Setting aside the composer’s pen, the festival’s AD explains how curation allows him to “dream on a bigger canvas”.

I’m now in my second year as Artistic Director of the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival. It’s a deeply pleasurable task, programming a weekend of fine music, set in the beautiful seaside hamlet of Port Fairy, deep in the heart of Gunditjmara country in Western Victoria.

Iain GrandageIain Grandage. Photo © Pia Johnson

I’ve spent much of my last few years being a composer, and I see curation as a logical and joyous growth from the more personal act of creating my own music. As a curator, you have the opportunity to manifest ideas and approaches beyond your own individual experience – you get to dream on a bigger canvas, if you will. You can frame a conversation about larger social issues, be it indigenous rights, immigration or social justice from a more objective viewpoint – one shared by many of the artists you select, rather than the inherently more subjective nature of solo composition. You can create journeys for audiences that wend their way solely through traditional chamber repertoire, while...