of new single Part of a Oneness. The trio’s distinctive sound has been described by The Guardian’s Janine Israel as “sprightly kora, playful strings and dreamy three-part harmonies”, as though “Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon had convened in a Bamako back street.”

New South Wales

Ella Macens. Photo © Tenis Dimants

On 4 November at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Stuart Johnson and Jeanell Carrigan present Australian works for viola and piano, including a world premiere of a 1921 work by Hooper Brewster-Jones. Also on the bill, works by Dulcie Holland, Meta Overman and Margaret Sutherland. Again at the Con, on 6 November, the SCM Symphony Orchestra will air Release by Ella Macens in a program of Beethoven, Dvořák and the Japanese marimba player-composer Keiko Abe.

On 6 November at Bankstown Arts Centre, Backstage Music will present an evening of live acoustic performance, electronic production, spoken word and performance art. Titled Azimuth and curated by composer Isabella Rahme, it features eight Western Sydney artists from diverse backgrounds who have spent three months together, producing a new collaborative work about cultural identity, memory and place.

Australia Ensemble (Dimity Hall, Julian Smiles and David Griffiths, with guest pianist Piers lane) wraps up its 2026 on 7 November with a concert of French music that also includes Martin Wesley-Smith‘s Merry-go-round, for live instruments with audio-visual backing, a work that grew out of his concern for the fate of war-torn Afghanistan.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra opens its Simone Yong-conducted Mozart & Bach concerts (6-8 November) with the world premiere of an as-yet untitled work by Ella Macens.

On 13 November, UNSW Wind Symphony present its final concert of the year, one including music by Percy Grainger (his Children’s March) and Holly Harrison (Splinter).

The adventurous mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean sings at Phoenix Central Park on 17 November. On the bill is a work by Connor D’Netto – 2024’s A Collection of Places.

On 21 November at the Orange Conservatorium, Omega Ensemble performs a Masterpieces & Modern Marvels concert of Prokofiev, Mozart and Holly Harrison‘s Daredevil. Then, in the season finale from Omega Ensemble on 28 November, Schubert’s Piano Quintet (The Trout) is programmed alongside a contemporary work by French composer and a world premiere by performance of a new sextet by Adelaide-based composer Anne Cawrse.

Clockwise: Audrey Rouge Ormella, Moses Mohammed Kington-Walberg, Hao Zhen and Jude Donahue. Photos supplied

Ensemble Offspring’s Hatched Academy has been an incubator for the Australian music scene for more than a decade, bringing fresh ideas and creative excellence to the vanguard of contemporary music. This year’s batch, showcased in in the Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House on 21 November, airs brand new works from rising young composers Jude Donohue, Hao Zhen, Moses Mohammed Kington-Walberg and Audrey Ormella.

Queensland

Vanessa Tomlinson performing at the 2022 Summers Night Project concert. Photo © Olivia Davies.

Ensemble Q finishes off its year with a Sundays by the Lake concert on 1 November of Schubert’s Octet in F major, heralded by a performance of Melody Eötvös‘ Baelo, which EQ commissioned in 2025.

Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra presents Fire & Finesse from 12-14 November. Featuring QSO Principal Cellist Hyung Suk Bae, the concert includes Peter Sculthorpe’s Lament – a deeply moving work that echoes the soul of the Australian landscape.

Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s season finale (Don Juan & Manfred) includes the premiere of a work by Australian-Ukrainian composer Catherine Likhuta written expressly for the colours and musicians of QSO – “a concentrated burst of rhythm, brilliance, and lyricism”. Hear it on 27 and 28 November in the Concert Hall, QPAC.

Dots+Loops close their 2026 Season with a week-long residency at Brisbane Powerhouse. The week begins on Saturday 28 November with REVOLVE, a free performance that sonically brings back to life the turbine of Brisbane Powerhouse’s Turbine Hall. Percussionist, composer, and Director of the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University Vanessa Tomlinson leads an ensemble of musicians filling the cavernous hall to set sound into motion in this immersive event. Alongside a selection of Vanessa’s own compositions, REVOLVE features the world premiere of The Generator, a new work commissioned by Dots+Loops from Hayley Chan, a 2024 alumni of Dots+Loops Fellowship Program.

South Australia

Martin Wesley-Smith. Photo supplied

London-based Australian pianist Piers Lane returns to UKARIA on 1 November in collaboration with Australia Ensemble UNSW. Alongside music by Poulenc and Debussy, they will play the late Australian composer and political activist Martin Wesley-Smith’s Merry-go-round for clarinet, cello and electronics, a work reflectings on the fate of children in war-torn Afghanistan.

In association with Big Sing McLaren Vale, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra ventures into wine region to celebrate the beautiful science of our origins. with a major new oratorio by Nicholas Buc. Conceived by evolutionary geneticist Jenny Graves, who co-wrote the libretto with the poet Leigh Hay, Origins traces our story from the Big Bang to the present. Hear it at Tatachilla Lutheran College, McLaren Vale, on 8 November.

Tasmania

At St Mary’s Cathedral on 8 November, an afternoon of Tasmanian themed music by Don Kay, including chamber works and the premiere of his Symphony No. 2. Over 60 musicians will be under the direction of Simon Reade, with research presented by Dr Holly Caldwell.

Victoria

On 6 November at Tempo Rubato, Laura Moore (cello, voice) and Kym Alexandra Dillon (piano, voice, composer) explore music centralising the human voice. Works by Pärt and Rachmaninov rub shoulders with music by Dillon and Australian singer-songwriter Monique Clare.

Also at Tempo Rubato, on 8 November, pianist-compoer Sarah Elise Thompson teams up with the Northside String Quartet to showcase her new EP eternal light.

Changing Winds Ensemble play the Primrose Potter Salon on 10 November. The program, 85 Seconds to Midnight (a Doomsday Clock reference) features works by Robert McIntyre (including the world premiere of the piece from which the concert takes its name), Stuart Greenbaum, Alex Turley and Laura Abraham.

Elena Kats-Chernin‘s Colours of the Sea features in the program played by the Bonis Trio at Tempo Rubato on 19 November.

You can hear Holly Harrison‘s Fluro Electric played by the Partridge String Quartet (Musica Viva Australia’s 2020 – 2022 Futuremakers) on 23 November – again at Tempo Rubato.

From 24-27 November at Abbotsford Convent, join ANAM for the final Chamber Music Festival curated under Paavali Jumppanen’s creative leadership. The opening concert, Poetry of Knowledge (#1), curated and directed by Louise Devenish, traces a decade of composers listening to science including Bree van Reyk, Kate Milligan, Augusta Read Thomas and Thomas Meadowcroft.

Playing at Melbourne Recital Centre (26 November) and McAuley Hall Geelong (27 November) before returning to Melbourne Recital Centre on 29 November, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra’s Shifting Currents includes the world premiere of Alice Humphries’ Cello Concerto, written especially for MCO cellist Blair Harris.

Western Australia

Vanessa Perica. Photo © Pia Johnson

On 1 November, Fremantle Chamber Orchestra and John Keene (Associate Principal Double Bass and Assistant Conductor for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra) perform an afternoon concert of Vivaldi, Bottesini, Raff and Mozart which includes the world premiere Keene’s own composition, Reflections.

There’s a Vanessa Perica world premiere (After the Promise) in West Australian Symphony Orchestra’s Reich and Richter, the last of this year’s Studio Underground presentations on 6 and 7 November. Her work keeps good company in Steve Reich’s Reich/Richter and Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Fog, a work written for the 90th birthday of architect Frank Gehry. Benjamin Northey conducts.

At Winthrop Hall on 13 and 14 November, conductor Benjamin Northey and accordionist James Crabb come together for a WASO concert of Copland’s Appalachian Spring, Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony a dazzling new concerto by Holly Harrison.

Josten Myburgh and friends. Photo © Joseph Rae

WASO also closes out its Chamber Series this month in Revive (22 November in the Government House Ballroom). Aaron Wyatt’s newest work for String Orchestra receives its world premiere, paired with two sparkling Octets by Jean Françaix and Felix Mendelssohn.