For this year’s Adelaide Festival, Artistic Director of Pinchgut Opera Erin Helyard has curated Chamber Landscapes, a multi-concert extended weekend to be held at UKARIA. His chosen theme is Resonance, not simply the physical property by which instruments sound and listeners hear, but an exploration of, as Erin puts it, “the delicate influences that echo between musicians, amongst cultures, and across generations”. Limelight caught up with him to find out how he’s gone about it and what audiences can look forward to.


Have you done much curating before and what seemed important to you setting out to create this program for UKARIA?

I’ve never curated anything beyond my own work at Pinchgut, and so it was a pleasure to be asked by [Adelaide Festival Joint Artistic Directors] Neil [Armfield] and Rachel [Healy] to work on this year’s Chamber Landscapes, and I have always had such a restorative and magical time at UKARIA. The pandemic meant that I was constrained in terms of who I could ask, as there was so much uncertainty about borders and quarantine. I only chose Australian artists this year as I’m really passionate about supporting Australian talent, as many might recognise from my work at Pinchgut...