Canberra International Music Festival Opening Weekend
Fitters’ Workshop, Canberra
April 27 – 29, 2018

The official program of the 24th Canberra International Music Festival lists nearly two dozen events spread over ten days. With as many more unofficial events, a kind of Fringe is beginning to emerge as well. On the basis of six events over the first weekend, this year’s CIMF continues to build on its previous strengths and uniquely positioned character.

As autumn slips fitfully into winter, can there be a better place for a festival largely devoted to chamber music than Canberra, with its brisk evenings and crisp sunny days ablaze in the foliage of Fall? The city – with its surrounding mountains and beckoning lake, its national institutions and imposing monuments – provides a near perfect backdrop for a program that engenders contemplation and reflection on the state of the world and humanity in general.

And so it is that a program which, on paper, appears to resist themes is beginning to yield ideas and strands which are emerging in quite subtle and satisfying ways. Last year’s CIMF was an easy sell, with its red hammer-and-sickle logo almost screaming the centenary of the Russian Revolution. Beyond that,...