Canberra International Music Festival

The Canberra International Music Festival has achieved a national reputation for presenting an art music program which is both highly innovative and of exceptional quality. While the Festival’s early focus was on chamber music, and it remains true to its core, its scope has broadened to include classical, jazz, contemporary and world music.  In 2013, the 19^th Festival featured 30 concerts in various venues around Canberra.

Festival performances have been reviewed extremely positively.  In 2002 and 2008 the Festival won the Canberra Critics Circle Award, and in 2012 it won a MAMA (MusicACT Music Award) for its “Contribution to the ACT Music Industry”. Ticket sales in 2013 represented a 10% increase over 2014, maintaining a trend that has been a feature of each Festival since 2009.

Pro Musica invests heavily in commissioning and premiering new and rarely heard works of major international composers, as well as supporting Australian composers by showcasing their work and commissioning new works. The CIMF composers-in-residence program provides an opportunity for a dialogue with audiences as well as training Australian musicians in the musical idioms of other cultures. We average around 60 Australian and world premieres in each festival, with approximately 100 premieres scheduled for 2014, and we work hard to maintain our position as the Australian leader in curatorial excellence.

In 2009, in partnership with the Australian Institute of Architects (ACT Chapter), the CIMF inaugurated a series of free lunchtime concerts inviting audiences to enjoy both the architecture and the acoustics of major public spaces in Canberra.  In 2011 the Amazing Space concert series was awarded the AIA (ACT)’s Clem Cummings Medal for “contributions by non-architects and architects to architecture and the public interest”.  In 2012 it received the Australian Music Centre’s Art Music award for ACT Performance of the Year.

The series achieved particular significance in 2013, as Australia’s national capital celebrated the Centenary of its foundation.  Pro Musica collaborated closely with the ACT Government’s Centenary of Canberra unit, and the 19^th Canberra International Music Festival took as its particular focus the lives and the inspiration of Canberra’s inaugural designers, Walter Burley Griffin and his wife, Marion Mahony Griffin.

The Amazing Space series continues in 2014, with, among other things, a performance in the Nishi Building in New Acton, and a boat trip celebrating the charms of Lake Burley Griffin.

Venue :Various venues

Address :Various locations
Canberra ACT 2600

For more info head here: www.cimf.org.au