A nursery rhyme and Schubert’s final chamber work made it into First Songs, Last Songs, Melbourne Recital Centre’s 2027 season.
Chief curator Iain Grandage built Melbourne Recital Centre’s 2027 season, First Songs, Last Songs, around the two ends of a composer’s working life: the music they write as teenagers and the music they leave behind. Three subscription series do the heavy lifting, with Evening Lights after dark and Morning Stars and Mostly Mozart during the day. Smaller curated series fill out the rest of the calendar across the centre’s three rooms.
Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson is back for Evening Lights after his first appearance at the centre sold out. Pulitzer prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw makes her Melbourne Recital Centre debut with Kamus Quartet, and violist Lawrence Power teams up with Australian actor Yael Stone to tell Shakespeare’s tragedies through music. Kleio Quartet join pianist Konstantin Shamray. Idrîsî Ensemble dust off centuries-old songs from around the Mediterranean. Schubert’s last chamber work closes the series, and because it’s written for two cellos, Leonkoro Quartet have brought in cellist Umberto Clerici.
Melbourne Recital Centre 2027 season: First Songs, Last Songs
- Melbourne Recital Centre, Southbank
- Throughout 2027
- Season ticket packages on sale now
- Single tickets on sale 9 November
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
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Morning Stars
Morning Stars pairs international soloists with Australian pianists and puts on free morning tea before every concert. Cellist Natalie Clein and pianist Stefan Cassomenos pair Bach’s devotional writing with one of Elgar’s late works, while baritone Roderick Williams and pianist Timothy Young put together a morning of songs that double as love letters. Violinist Francesca Dego and pianist Andrea Lam take on sonatas by Beethoven and Debussy. Debussy only wrote one violin sonata, and it was the last major piece he completed.
Mostly Mozart
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Mostly Mozart is the matinee series, run with the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) to get its young players in front of an audience. Timo-Veikko Valve leads the ANAM Orchestra through Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and some Mozart, and Colin Prichard and David Thomas steer brass and wind players through the Gran Partita, the serenade that stops Salieri cold in Amadeus. Caroline Henbest and Zoë Black start their concert with Mozart’s take on Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Natalie Chee directs a night-themed program. There’s free morning tea at these ones too.
On the Record and See Beyond
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Outside the subscriptions, the Melbourne Recital Centre Presents program runs through the year in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, the Primrose Potter Salon and the Peter & Ruth McMullin Beacon, the cabaret-style room that opened on the building’s top floor in August. On the Record hosts album launches and See Beyond puts on immersive audiovisual shows, while Hear Beyond chases more experimental sounds. International Up Close is for overseas acts and On the Pulse covers contemporary music. Chamber of the Heart and Beyond Borders are on the slate too, with more shows still to be announced.
For more information, head here.
