Set against the extraordinary natural backdrop of the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef, the 2026 Australian Festival of Chamber Music invites audiences to experience classical music in an environment that few festivals anywhere in the world could match.
Under the artistic direction of acclaimed British violinist Jack Liebeck, the nine-day program demonstrates both curatorial ambition and sensitivity to the landscape that will surround it. The festival's northern home provides more than scenic beauty. It creates opportunities for performances that consciously engage with their setting, from the yacht concert cruising tropical waters off the Cairns coast to the evening Sunset Series that pairs music with the natural light of Queensland's winter twilight.
The international lineup reflects the festival's reputation as one of the southern hemisphere's most prestigious classical music events. Berlin Philharmonic Principal Horn Stefan Dohr brings world-class brass artistry, while French cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca and Irish tenor Robin Tritschler add vocal and instrumental depth to the program. Piers Lane's return (the beloved Australian pianist and former AFCM Artistic Director) creates a thread of continuity connecting the festival's established reputation to its new chapter.
The Australian artists featured across the program demonstrate the depth of homegrown talent within contemporary chamber music. Violinist Emmalena Huning, oboist Emmanuel Cassimatis, flutist Joshua Batty, and cellist Charlotte Miles (who made a standout impression at the 2025 festival and now performs internationally from her base in Germany), represent a generation of musicians holding their own comfortably alongside international competitors. The inclusion of lute and theorbo player Simon Martyn Ellis adds historical depth, while narrator-actor Bethany Simons promises theatrical dimension to certain performances.
The world premiere of Australian composer Lee Bradshaw's completion of Gideon Klein's unfinished work, January 27, 1945, represents the festival's most emotionally significant offering. Klein, a Czech composer who perished in Auschwitz, left this work incomplete at his death. Bradshaw's completion creates a living connection between historical tragedy and contemporary artistry, a poignant act of musical remembrance that feels particularly meaningful in the current cultural climate. The piece's placement within the Sunset Series, titled Epoch Echoes, suggests a performance context that honours its weight without overwhelming the broader program.
Emerging composer Sam Wu's dual commissions (two new works premiering across the festival) demonstrate AFCM's ongoing commitment to developing Australian compositional voices. The Pathways Emerging Composer in Residence program represents exactly the kind of investment in future talent that sustains classical music's vitality beyond established repertoire.
The Governor's Gala presentation of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro as a narrated reimagining for the festival's ensemble offers accessible entry point into the program for audiences less familiar with chamber music conventions. This creative reimagining of operatic material for smaller forces demonstrates the inventiveness that distinguishes great festival programming from simple concert scheduling.
The Sitkovetsky Piano Trio's intimate concert adds another dimension to a program that already balances large ensemble works with more personal performances. Chamber music's essential intimacy, being musicians responding to each other in real time, creating conversations through sound, finds particular resonance in a setting where audiences can experience that connection without the distraction of urban environments.
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The festival's Concert Conversations, described as a beloved blend of insight and humour, acknowledge that classical music's accessibility depends partly on how audiences are invited to engage with it. Removing barriers between performers and listeners creates the kind of communal experience that sustains festival communities across years.
Cairns itself becomes a participant in the festival's identity. The city's age at 150 years old provides occasion for Cairns at 150, a program tracing the settlement's history through music spanning centuries, an ambitious curatorial concept that bridges local history and classical tradition.
For audiences willing to travel to Queensland's tropical north, the 2026 festival promises chamber music experience unlike anything available in Australia's southern cities. World-class artistry enhanced by an environment that classical music so rarely gets to inhabit.
The Australian Festival of Chamber Music runs July 24 to August 1, 2026 in Cairns. Tickets on sale to the general public from March 2. More info here: https://www.afcm.com.au/
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