As I write this, I’ve just finished facilitating sessions for High Score (a video game music conference for Melbourne International Games Week), Melbourne is starting up schools again, and NSW has just rolled back some of its blanket ban on woodwind and singing.

There’s progress here, if slow, and it does finally feel like we’re emerging out of a long winter, reconnecting with people and our music.

Kangaroo by Marigold Bartlett Kangaroo by Marigold Bartlett 

I’ve also taken this time to connect with an excellent artist, Marigold Bartlett (@ghosttowngoldie on Twitter) to commission two new graphics for the playlist and its archive. Both feature local wildlife enjoying music. I adore how these turned out and am so glad for the playlist to have a face after 18 months of this project.

Voices and woodwinds feature prominently this month. From How Alone We Are from Lisa Cheney’s children’s opera The Owl and the Pussycat, Ross Edwards’ To A Child performed by Halcyon, or Elegy by Warren Burt for the Astra Choir – there’s a lovely sense of connection to people via the human voice – which I needed...