Coinciding with the King’s Birthday Long Weekend, the gateway to the Macedon Ranges in western Victoria lights up this June with the announcement of the 2024 Woodend Winter Arts Festival.

Taking over venues in the small and picturesque town – famous for the nearby Hanging Rock, immortalised in Peter Weir’s film – the festival begins with fireworks of all sorts, from the real (an evening display at Buffalo Stadium) to the stylistic, when flamenco guitarist Paco Lara and dancer Deya Miranda Giner take to the stage of St Ambrose Hall on Friday 7 June for an evening of duo interpretations of themes from Lara’s recent album, Duende.

Paco Lara. Photo supplied

With ample time for a hearty breakfast, the Winter Festival program continues at noon on Saturday 8 June with Across the Channel, a concert by Fiore vocal ensemble highlighting renowned composers from either side of La Manche, including Debussy, Poulenc, Frank Bridge and Benjamin Britten, ending with Kirby Shaw’s contemporary arrangement of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.

Later that afternoon, Woodend Festival pays tribute to the 300th anniversary of the creation of J.S. Bach’s monumental Johannes-Passion (St John Passion), in a performance by Accademia Arcadia and Ensemble Gombert, and a cast of outstanding soloists including Christopher Watson, Jerzy Kozlowski, Benjamin Fullarton, Christopher Roache, Timothy Reynolds and Michael Strasser. The concert will be repeated on Sunday evening at 7pm.

The mood shifts jazzwards on Saturday evening when Australian piano legend Paul Grabowsky goes solo at St Ambrose (from 6pm) in a program showcasing his virtuosic technique and rich tune-smithing.

The Winter Festival’s Sunday at noon begins with Schubert & the Viennese Masters, a program exploring Schubert Lieder and works by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and others. John O’Donnell will accompany tenor Daniel Thomson, the Macedon Ranges-born singer who now calls London home.

The afternoon continues with Early Solo Concertos, a presentation of four outstanding works by Baroque composers Alessandro Marcello and Antonio Vivaldi, and early Classical composers Thomas Arne and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The concert features Accademia Arcadia, with soloists Adam Masters (oboe), Josephine Vains (cello), Brendan O’Donnell (recorder) and Jacqueline Ogeil (Cristofori piano).

The day concludes with a recital by the internationally regarded Australian pianist Piers Lane presenting a program of Mozart (his Sonata K332), Chopin (one of Lane’s beloved composers) and Smetana. In between, the personable pianist will reveal the subtle connections and influences binding these works together.

Piers Lane. Photo supplied

On Monday, the Melbourne Cello Octet takes to the St Ambrose stage from 11.30am to play a program ranging from sacred works by Bach to contemporary Brazilian pop and folk music and a new arrangement of the Beethoven Coriolan Overture by the Australian composer Lee Bradshaw.

Later in the day (from 2pm), the innovative Melbourne composer-pianist Nat Bartsch presents Hope Renewed, a jazz/post rock reinterpretation of her ARIA-nominated classical album Hope featuring Robbie Melville (guitar), Tamara Murphy (double bass) and Maddison Carter on drums.

Nat Bartsch: Hope renewed. Photo supplied

In other musical highlights, composer, author and broadcaster Andrew Ford will sit down with Festival Director Jacqueline Ogeil on Saturday at Woodend Community Centre to talk about his new book The Shortest History of Music and the questions it poses. And in Sex, Science & Singing (Monday, 1pm), evolutionary geneticist and singer Professor Jenny Graves will be interviewed by ABC Science Show personality Robyn Williams on her career sorting out the genes and chromosomes that determine sex, and her recent conception, writing and performing of a new oratorio with comoser Nicholas Buc that tells the creation story from the scientific perspective.

For the full Woodend Winter Festival program, visit the festival website.