The Woodend Winter Arts Festival 2026 will foreground an expansive and stylistically diverse music program when it returns to Victoria’s Macedon Ranges across the King’s Birthday long weekend (5–8 June), bringing together leading Australian performers, composers and ensembles in a concentrated four-day celebration.

At the centre of the festival is a strong classical offering spanning early Baroque masterworks to contemporary Australian composition. A headline event sees Claudio Monteverdi’s monumental Vespers performed by Ensemble Gombert and Accademia Arcadia, with tenor soloists Christopher Watson and Christopher Roache. Presented twice across the weekend, the work returns by popular demand following its earlier outing at the festival, reaffirming the event’s commitment to large-scale sacred repertoire.

Ensemble Gombert & Accademia Arcadia. Photo supplied

Baroque music continues with Accademia Arcadia’s performance of JS Bach’s Musical Offering, featuring period instruments including baroque flute, violin, cello and Cristofori piano. Meanwhile, festival Artistic Director...