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Theatre, comedy, improv and live performance art blog

Mozart Marathon

Brisbane Music Festival has now for years serves as a platform for bringing rarely performed pieces of classical music, musical curations of personal nature, fresh music and world premieres, and a vast array of chamber music experience that is personal both for the artists and for the audience. Well, this year’s festival program (Part 1) features a Mozart sonata marathon. Yes, you read correctly – all 18 sonatas written by the beloved classical composer performed over a perio

QSO Morning Masterworks: Rachmaninoff & Shostakovich

Say hello to the grandeur of Russian modernist music of “Rachmaninoff & Shostakovich” performed by the Queensland Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Umberto Clerici and with pianist Konstantin Shamray as the guest soloist. QSO Morning Masterworks are daytime sessions, slightly abridged versions of the evening Maestro series, and designed especially for those concert goers who prefer a daytime show. Sergei Rachmaninoff and Dmitri Shostakovich make a great concert pairing. B

Respighi, Higgins and Strauss: The Morning Masterworks with QSO

How often do you get to hear a trombone concerto performed by a major symphony orchestra? Queensland Symphony Orchestra’s first Morning Masterworks concert for 2026 not only provides this first unique opportunity to the Brisbane audiences with Gavin Higgins’s concerto, but it does so with a female trombonist as the soloist. Add the Renaissance charm of Ottorino Respighi’s Trittico Botticelliano and the bold controversy of Aus Italien by Richard Strauss, and we get a program

ALIGNING THE STARS WITH SAGITTARIUS

Sagittarius is a deeply personal journey of a Brisbane saxophonist, Emma di Marco, filled with introspection, courage, and sense of adventure. Developed over a period of seven years, and now part of Brisbane Music Festival, this concert thoughtfully balances fate with freewill, explores choice and expectation, and asks us to ponder on reaching for new heights and avoiding regret. Opening with a work that references fire, we are thrown into a mix of oscillating sounds, sudd

CLASSICAL MUSIC FOR THE LITTLE ONES

The Queensland Symphony Orchestra recently welcomed the youngest members of its audiences – little musicians and tiny tikes who will one day be the driving force behind classical music production and performance. The next generation of musicians and concert goers desperately needs opportunities to immerse into the world of classical music performance, the interaction with real-life musicians and high classical music made accessible and exciting for them. Orchestral Adventures

FRANCK AND RAVEL

This evening of French music, led by a French conductor (Lionel Bringuier) and featuring a star French soloist (Jean-Efflam Bavouzet), brings a certain “je ne sais quoi” to the QPAC Concert Hall, effortlessly transporting the audience into the best memories of their French experiences. Opening with the familiar sounds of Fantasia, this concert brings us the fabulous “Sourcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas. Can you hear Harry Potter-like adventure in it? Or maybe you can pictur