AFCM Festival Garden 2025

Join us for an Industry Discussion on Music and Education, facilitated by Mary Jo Capps AM, where leading voices from across the sector explore how we can better support emerging talent and strengthen pathways from education to professional careers. This vital conversation will highlight successful collaborations, innovative models, and future opportunities to nurture the next generation of industry professionals.

Five emerging ensembles from Australia and abroad will be participating in coaching, mentorship and professional development from AFCM Festival Artists in the 2025 AFCM Pathways International Masterclasses. Join the ensembles for a speed networking event in the Festival Garden, meeting this next generation of chamber music talent as well as industry guests from across the chamber music and music education sectors.

Join us in a rousing concert on the Opening Night of the Festival, with the much loved and supremely talented Band of the 1st Royal Australian Regiment, playing popular jazz ballads with a little hip hop thrown in! Joined by the Pimlico State High School Choir - Gold Sponsors of the 2025 Festival - this opening night celebration is not to be missed. 

A fun, free family concert featuring excerpts from The SpongeBob Musical and Alan Ridout’s Ferdinand the Bull, with Artistic Director and world-renowned violinist Jack Liebeck and narration.

Author and former music academic Gillian Wills discusses her novel Big Music. Published by Hawkey, her book is a sharp, witty exploration of ambition, bias, and integrity in an Australian music school, with book sales and signings to follow.

Emerging ensembles from Sydney Conservatorium and Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium showcase some of the work they have been rehearsing under the mentorship of AFCM Festival Artists.

Experience traditional dance from Wulgurukaba Country with The Wulgurukaba Walkabouts, including Festival Artist William Mabo. They are joined by AFCM Fellowship Ensemble the Andromeda Sax Quartet, who will also be performing works from their Pathways Outreach tour and some special Guilty Pleasures of their own.

Emerging chamber musicians from Sydney and New York showcase some of the work they have been rehearsing under the mentorship of AFCM Festival Artists.

Some of Townsville-Gurambilbarra’s brightest young music students take to the stage for this entertaining concert. Bring the kids and a rug and enjoy some wonderful music in the Festival Garden.

Some of Townsville-Gurambilbarra’s brightest young music students take to the stage for this entertaining concert. Bring the kids and a rug and enjoy some wonderful music in the Festival Garden.

Some of Townsville-Gurambilbarra’s brightest young music students take to the stage for this entertaining concert. Bring the kids and a rug and enjoy some wonderful music in the Festival Garden

Some of Townsville-Gurambilbarra’s brightest young music students take to the stage for this entertaining concert. Bring the kids and  enjoy some wonderful music in the Festival Garden.

Southern Cross Catholic College has a bright, bustling Music department that nurtures students to experience the richness and pure enjoyment of playing music. Having a holistic and open minded approach to a diverse repertoire, students cover everything from western art classics to the latest new releases. The Southern Cross Music Academy facilitates Instrumental and Ensemble lessons and the classroom curriculum ensures our young people have the opportunity to participate enthusiastically in Performance, Musicology and Composition. A Music Immersion program is run in the Southern Cross primary school, this incredible opportunity successfully develops skill and appreciation of orchestral instruments at a young age which fosters a passion for playing instrumental music and a clearly evident engagement and love for music in the high school. Southern Cross is delighted to be a part of this year's AFCM Festival Garden Stage and the students are beyond excited to shine their light before other music lovers in the Townsville Community.

Some of Townsville-Gurambilbarra’s brightest young music students take to the stage for this entertaining concert. Bring the kids and a rug and enjoy some wonderful music in the Festival Garden.

The bible, political gossip and a splash of Frida Kahlo: on the importance of wild cultural receptivity and promiscuous curiosity in creative practice.

This lecture invites participants inside the creative process by exploring the often invisible work of receptivity — the open, porous state through which ideas are seeded and developed. Using examples from her own writing, as well as drawing on the work of a range of writers and artists, Emily will show how a deep attentiveness to art, language, history, news and popular culture is vital to both initial inspiration and cultivating complexity and depth in creative work.

Emily Maguire is the author of seven novels and three non-fiction books. Her novel An Isolated Incident was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award, and her 2022 book Love Objects was shortlisted for the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year and the Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award. 

She was the 2018/2019 Writer-in-Residence at the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney and the 2023 HC Coombs Creative Arts Fellow at the Australian National University. Emily has an MA in literature and works as a teacher and mentor to young and emerging writers. 

Her latest book is the novel, Rapture, which has been longlisted for the Stella Prize and shortlisted for the ABIA Literary Fiction Book of the Year.

Register here.

One last chance to gather in the Garden, reconnect with Festival friends old and new, and soak up the atmosphere before the final night begins. Enjoy great entertainment, cocktail and drink specials, and a fabulous Festival vibe.

As the Festival’s Golden Hour, enjoy a smooth, soulful set from the Pimlico State High School Jazz Band in the AFCM Festival Garden.

Get ready for a fun, upbeat finale in the 2025 Festival Garden as the 1RAR Band brings lively tunes and great energy to close the day!