ArtSound FM’s Concert Hall brings you the finest live classical and chamber music recorded in and around Canberra — from intimate recitals to full choral works, broadcast every Friday evening.

February 2026

1 February — Voice, Rejoice!

Salut Baroque and soprano Anna Fraser return to Concert Hall with a programme spanning the full breadth of the baroque vocal tradition — from the heightened drama of opera to the quiet devotion of sacred song — recorded at the Wesley Uniting Church in Forrest. Anna Fraser is one of Australia’s most compelling baroque sopranos, and her collaboration with Salut Baroque consistently draws out the emotional range the period does best. If you missed the January broadcast, this is your chance.

8 February — An Evening of Chamber Rarities

A feast for chamber music lovers. The Alma Moodie Quartet is joined by flautist Mark Xiao and clarinettist Olivia Hans-Rosenbaum for a programme of considerable range and ambition, recorded at the Wesley Music Centre. The evening opens with four of Bartók’s 44 Duos for Two Violins — compact, folk-inflected miniatures that crackle with rhythmic life — before Prokofiev’s Sonata for Flute and String Quartet brings a very different kind of intensity. Then Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet closes the night in its own rich world: one of the warmest, most autumnal pieces in the chamber canon.

15 February — Howard Goodall’s Invictus

The Llewellyn Choir presents Howard Goodall’s Invictus: A Passion — a major choral work by one of contemporary Britain’s most admired composers, recorded at the Wesley Uniting Church in Forrest. Goodall sets the famous W.E. Henley poem at the heart of a work that meditates on suffering, resilience, and the unconquerable human spirit. The Llewellyn Choir brings the scale and focus this demanding piece demands.

22 February — Harp and Piano

Alice Giles (harp) and Arnan Wiesel (piano) bring a Harmonic Curves concert from the Wesley Music Centre — a programme that moves gracefully between centuries and styles. Works by J.S. Bach and C.P.E. Bach anchor the evening in the baroque and classical traditions, while pieces by Carlos Salzedo (the 20th century’s great harp innovator), Enrique Granados, and Australian composer Charles Eakin fill out a programme of genuine variety. The harp-piano pairing is rarer than it should be, and Alice Giles — one of Australia’s foremost concert harpists — makes an excellent case for it.

March 2026

1 March — Gesualdo’s Tenebrae

The Luminescence Chamber Singers open March with something truly extraordinary. Carlo Gesualdo’s Tenebrae settings of 1611 are among the most emotionally raw works in the entire choral canon — music of abandonment, betrayal, and death rendered in chromatic harmonies that still sound startlingly modern more than four centuries later. The Luminescence Chamber Singers perform the first of Gesualdo’s three sets of responsories, recorded at the Wesley Uniting Church in Forrest. Not easy listening — deeply rewarding listening.

8 March — Something Old, Something New

Apeiron Baroque and guest soprano Susannah Lawergren take Concert Hall on a journey across three centuries, from the intimacy of 17th-century chamber music to works of the early 20th, recorded at the Wesley Uniting Church in Forrest. Apeiron Baroque are known for programmes that illuminate unexpected connections across time, and this wide-ranging concert looks set to be a fine example of exactly that.

15 March — Popular Piano Favourites

Stuart Long brings an accessible and warmly entertaining evening of popular piano repertoire to the Wesley Music Centre. A programme for listeners who love the piano at its most communicative — melodies that linger, playing that draws you in. A welcome change of pace in the schedule, and a reminder that Concert Hall has room for joy as well as intensity.

22 March — The False Prophet, the Wicked Servant and Divine Comfort

One of the month’s most distinctive broadcasts. Director Robyn Mellor leads Canberra’s BlockSounds recorder ensemble — with singers Maartje Sevenster, Greta Claringbould, and Frank den Hartog — through a programme exploring how Johann Ahle and his 17th-century German contemporaries absorbed the drama and passion of early Italian opera into the Protestant church cantata. It’s a corner of music history that rarely gets airtime, and the combination of recorders, strings, and three strong voices makes for a compelling, unusual sound. Recorded at the Wesley Uniting Church in Forrest.

29 March — Love Songs

Tenor Andrew Goodwin and harpist Alice Giles close out March with Love Songs — an eclectic, beautiful collection of music built around the oldest subject in the repertoire. Another Harmonic Curves concert from the Wesley Music Centre, this is an evening of warmth and intimacy: two superb musicians, the loveliest of subjects, and no shortage of melody.

Concert Hall airs on ArtSound FM. Check artsound.fm for broadcast times and listen-again details.