A concert featuring solely living Australian composers? And not only that, but all non-male composers to boot? No, this wasn’t a cutting-edge new music ensemble – it was the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Initially, I was worried that such a progressive program from a major performing arts organisation was just an attempt at quota “box-checking”. I’m a huge champion of programming that equitably reflects the diversity of our amazing country, but I’ve also seen too many programs lazily group underrepresented voices together for no other artistic reason than being underrepresented, which often results in a disservice to everyone involved.

A program based on artistic merit does not need to be at odds with presenting more than one viewpoint, and co-curators Liza Lim and Benjamin Northey demonstrated this spectacularly with the first evening of MSO’s Composing Australia series.

Composing Australia: Benjamin Northey and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Nico Keenan

Melbourne Recital Centre’s Elisabeth Murdoch Hall is one of the finest concert halls in the country, but being designed predominantly for chamber ensembles, squeezing in a full-sized Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was no mean feat. The...