Since the Blackheath Chamber Music Festival’s inception in 2021, composer Ross Edwards has featured prominently, with his works included in the 2022 and 2024 programs, and a personal appearance last year in conversation with Diana Doherty, who also performed Edwards’ Oboe Concerto Bird Spirit Dreaming, commissioned for her and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 2002 by Andrew and Renata Kaldor.

It seems only fitting, then, that Edwards should return to co-curate the closing program in what will be the final festival under founding President and Director Catherine Harker.

In fact, it is very much Edwards’ day, with the festival’s penultimate concert Danses de jeunesse also featuring his five-movement work for wind quintet, The Laughing Moon, written in 2012.

Alongside music by Piazolla, Ravel and Janáček, it is given a glorious reading by Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Principal Wind Soloists – Emma Sholl (flute), Shefali Pryor (oboe), Matthew Wilkie (bassoon), Samuel Jacobs (horn) and Olli Leppäniemi (clarinet).

Described by Edwards as “light but not trite”, The Laughing Moon is a fine example of his “Maninyas” dance-chant style and sets the tone for an afternoon dedicated to the composer’s passion for the natural environment, First Nations’ cultures,...