Four Winds has announced its 2026 season. The idyllic, hilltop Barragga Bay venue offers intimate contemporary and classical performances across the year, describing its lineup as “artistry woven with place, culture and community”.

“Our 2026 program and curatorial team are diverse, ambitious and deeply connected to our Sapphire Coast audience,” said Executive Director of Four Winds Leigh Small. “One week you’ll be transported by immaculate chamber music, the next you’ll be swept into the innovation of First Nations artists creating living new music, followed by exquisite improv jazz or New Orleans-style folk. It’s an exhilarating year ahead.”

Four Winds. Photo © David Rogers

Improvising trio The Necks kick off the year on 8 February with a performance to celebrate the release of triple album Disquiet, the group’s 20th studio release.

Violinist Doretta Balkizas and pianist Brieley Cutting team up on 21 February for a program of French and German classics before the Gryphon Baryton Trio – comprising baryton player Laura Vaught, violist Katie Yap and cellist Josephine Vains – arrive on 15 March for a performance of works by Haydn.

Four Winds’ Easter Weekend makes a return in 2026, this time under the curation of guitarist brothers Slava and Leonard Grigoryan. Running 3–5 April, the lineup of artists includes classical guitarists Andrew Blanch and Vladimir Gorbach, mezzo-soprano María Eugenia Nieva, bassist Al Slavik, tabla player Bobby Singh, pianist Luke Howard and cellist Sharon Grigoryan, in a program spanning Bach, Piazzolla, Nigel Westlake and original works from the performers.

“The Four Winds location and sound make everything more vivid – these are memories you bottle for life,” said Slava Grigoryan.

Andrea Lam. Photo © Lisa Marie Mazzucco

Barragga Yangga, a celebration of First Nations language, story and song curated by Cheryl Overton (née Davison), returns to Four Winds on 10 May. With the Djinama Yilaga Choir, Butchulla Longman Fred Leone, the Affinity Quartet and others, the concert features classical works and new songs in Dhurga language.

After curating the 2025 Easter Festival (and joining Four Winds as a board member this year), pianist and 2025 ARIA winner Andrea Lam brings a collection of friends together for a program, yet to be announced, on the 6–8 June long weekend.

The Iliad Out Loud on 28 June is a collaboration between actor William Zappa, tar virtuoso Hamed Sadeghi and percussionist Sohrab Kolahdooz. Premiered at the 2021 Four Winds Festival, it presents Homer’s epic poem in three different sessions on the same day, accompanied by music.

Nardi Simpson and Jason Noble. Photo supplied

Ensemble Offspring also journeys south to bring Stories of Water and Earth, a program developed alongside the Darwin-based Arafura Music Collective. It features Nardi Simpson’s Freshwater Woman, which joyfully shares the cultural and creative practice of Yuwaalaraay women as well as the titular collaboration between composer Netanela Mizrahi and Yolngu poet Melanie Mununggurr.

The Streeton Trio celebrates female composers with a performance on 23 August. Undertaking another residency at Four Winds in 2026, the Affinity Quartet offers a program on 25 October, while pianist Aura Go also brings her program In Friendship and Memory to the Sapphire Coast for Musica Viva Australia on 31 October.

Other acts on the program include Melbourne art rockers Bleak Squad, folk-jazz fusion royalty Queen Porter Stop, Reg Mombassa and Peter O’Doherty’s Dog Trumpet, Fred Leone with producer-performer Leigh Roy Ryan (Radio for Ghosts), singer-songwriter Radical Son and the return of the Spring Youth Music Festival, which gathers local young performers, orchestras and ensembles for a performance including two new commissions by composers Geoffrey Badger and Nick Keeling.

More about Four Winds’ 2026 program can be found here.