Tue 24 Nov - Fri 27 Nov 2026
ANAM’s Chamber Music Festival includes beloved chamber music classics, early music gems, world premieres, a stream of new Australian works and everything in between: a diverse selection of repertoire performed by the full cohort of ANAM musicians, unfolding across five concerts in the spaces of Abbotsford Convent in spring.
Join us for the final Chamber Music Festival curated by Paavali Jumppanen’s creative leadership of ANAM, embodying a single unifying idea which could not be more prescient: “Through history, composers have sought inspiration both from the incredible variability of the natural world and the intense fragility of human experience. The task of curating this musical survey seemed simultaneously natural and next to impossible. To deal with this, I chose a handful of lenses through which to view into the opulence of our musical heritage. These lenses, or points of view, are “science and matter”, “music of the outdoors”, and “music of the inner world”. I hope our audience will cherish this program and the experiences it will provide. At this point, looking into some of the last things I’m programming for ANAM, I am extremely grateful for and, I must admit, quite proud of the opportunity to work once more alongside the ANAM musicians and Faculty to present a festival which climaxes another year of creative synergy at ANAM.”
The festival begins where biology meets sound. In Bree van Reyk's How We Fell and Augusta Read Thomas's life force from Helix Spirals, music becomes a living, breathing thing. From there, the program moves into subtler, quieter worlds—insects, shifting seasons, pastoral fragments that never quite settle. The historic Handel and Telemann sit alongside modernists Stockhausen and Meriläinen, spanning centuries in one unifying thread.
Then the energy shifts. Four leading Australian composers—Elena Kats-Chernin (ANAM Set 2021), Nat Bartsch, Olivia Davies, and Maria Grenfell (ANAM Set 2021) —bring to the stage Fire Dances, a powerful response to collective experience and the environmental crisis we're all living through.
The festival closes by turning inward, exploring the intensity of the human psyche and asking what we hold onto and what we lose. Works by Salina Fisher, Poulenc, Brahms, and Ivette Herryman Rodríguez explore the fine line between want and loss.
Five concerts. One festival. Be there.
Explore the festival prorgram, and book tickets and festival packages.