The ways in which music connects with place, history, community and personal stories is the stuff of Limelight’s April issue. From site-specific bell works in Canberra to the enduring power of Mahler and the homecoming of a major Australian soprano, this edition reflects the many ways music resonates beyond the concert hall.

We begin with a fascinating initiative at this year’s Canberra International Music Festival, where Artistic Director Eugene Ughetti continues to shape the event’s evolving identity in his second year at the helm. A series of site-specific works involving bells forms the centrepiece of the festival’s programming. Ughetti’s own work, Bell Curve, composed for Victoria’s Federation Handbells, launches a long-term artistic project that will unfold over several years and multiple locations. As Jansson J. Antmann discovers in our cover feature, these projects invite audiences to think about bells not simply as instruments but as carriers of cultural memory, sounding across landscapes and histories.

From site-specific music to the symphonic canon, this month we also turn our attention to one of the most thrilling curtain-raisers in orchestral repertoire: Mahler’s First Symphony, the Titan. Today, it’s beloved for its dramatic contrasts, yet when Mahler...