From institutional shake-ups to tales of artistic resilience, Limelight’s most-read feature stories of 2025 reveal a sector questioning its structures, celebrating its innovators and coming to grips with the cultural forces shaping Australia’s music and performing-arts landscape.

These are the 10 standout pieces on the people, the music and the moments of 2025 that really captured readers’ attention.

Curator Michael Dagostino and artist Khaled Sabsabi. Photo © Anna Kucera

1. Khaled Sabsabi, Creative Australia and the Fight for Artistic Freedom

Limelight correspondent Samuel Cairnduff took a timely deep dive into the controversy around Creative Australia’s decision to withdraw artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino from representing Australia at the 2026 Venice Biennale and what CA’s action (and subsequent reversal of same) said about artistic freedom, institutional autonomy and political pressure in the Australian arts sector. 

2. Wind Power: University of Melbourne’s Wind Symphony Hits the Road

Limelight spoke to Associate Professor Jaclyn Hartenberger ahead of the University of Melbourne’s Wind Symphony performances in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney, airing music from 20th-century master Paul Hindemith and rediscovered works by Australian composer Katherine ‘Kitty’ Parker.