Welcome to the Australian Art Music playlist! A monthly playlist of classical, jazz, experimental and electronic music focused on contemporary Australian composers, musicians and sound artists.
Musicians need support to keep creating the music you love. So, moving forward I’ll be hosting the playlist on Bandcamp and BuyMusic.Club where you can listen to and buy digital or physical copies of your favourites each month. I’m buying a digital copy of every album featured and I invite you all to join me!
The latest crop of Australian releases doesn’t disappoint! This month’s playlist features connections with nature and place across many of the recordings; whether it memories of soundscapes of home (Winter by Ai Yamamoto), ecological memory (Gabriella Smart’s Parasymbiosis), DNA modelling (Gene Tree by Elissa Goodrich) or a particularly enthusiastic Tuī (Rotoiti by Hamish Upton).
We partner these with some particularly intimate recordings – small forces or delicate gestures. From the tremulous (shadowfolds by Sylvia Lim), to the luminescent (Connexions by Kym Alexandra Dillon); as well as the smoky (help me to remember/ help me to forget by Katarzyna Wiktorski), the rich (La Petite Mort by Nick Batterham), the otherworldly (Bliss by Meatshell) and the nostalgic (Where Light Comes To Rest by Naomi Dodd) – there a so many incredible stories and moments on display here.
We round out our collection with some of the finest jazz and improvised music. Zela Margossian’s Repentance winds us forward so we never get totally lost in dreaming. Julien Wilson’s Travelling Home on the other hand, is an adventurous meander. And we end with a transcendent long-form improvisation from Adrian Lim-Klumpes, Chris Abrahams, & Novak Manojlovic, recorded live at Phoenix Central Park in Sydney.
I hope you enjoy this listening experience, and are inspired to check out some of the albums and discographies associated with these tracks.
As always please feel free to pitch your music (old or new) to [email protected] and let us know your favourite tracks from this month on socials.
And, if you’d like to support the playlist, please join the Australian Art Music playlist Patreon to suggest and vote on future themes, and get some behind the scenes posts and perks.
Track by Track
- shadowfolds by Sylvia Lim | performed by Kerry Yong, Simon Limbrick, Mira Benjamin, Michelle Hromin & Natasha Zielazinski
- Rotoiti by Hamish Upton
- Connexions by Kym Alexandra Dillon
- help me to remember/ help me to forget by Katarzyna Wiktorski | performed by Katarzyna Wiktorski, Flora Carbo, Erica Tucceri, & Madison James Smith
- Repentance by Zela Margossian | performed by Zela Margossian Quintet (Zela Margossian, Stuart Vandegraaff, Adem Yilmaz, Jacques Emery, Alexander Inman-Hislop)
- Bliss by MEATSHELL (Helen Svoboda & Andrew Saragossi)
- The Other Moth – Mutant Rhythms of Survival from Gene Tree by Elissa Goodrich | performed by Gideon Brazil, Elliott Folvig, Miranda Hill, & Elissa Goodrich
- Parasymbiosis VII by Gabriella Smart
- Winter from Seasons by Ai Yamamoto
- Where Light Comes To Rest by Naomi Dodd | performed by Matt Withers & Sally Greenaway
- Travelling Home by Julien Wilson | performed by Julien Wilson, Peggy Lee, Theo Carbo, & Dylan van der Schyff
- La Petite Mort by Nick Batterham | performed by David Berlin & Georgina Lewis
- 3 Pianos by Adrian Lim-Klumpes Trio (Adrian Lim-Klumpes, Chris Abrahams, & Novak Manojlovic)
If you’re wanting more music to explore, check out previous playlists from this year here. Otherwise, I’d always recommend the Australian Art Music Archive, with all 1,759 previously featured Spotify tracks (roughly 178 hours of music), Limelight’s Guide to Australian Composers, and my 2024 community listening project: 1,000 Curious Ears – all 12 monthly editions of that series can be found here.
Until next month, may your curiosity lead you to unexpected places.
-Cameron
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This playlist is updated monthly. Explore previous months’ playlists on our website and listen to the archive playlist (2019-2025) on Spotify.
Contact Cameron Lam on Facebook, Instagram, his website or via direct email: [email protected] to recommend tracks for the Australian Art Music playlist.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source limelight-arts.com.au ’
