A world premiere is always an exciting prospect, even more so when it features Australian theatre royalty.

John Bell is no stranger to the Blackheath Chamber Music Festival, last appearing in 2023 alongside Simon Tedeschi in With Love, Amadeus. Fast forward three years, and Bell is now accompanied by the more expansive forces of Jennifer Eriksson’s electric viola da gamba ensemble Elysian Fields, including Susie Bishop (voice/violin), Rease Cameron (drums), Paul Cutlan (saxophone), Brett Hearst (double bass) and Matt McMahon (piano) .

Less informal than the earlier Mozart program but just as sure to put a smile on your face, The Passionate Pilgrim also pairs spoken word and music, though the repartee between orator and musician is now abandoned in favour of fluid segues between Bell’s readings, some of which are underscored, and the folk-inflected singing of Bishop.

John Bell in The Passionate Pilgrim at the 2026 Blackheath Chamber Music Festival. Photo © Keith Saunders

Borrowing its title from Shakespeare’s late 16th-century miscellany, in which Elizabethan publisher William Jaggard controversially included genuine and misattributed poems, this hour-long work commissioned by the Blackheath Chamber Music Festival plays on this idea of ambiguity and...