Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra has announced its 2026 Emerging Composer-in-Residence. Inspired by a location in regional Queensland, Brisbane-based composer-performer Imogen Ferdinando is to write a new work for the orchestra, which will be premiered during Camerata’s regional tour in May and June.

Imogen Ferdinando. Photo © Annabel Hendrie

Ferdinando is a composer, performer and conductor whose works have been featured at the Osaka World Expo 2025, the Cortona Sessions for New Music in 2024 and the World Saxophone Congress in Spain.

Drawing influence from “impressionism, 20th and 21st-century new music and traditional Sinhala music”,  she has been commissioned by ensembles including Dialogue of Minds and Red Room Chamber Ensemble and her works performed by the Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra, Riverside Guitar Ensemble and the Noosa Orchestra. She features on cello on the Bluey album Rug Island, and will perform on the score for the upcoming documentary Black Sunday.

A graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, she was the recipient of an Ian Potter Cultural Trust Emerging Artist Grant, which supported her further study in the Netherlands.

Camerata’s Emerging Composers-in-Residence role was established in 2015. Past participants include Abigail Lui, Alexandra Mison, Ray Lin, Connor D’Netto and John Rotar. The applications for Camerata’s 2027 residency will open in September/October 2026.

More on Camerata – Queensland Chamber Orchestra’s Emerging Composer-in-Residence can be found here.