Delulu to Trululu … a local music festival’s journey
Brisbane Music Festival has developed from humble beginnings to a celebration of diversity and innovation.
Hello. I’m Alex. I’m a piano player, composer, producer and festival director. Music matters because it’s a beautiful way to tell stories through sound. It is a way to embody impact within sentiment. It is a way that we, as artists, can gently manifest a shared, creative, utopian, emotional and human future.
Brisbane Music Festival started in 2018 as a passion project – a means for me to organise all of my crazy ideas for concert programs, and a way to neatly organise all of my various collaborations – existing and desired new partnerships. Now in its eighth year, my passion project has evolved into something that goes far beyond its self-serving initial premise.
With a focus on new music and giving a voice to contemporary work that has limited platform elsewhere in Australia, the festival prides itself on being a space for creative engagement, challenge and discovery.
Through Brisbane Music Festival, I’m proud to have leveraged more than 80 newly commissioned musical works by a broad array of Australia’s leading composers, celebrating the diversity embodied within the Australian cultural landscape. The festival has platformed Australian artists such as Sara Macliver, Amy Lehpamer, Ensemble Offspring, Lisa Moore, Karin Schaupp, Ensemble Q and many other inspiring artists, musicians and storytellers.
The 2025 season this month features a diverse array of offerings that traverse classical and contemporary music, First Nations artists, film, dance, theatre, visual art, experimental work, electronic music and pop. Highlights include commissioned works from William Barton and Lisa Cheney, with performances by Sophie Rowell, Jeremy Kleeman, Katina Olsen and Bethany Simons.
The festival takes place at FourthWall Arts, an intimate new venue in the heart of Brisbane’s CBD. Akin to a New York loft, you’re invited to pour a complimentary glass of wine and take a seat up-close-and-personal to the musicians. You’re invited beyond the “fourth wall”, to sit inside the music and discover new experiences.
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What to expect at the 2025 Brisbane Music Festival? Well, incredible new music will be premiered. There’s some Mozart, a devilishly virtuosic piano arrangement of Chappell Roan’s rainbow anthem Pink Pony Club, there’s a piece for a sandwich, a classical guitar duo, and more.
I am the cliché of “the artist with a dream” who, through an extended episode of determination, has turned my delulu into trululu. But an artist is nothing without an audience. So, I hope this little ramble inspires curiosity about the festival. See you there.
Brisbane Music Festival, November 14-30. Tickets at brismusicfestival.com
Brisbane-based Alex Raineri is a piano recitalist, concerto soloist, chamber musician, harpsichordist, composer, writer, producer and educator. He is the curator and producer of the Brisbane Music Festival.