Latest events

Concert 1 – String Quartet Courses 2025

Date: Sun, 25 May, 6:00 pm - Wed, 25 Jun 2025, 8:00 pm
Location: Elder Hall, The University of Adelaide

Twelve of the best young Australian string quartets perform works by Grieg, Haydn, Beethoven, Kreisler, Mozart and others in the culmination of our May 2025 String Quartet Course.

Big Band and Latin Ensemble featuring Dustan Cox

Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2025, 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Location: Scott Theatre, The University of Adelaide

The Elder Conservatorium's big Band and Latin Band are christening our new jazz venue – the Scott Theatre – with a concert featuring long-term jazz lecturer Dustan Cox on saxophones! Expect a night of Big Band classics and Latin evergreens with a few original works by staff and students. Rounding out the program, the Big Band will present a new adaptation of Mark Ferguson's 1959: The Twin Precipice, which was written especially for Cox and was first performed by him and the Elder Conservatorium Studio Orchestra in 2019.

Lunchtime Concert - Contrasts

Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2025, 1:10 pm - 2:00 pm
Location: Elder Hall

This program, featuring our new staff ensemble, Lumen, delves into the interplay of sound and emotion, showcasing how composers use chamber music to express a spectrum of colours and textures.

Music and Mediation Conference

Date: Mon, 9, 8:30 am - Tue, 10 Jun 2025, 8:00 pm
Location: Level 5, Union House, The University of Adelaide

Mediation, in all its possible senses, from transmission to conflict resolution, is particularly relevant in times of technological innovation, sustainability challenges, forced displacement and struggles for equality or survival. This conference, generously supported by the Musicological Society of Australia (MSA), is concerned with the ways music and the study of music contribute to the many theories and practices around mediation.

The Cabaret Project (Elder Conservatorium Music Theatre)

Date: Thu, 12, 6:30 pm - Fri, 13 Jun 2025, 9:30 pm
Location: Nexus Arts

In this special showcase, third-year Music Theatre students present original cabaret works developed over six weeks of intensive writing, music, and performance workshops. Each piece is a reflection of their unique voice and creative vision – tackling the personal, the political, and everything in between.

Lunchtime Concert - Autumn Grace

Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025, 1:10 pm - 2:00 pm
Location: Elder Hall

Acclaimed Scots/Australian fiddler Catherine Fraser is a vibrant and passionate exponent of the music of her heritage, and was the Director of the Southern Hemisphere International School of Scottish Fiddle for eleven years. Steeped in the Scottish fiddle tradition, the Catherine Fraser Trio perform repertoire from the wealth of Scottish collections – some dating as far back as the 1690s – as well as writing and arranging their own contemporary compositions.

Fanfare! (Elder Brass)

Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2025, 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Location: Hartley Concert Room, The University of Adelaide

Join the Elder Conservatorium's flagship brass ensemble, Elder Brass, for a diverse offering of brass music from the heraldic to the hymnal, with a few unexpected twists! The program includes works for orchestral brass ensemble as well as chamber music for trombone ensemble, horn quartet, and a brass sextet featuring tuba soloist Stan McDonald. Hear pieces by Rimsky-Korsakov, Koetsier, Danielsson, and more, as well as an Australian premiere by American composer Steven Juliani and an energetic new work by Elder Conservatorium composition student, Ben Betelli.