Australian Music

Celebrate the changing seasons and the return to live performance with a selection of CSO digital projects conceived in the ACT’s nine-week lockdown.

“In 2022, we continue to develop and shape the rich canon of Australian music. We present no fewer than 20 Australian works across our season, including composers Richard Meale, Margaret Sutherland, Deborah Cheetham and Malcolm Williamson – and a bold new composition for the mainstage by Leah Curtis.” – Jessica Cottis, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director

The mainstage is our epicentre, where a hundred voices move as one to delight, inspire, soothe and uplift. Join us with open hearts for the big human stories: revolution, loss, redemption and connection.

“My grandparents lived with permits and curfews for decades under the tyranny of the Aboriginal Protection Board…I wrote an opera about it, but it was not until I experienced a taste of the deprivation they lived with that I truly understood. All I can do is respond in music.” – Deborah Cheetham AO, composer

Kate Moore is an internationally acclaimed composer. Her works are performed by among others Asko|Schönberg, Bang on a Can, Icebreker, Slagwerk Den Haag, Ensemble Offspring, The Australian String Quartet and The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Groot Omroepkoor.

“The Vietnam War is one of the most complex chapters in our nation’s history, deeply traumatic and divisive,” writes Chris Latham, Director of The Flowers of War, ahead of the premiere of the Vietnam Requiem, a major commemorative work honouring the stories and sacrifices of many impacted by the war.

“I start with a provocation. Is the beauty and virtuosity of Western classical music still enough? Should it be entering the debates of our time?…I also ask us to reflect on how and why music can process seemingly intractable notions and turn them into feelings that we can respond to. Climate change comes to mind…what can music do?”

“Viridian is the work in which Meale decisively turned his back on modernism,” writes James Koehne.

“Go Ruth! Go Ginsburg! Rest forever amongst us, dearest Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” – Moya Henderson AM

“Each movement captures a section of the original painting and the artists who created it,” writes Deborah Cheetham in the program note for Song for Dulka Warngiid. “My task as a composer was to respond to capture the vitality and presence of the Kaiadilt women.”