Melbourne’s fortyfivedownstairs Chamber Music Festival returns in May 2025 with a two-week program blurring the boundaries between the classic and contemporary, the musical and the theatrical.

Opening night on Tuesday 6 May sets the tone with a Prometheus-themed program featuring festival curator and pianist Coady Green alongside Ian Munro, Justin Kenealy, Paul English, Antoinette Halloran, and the Divisi Chamber Singers. Works by Beethoven, Liszt and Scriabin are presented in dazzling transcriptions and rare ensemble arrangements, culminating in Scriabin’s Prometheus: The Poem of Fire reimagined for saxophone and choir.

The following evening, 7 May, genre-bending string quartet The Crossing Machine teams up with powerhouse vocalists Jordan Zdimirovic and Annie Jones to reinterpret Elvis Costello’s The Juliet Letters. The concert also includes striking new Fleetwood Mac favourites by Australian composer Matthew Hindson, pushing the boundaries of what chamber music can be.

Coady Green. Photo © Cameron Grant

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