To coincide with Limelight’s August 2025 issue – our 250th! – we want to shift our gaze forward toward our 500th issue, which would bring us close to the year 2050.

We asked some of Australia’s leading musicians and composers to pitch their vision of what the classical, orchestral and art music world look like in 2050 and what they might hope to be doing in it.

We invited them to think about what they would like to see change between now and then; how emerging technologies could affect the way they create, engage, collaborate and dream; what the existential challenges to a music career might be in the next couple of decades; and how those challenges might be faced and overcome.

Liza Lim, composer

By 2050, music might...