During World War II, there was, according to some sources, the so-called Brisbane Line: a crow-flies dividing of the map of Australia from Brisbane to Melbourne, separating what was considered defensible against invasion from what was not.

A similar line exists today, argues Ricardo Peach, Executive Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music; a line separating audiences and musicians with access to dedicated, acoustically optimal concert hall facilities and those without.

According to Peach, there isn’t a single fit-for-purpose venue for unamplified music north of Brisbane. Everything that currently exists is ageing, multipurpose infrastructure, with much of it dating back to the 1980s.

It is essential that northern Australians have the same access to quality musical venues enjoyed by people in the southern states,” Peach tells Limelight.

“At the moment, we make do with town halls, civic centres, places that are not even possible to upgrade from an acoustic perspective. We really need to have something designed from scratch, a venue that works for audiences and musicians.”

State-of-the-art venue developments in Sydney and Melbourne have made the case even more persuasive, Peach adds. “The Australian Festival of Chamber Music draws more than half of its audience from the southern states and they...