The semi-finalists represent 21 different cultural backgrounds. The Top 6 will share prize money raised from a GoFundMe campaign with over $27,000 already donated.

The Morrison Government has thumbed its nose at Australia’s arts and creative industries, while its support package announced in June has yet to come to fruition for any arts organisation.

The opera and festival director will lead the Festival in 2021 and 2022, while the Australian Chamber Orchestra takes up residency in October this year.

Deborah Cheetham’s Parrwang Lifts the Sky is one of four new works in the pipeline.

The Yorta Yorta soprano and composer takes over from Matthew Hindson in 2021, with a season featuring four new commissions.

The pair’s recording of violin sonatas by Beethoven and Mozart has won Best Independent Classical Album or EP at this year’s awards presented by the Australian Independent Record Labels Association.

OA is accused of "dropping a hand grenade" into the Opera Australia Orchestra by one of the 16 dumped musicians, while CEO Rory Jeffes responds to their accusations.

Arts figures have joined the campaign to stop Monash closing the school at the end of the year, while a proposed scrapping of musicology units has drawn international condemnation.

The MEAA has said the redundancies “will reduce the company to a shell”.

Neil Armfield’s staging of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream will headline.

Funded by the venue's donors, partners and contractors, New Work Now will commission a broad range of work from companies including Sydney Chamber Opera and the Indigenous World Art Orchestra.

The ten-day festival will feature live music from Mahalia Barnes, Elysian Fields, Gai Bryant, Melody Riviera and many more, as well as Brazilian bossa-nova singer and nylon string guitarist Anna Setton streaming in from São Paulo.