Moved from the Sydney Opera House to one of the Phoenix Central Park’s venues in Alexandria, Backstage Music’s final concert for the year found a more personal home in a 19th-century gothic church on Mitchell Road. Co-curated by arts accessibility consultant Morwenna Collett, Backstage Music Director Lamorna Nightingale and composer Georgia Scott, Shift was built around works from artists with disability, focusing on their deftly unique approaches to their practice and the challenges in place in a world that makes meagre room for them.

Lamorna Nightingale, Jason Noble, Claire Edwardes performing with Ria Adriani. Photo © Oliver Miller.

Kristin Rule’s multimedia work Shine opened with a softly plucked viola, held vertically in her lap like a cello. Its microphone connected it to electronic processing, where looping and singing provided a sweet foundation for exploring her own incredible perseverance in the face of loss. Her experience of healing after a traumatic hand injury required “five hand reconstructions in three years”; composition became “a goalpost for [her] to keep striving for” and an avenue to allow her to keep working....