The Sydney Conservatorium of Music will forge a new partnership with one of India’s leading music institutions after receiving a $180,000 grant through the Australian Government’s 2026 Maitri Grants Program.

The three-year initiative, A Partnership for Indian-Australian Music, Diaspora Empowerment, and Cultural Exchange, aims to embed Indian musical traditions more deeply within Australian tertiary music education while creating new opportunities for artistic exchange between Australia and India.

The project, one of 41 funded through this year’s Maitri Grants, will link the Conservatorium with Bengaluru’s Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts (SaPa), enabling student exchanges, collaborative performances, workshops and teaching residencies.

Musicians from Sydney Conservatorium of Music with musicians from India’s Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts at the 2024 Australia-India Youth Dialogue. Photo © Tim Dyer

Conservatorium students will travel to India to study alongside SaPa musicians and educators, while Indian artists will undertake residencies in Sydney. The program will also draw on the expertise of Sydney’s Indian-Australian musicians through workshops, performances and creative collaborations, particularly as the Conservatorium expands its presence in Parramatta and Western Sydney.

The project reflects a growing recognition of Indian classical and contemporary musical traditions within Australia’s increasingly diverse cultural landscape.

The project is led by Dr Chilvers, Dr Lu Liu, Dr Anthony Chmiel and Kirsty McCahon from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Chilvers said the initiative challenged traditional ideas of what a conservatorium could represent.

“Australia’s musical culture is enriched by extraordinary traditions that have travelled here with migrant communities, yet those traditions are not always reflected in the core of higher music education,” he said.

“We’re looking forward to learning alongside our colleagues at SaPa and working closely with Indian-Australian musicians to explore new ways of teaching, creating and understanding music.”

The Maitri Grants were announced as part of a broader package of Australia-India initiatives unveiled by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Among the other recipients of 2026 Maitri Grants, Scholarships, and Fellowships program are the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (funded for a project restoring the story of Fearless Nadia – Mary Ann Evans – a pioneering Australian stunt actor in early Bollywood); Adelaide Fringe (to deliver a new two-year cultural exchange with India in partnership with Kommune, producers of Spoken Fest) and Musica Viva Australia, which receives $100,000 for a Back to the Roots show for Australian primary school students.