The Australian Haydn Ensemble (AHE) has announced a 2026 season shaped by sunlight, storms, birdsong and the quiet transformations of the natural world – a program Artistic Director Skye McIntosh says draws on “the colours, fine details and expansive emotional power” of the environment around us.

Invoking the famous opening of William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence (“To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower…”) McIntosh frames the season as an invitation to look closely, listen deeply and rediscover beauty in miniature.

“In 2026 we have an array of beautiful music to enjoy, with works by Haydn (of course!), Mozart, Beethoven and some exciting and rare works by little-known Bohemian composers,” she says. “We take inspiration from the natural world… from darkness to light, from beginning to fading. Their responses reveal themselves in the lilting breeze of a minuet, the dramatic storm of a symphonic movement, or the quiet unfolding of a melodic line.”

The Australian Haydn Ensemble. Photo © Helen White

At the heart of AHE’s 2026 subscription offering, she adds, is “the belief that music – like nature – speaks to something deep within us – and that hearing it live, in a shared space, is a kind of magic.”

Next year marks both an expansion and a homecoming. Alongside its established series in Sydney, Canberra, Berry and Bowral – including returns to the Picture Galleries of the State Library of NSW and to The Neilson at ACO On The Pier – AHE will launch an interstate concert season, with details to be announced early in the new year. 

The Ensemble will also continue its increasingly popular pre-concert series 18th Century Unpacked, staged in the Friends Room at the State Library of NSW. Hosted by harpist and presenter Genevieve Lang with performances from the AHE Quartet, the three lecture-recitals explore Mozart and Haydn (5 March), Bohemian composers (23 July) and Haydn’s London connections (29 October).

Adding to an already landmark year, the State Library of NSW will present a major new work from McIntosh as part of its 200th-anniversary celebrations – the result of her 2025 Creative Residency. Details remain confidential for now, but the Ensemble hints at “a hugely exciting project which we think audiences will love.”

AHE’s Matthew Greco. Photo © Helen White

AHE’s mainstage program unfurls across the year, beginning its tour in Berry, NSW on 6 March with Mozart’s Spring, a radiant escape from the calendar’s cooler months. Haydn’s playful Bird quartet (Op. 33 No. 3) opens the program, followed by Mendelssohn’s astonishingly mature E-flat Quartet, composed when he was just 14. Mozart’s “Spring” Quartet K.387 rounds out a concert full of warmth, wit and lyrical freshness.

In May, Beethoven’s Fourth takes centre stage. Often overshadowed by its odd-numbered siblings, Symphony No. 4 is revealed as a bubbling, effervescent delight in Watts’ arrangement for flute and string sextet. The program pairs it with Mozart’s Haffner Symphony in Cimador’s “bite-sized” arrangement — famously composed so quickly that Mozart “forgot he’d written it” — and Boccherini’s richly coloured String Quintet in A minor. The tour begins in Berry on 1 May, then takes in Bowral, Sydney (The Neilson, Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay) and Canberra.

AHE’s Melissa Farrow. Photo © Helen White

July brings Divine Bohemians, a celebration of the Czech composers whose influence quietly pervaded late-18th-century European music. Haydn’s Op. 77 No. 1 anchors a program that introduces audiences to Franz Xaver Richter, Josef Mysliveček and Paul Wranitzky – musical expatriates whose works, AHE believes, deserve far wider attention. Beethoven’s luminous Op. 18 No. 3 rounds off the journey in concerts in Canberra (30 July), Berry (31 July), Bowral (1 August) and in the ACO Nielson on 2 August.

The season concludes in October and early November with Haydn’s Oxford, the first instalment of the Ensemble’s exploration of Haydn’s London symphonies in Salomon’s chamber arrangements. Symphony No. 92 (Oxford), No. 95 and the iconic No. 103 will collectively showcase Haydn at the height of his powers in performances in Berry (30 October), Bowral (31 October), The Neilson, Sydney (2 November) and Canberra (5 November), before returning to The Neilson on 8 November.

Subscriptions for Australian Haydn Ensemble’s 2026 season are now open at australianhaydn.com.au.