Brisbane Music Festival 2025

Fourth Wall Arts, Brisbane, 14–30 November 2025

Brisbane Music Festival (BMF) is only 8 years old, but the festival has already introduced more than 80 world premiere performances by Australian and international composers. This year’s BMF features 20 premiere performances, showcasing 21 artists and 54 composers. The festival runs for the last two weeks of November at Fourth Wall Arts, one of Brisbane City’s coolest and most intimate concert venues. Beth Keehn caught up with Artistic Director, Alex Raineri, to ask him about this year’s musical line-up and find out what treats are in store for audiences.

Image above: Alex Raineri with Luke Carbon. Photo: Tangible Media

Beth Keehn (BK): How have you shaped the BMF programme this year?

Alex Raineri: BMF is a festival that profiles music that has very limited platforms elsewhere, so experimental and new work will always be at the forefront. As Artistic Director, I find that a lot of ideas start with colleagues in my circle, and pieces often have two or three years of discussion and slow development before the show gets to the stage. This year’s festival has a great range because I wanted to highlight and expand on some of our collaborations throughout the year, as well as showcase new works and emerging artists. It’s been exciting to be able to expand and take some shows interstate and abroad this year. One example is BMF’s largest-scale commission to date – our season at Melbourne’s Theatre Works in collaboration with Victorian Theatre Company – St Kilda Tales: A Performance Rave by Raimondo Cortese. This rave-inspired theatre-meets-music play has a new musical score. I have taken its incidental music and will be performing it in Closing Night Party: Come, Rave, our final show for BMF 2025.  

Image: St Kilda Tales: A Performance Rave. Photographer: Darren Gill.

BK: What are some of this year’s other highlights?

Alex: This year’s programme includes some exciting electronic music – for example, Professor Good Trip is a project that Samantha Wolf and I have been working on for many years. It features some existing work reimagined and new work for piano and electronics. We’ll be touring it to Sydney and Melbourne and to the United States in April next year, as well as making a recording. Another unique offering is a major commission of new piano work by William Barton, which features in As Flower as Fire. William and I had a period of creative development in Sydney in October and it’s sounding really beautiful – he is such an incredible, expressive force, and it’s such a wonderful opportunity to work together, get to know his process and play a bit of a part in collaborating on creating this new work.

Also, our opening event is very unique – a story/theatre reimagining of Mozart’s opera, The Marriage of Figaro – it’s very funny, and a bit cabaret. The music by Mozart is arranged and played by me, the script is by Phil Lambert and Bethany Simons, and Bethany is our performer. It's very family friendly, humorous, and encapsulates the opera in an hour – taking ‘best hits’ moments from the opera to punctuate the script.

Image: Jenna Robertson and Daniel Shearer. Photo: Tangible Media

Our Young Artists programme has been part of the festival since 2020, and nurturing emerging artists as an important part of BMF. This year, both young artists – Neve Randall (flute) and Joshua Jones (cello) are premiering self-composed works in Something New. I’m always drawn to emerging artists who break the mould and have a bit of ingenuity in the way they occupy their space.

This year, as well as affordable tickets, a number of events are free. There is always a complimentary glass of wine at every event. And at Fourth Wall Arts, the venue really does break down the ‘fourth wall’ so the audience can see the performers and their instruments and get up close to the performance.

This year’s Brisbane Music Festival programme

Figaro: A reimagining of Mozart’s Beloved Opera – Written by Bethany Simons and Phil Lambert, performed by Bethany Simons with Alex Raineri (piano and arrangements), directed by David Wicks – 14 November

Breaking Boundaries: New and newish piano music – featuring three Australian premieres and one world premiere – 15 November

Songs of Travel – Jeremy Kleeman and Alex Raineri in recital – 16 November

Film: double feature – Bloodpaths and Orpheus – 15 November (free performance)

Something New: New works by emerging composers/performers – Neve Randall (flute) and Joshua Jones (cello) with Alex Raineri (piano) – 19 November – two world premieres

Homegrown: Album launch – Art Song by Australian Women – Rebecca Cassidy (soprano) and Alex Raineri (piano) – 21 November (free entry)

Ways by Ways presents ‘For Philip Guston’: Feldman’s long-form masterwork – Tim Munro (flute), Rebecca Lloyd-Jones (percussion), Alex Raineri (piano and celesta) – 22 November

As Flower, As Fire – Piano music by Barton, Mochizuki, Cawrse and Adams – 23 November – includes world premiere of new work by William Barton, Australian premiere of ‘Meobius-ring’ by Misato Mochizuki – featuring Alex Raineri on piano

Sagittarius – original music for saxophone by Emma Di Marco – 23 November

Myths – Sophie Rowell (violin) and Alex Raineri (piano) in Recital – 26 November

Corporel – Alex plays the piano, but he mostly doesn’t do that here. Alex says that this programme’s complimentary wine “is something you will probably need” as he experiments with the notion of the ‘instrument’, incorporating non-musical objects, and tackling pieces by Yoko Ono, Chappell Roan, John Cage, and Australian premieres of Georges Aperghis’s ‘Conversation X’ and Jennifer Walshe’s ‘Becher’ – 28 November

The Space Between: Solstice Guitar Duo – Clancy Anderson and Dominic Ward – 29 November

Helcarax: Debut set of originals from new experimental duo – featuring violin, keys, live electronics performed by Alex Raineri and Finn Idris – 29 November

Professor Good Trip: It’s a Nice Trip (a Nice One) – Samantha Wolf (electronics) Alex Raineri (piano) – 30 November

Closing Night Party: Come Rave – commissioned by BMF for St Kilda Tales: A performance rave, from a collaboration and sold-out season at Melbourne’s Theatre Works – featuring St Kilda Tales, Jack Bochow and Alex Raineri – 30 November

Find out more: www.brismusicfestival.com/events-page