Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Grainger Studio. 10 Apr 2026
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Sanctuary Series is fast becoming one of the city’s most sought-after musical experiences, and it’s not hard to see why. The recent Nordic Lights program sold out, confirming that audiences are eager for something beyond the traditional concert format.
This is not simply a performance; it is a carefully curated experience. From the outset, the usual rituals of concert-going are gently set aside. There is no applause (it’s not allowed), the lighting remains low throughout, and many audience members choose to lie on yoga mats rather than sit in conventional seats. The effect is immediate: expectations shift, and a quiet sense of anticipation takes hold.
Even before the first note sounds, the atmosphere is protected with unusual care. Latecomers are not admitted, ensuring that the immersive quality of the event remains undisturbed. When the doors close and the lights dim, a collective stillness settles over the room.
The conductor, Sam Weller, enters almost imperceptibly—no announcement, no acknowledgment—yet the orchestra is already attuned to his presence. As the lights soften further and he raises his baton, the music begins, and with it, a subtle but powerful transformation: the noise of the outside world recedes, replaced by a shared, inward focus.
In this setting, even the smallest human sounds—a quiet cough, a shift of breath—feel natural rather than intrusive. Instead of distraction, there is a heightened awareness of being part of a collective, listening body.
The program itself is beautifully conceived. Works such as Crystalline by contemporary Australian composer Olivia Davies, Rakastava (The Lovers) by Jean Sibelius, Illumine by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Serenade for Strings by Edward Elgar, On the Nature of Daylight by Max Richter, and Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber span more than a century of music. Yet they are united by a shared aesthetic: a focus on strings, luminous textures, and slow, unfolding lines that seem to suspend time itself.
Rather than showcasing virtuosity or dramatic contrast, these works invite the listener inward. Their long, sustained phrases and gradual harmonic shifts create a sense of spaciousness and calm. The distinctions between pieces blur, and the program unfolds as a single, continuous meditation.
The result is striking. The hour-long performance feels both expansive and fleeting—as though time has stretched and then quietly slipped away. In that stillness, the mind is free to wander, conjuring images, memories, and emotions with unusual clarity.
Weller proves an ideal guide for this sonic journey. His conducting is understated and economical, avoiding any sense of theatricality. From a yoga mat, one glimpses only the occasional gentle gesture—subtle cues that foster a deep sense of unity among the players. The real artistry, clearly, has been forged in rehearsal, where a shared sensitivity and trust have been carefully cultivated.
By the end, there is no need for applause. The silence that follows feels not like an absence, but like a continuation of the experience—a space in which the music lingers.
For those willing to step outside the conventions of the concert hall, the Sanctuary Series offers something uncommon: not just music to hear, but an atmosphere to inhabit. It is, quite simply, an invitation to be still, and in that stillness, to listen more deeply than usual.
Kym Clayton
When: 10 Apr
Where: Grainger Studios
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. St Peter’s Cathedral. 20 Mar 2026
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra has a proud history of performing in St Peter’s Cathedral: through practised experience they know and understand how to use its cavernous acoustic to best effect—balancing placement, dynamics and tempo to avoid blur. For the opening Cathedral Series concert, the ASO presented a compact baroque program (seventy minutes, no interval): Pisendel’s Imitation of the Characters of the Dance alongside Handel’s ever-popular Water Music.
Like any cathedral, St Peter’s stone surfaces and vaulted ceilings create generous resonance and long reverberation—ideal for choral and brass textures, but challenging for fast, intricate writing. Directing from the harpsichord, Erin Helyard managed these conditions with assurance, shaping a performance of clarity and charm.
Composed somewhere in the period 1725-1735, Pisendel’s suite comprises eight compact dance-inflected movements that traverse a variety of contrasting musical colours and moods that quickly change from one to the other. The overall impact on the listener is one of heightened energy and gentle excitement. The woodwind was especially alluring. The composition saw the debut of a newly constructed ‘baroque conducting staff’, which was a predecessor to the modern baton. Elyard quipped that the ASO’s production team created it with the help of materials sourced from Bunnings and Spotlight! It is an imposing piece of kit and percussionist Sami Butler yielded it with vigour and precision. (It is now likely to go into storage along with the giant Mahler hammer used in the finale of Mahler’s Symphony No.6!) Elyard also quipped that Butler didn’t fall into the same trap that Baroque composer Jean-Baptiste Lully did when he accidently stabbed his foot with his conducting stick mid-performance which became infected and he subsequently died of gangrene!
Quite simply, Handel’s Water Music is joyous. It was composed for King George I and was first performed on a barge on the River Thames in the presence of the King. He was so delighted by the piece he commanded it be played again, in its entirety, several times. The composition comprises twenty-two separate short pieces divided into three suites, and the whole thing comes in at around fifty-minutes, but it always seems much quicker than that. It is redolent with catchy and hummable tunes, vibrant instrumentation, varying tempi and rhythmic structures. It is bright, festive and ceremonial, and it never fails to delight. The third suite features recorder, and anyone labouring under the misapprehension that the recorder is an instrument of torture is soon disavowed of that. In the expert hands of Brendan O’Donnell, it sounds sublime. Elyard set a brisk pace for the third suite that had David Khafagi and Martin Phillipson on trumpet playing with superb articulation that was crisp and without excess. Elyard knows better!
The large audience left feeling content, relaxed and appreciative of beautiful music having been played superbly.
Kym Clayton
When: 20 Mar
Where: St Peter’s Cathedral
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Ukaria. 14 Mar 2026
Sergej Krylov and Konstantin Shamray are both musical forces of nature. Russian-born and now based in Switzerland, Krylov is touring Australia for the first time, while the Russian-born, Melbourne-based Shamray is already well known to Australian audiences—particularly in Adelaide, where he lived for several years. Their partnership in this recital feels both fresh and natural, and one hopes it will not be their last collaboration.
Krylov was born into a family of musicians, his father a respected violin maker. It is therefore fitting that for this tour he performs on the celebrated 1710 “Camposelice” Stradivarius, generously loaned by the Sasakawa Music Foundation. Of course, a great instrument alone does not guarantee great music-making, but in Krylov’s hands the violin speaks with extraordinary clarity, warmth and brilliance.
Performing to a full house at the beautiful Ukaria Cultural Centre, the duo delivers a program that serves as a showcase for virtuosity. The works included Violin Sonata No. 2, M.77 ,and Tzigane, both by Ravel, the ever-popular Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28 by Camille Saint-Saëns, and the beloved Violin Sonata in A major, FWV 8 by César Franck. These are works audiences relish for their technical fireworks, contrasting emotional landscapes and the distinctive interplay between violin and piano. The Ravel and Saint-Saëns delight with stylistic flair and sonic brilliance, while Franck’s sonata offers romantic breadth and melodic richness.
The Ravel sonata’s celebrated “blues” movement is particularly striking. Krylov handles the jazz-inflected language with finesse: blues notes, slides and syncopations are delivered with effortless style, while Shamray provides muscular and rhythmically precise support. In the perpetuum mobile final movement, Shamray’s crisp articulation and technical command propels the music forward, and together the duo capture both the wit and mischief evident in Ravel’s writing.
Ravel’s Tzigane is gypsy-influenced fun in the Hungarian czardas style! It begins with an extended solo violin introduction which sees Krylov holding the audience in the palm of his hand while playing with dazzling control and colour. Meanwhile, Shamray occasionally glances at Krylov over his right shoulder and gives an unspoken acknowledgment of Krylov’s extraordinary command. When Shamray enters, the two begin a complex and a precise dialogue. Throughout, they are animated and in perfect synchronisation, even though the piece has an improvisatory feel.
The fireworks continue in Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 28, where Krylov displays formidable virtuosity: rapid scalar passages, soaring arpeggios and intricate bowing executed with thrilling precision. As the music shifts from a reflective folk-song style opening to spirited Spanish-inflected dance tunes and rhythms, both performers visibly lean into the musical drama. Krylov’s bow seems to dance above the strings, and his physical energy matches the music’s brilliance, while Shamray draws rich, resonant sound from the Steinway that fills Ukaria’s superb acoustic with bold and glowing tone.
The recital concludes with Franck’s expansive Violin Sonata in A major, FWV 8, a work whose recurring themes and cyclical structure create a powerful sense of unity. The sonata’s melodies have a way of lingering in the ear, and more than a few audience members left the hall quietly humming its opening motif. Here the dialogue between violin and piano becomes particularly intimate, and Krylov and Shamray reveal the full potential of their partnership. Their playing balances virtuosity with sensitivity, each responding instinctively to the other’s phrasing and colour.
As a duo Krylov and Shamray prove both impressive and intriguing. It is a meeting of two formidable musical personalities that one hopes will lead to many further collaborations.
Kym Clayton
When: 14 Mar
Where: Ukaria
Bookings: Closed
Adelaide Festival. Adelaide Town Hall. 12 Mar 2026
El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered is a condensed version of El Niño, the Christmas oratorio–cum–chamber opera by John Adams with a libretto compiled by Peter Sellars. Sellars’ text draws on a wide range of sources about the birth of Christ, including the New Testament, the Apocryphal Gospels, Latin American poetry and other literary reflections on the Nativity. The composition places particular emphasis on Mary and on the experiences of women surrounding the birth narrative.
The original El Niño, premiered in 2000, featured in the 2002 Adelaide Festival, and runs for a little over two hours and calls for large orchestral and choral forces. Tonight’s “reconsidered” version—conceived by the celebrated soprano Julia Bullock following discussion with Adams and Sellars—is approximately forty-five minutes shorter. The reasons for the abridgement are practical as much as artistic. Adams’ full score calls for significant musical resources, making it an expensive undertaking, especially for a single performance in a festival! A shorter version, using smaller forces, is easier to mount and perhaps more approachable for audiences unfamiliar with Adams’ distinctive musical language. For presenters of oratories at Christmas time, a seasonal staple such as Handel’sMessiah is likely a safer option than Adams’ more contemporary consideration of the Nativity.
This reviewer counts himself among the admirers of Adams’ music, particularly his operas such as Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer, and Doctor Atomic. Inevitably, the shortened Nativity Reconsidered sacrifices some of the narrative breadth and dramatic pacing of the original, and the storytelling feels less persuasive as a result. Nevertheless, the composition retains much of the emotional power and sonic appeal of Adams’ score, and introduces this remarkable work to a wider audience, which is only a good thing.
Adams’ music in El Niño combines minimalist techniques with which he is often associated and a far more opulent, almost late-Romantic orchestral palette. The rhythmic engine that drives much of his music is present here: pulsing figures, repeating patterns, and gently shifting harmonic fields that create a sense of continuous motion. Yet lyricism also pervades the score, and various ‘arias’ include long vocal lines unfolding over shimmering orchestral textures, and the music frequently blooms into radiant harmonic landscapes that seem to hover between contemplation and ecstatic affirmation.
The orchestration includes synthesiser and amplified guitar which gives the score a modern ‘feel’, and refined percussion and sweeping string writing add energy and depth. Understanding the architecture of the work—and especially the texts Sellars has chosen—deepens one’s appreciation considerably. Without this context, El Niño can still be enjoyed purely as music: an arresting succession of luminous choral passages, expressive solos, and compelling orchestral interludes. But the libretto repays closer attention. Sellars’ central idea was to retell the Nativity story from a female perspective, shifting the emotional and narrative focus from the traditional patriarchal viewpoint to the experiences of women.
To achieve this, Sellars juxtaposes biblical texts with modern poetry that resonates with the same themes. One of his most powerful choices replaces the biblical account of the Slaughter of the Innocents with a poem by the Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos describing the 1968 massacre of student protesters at the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Mexico City. The event occurred only days before the 1968 Olympic Games, and the poem’s stark imagery transforms the ancient story into a chillingly contemporary reflection on violence against the innocent. In some ways it asserts that the Nativity narrative is timeless and still relevant. Sadly, current events happening elsewhere in our troubled world add weight to this.
El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered is scored for a reduced orchestra, four soloists and a small chorus drawn from the ranks of the Adelaide Chamber Singers. The solo quartet comprises Bullock, mezzo-soprano Margaret Plummer, countertenor Austin Haynes and baritone Simon Meadows. All four deliver performances of clarity and commitment, though Bullock and Plummer prove particularly compelling.
The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra performs under the assured direction of Christian Reif. Throughout the performance the orchestra provides a finely balanced accompaniment, maintaining Adams’ intricate rhythmic momentum while allowing the vocal lines to breathe. Yet there are moments when the orchestra emerges with thrilling force. The Magnificat is one such point: Reif unleashes the full weight of Adams’ orchestral writing, with pounding repeated chords and surging rhythmic figures that fill the acoustic space of the Adelaide Town Hall with electrifying energy. It is quintessential Adams—propulsive, dramatic, and utterly gripping.
The work concludes with a luminous setting of another poem by Castellanos, The Rescue of the World. Here Adams’ music softens into something almost otherworldly, and vocal lines float in time and space. As the final syllables dissolve into silence, the audience emerges from this contemplative sound world and responds with warm and heartfelt applause—even from those who may have approached Adams (and Sellars) with some scepticism.
Kym Clayton
When: 12 Mar
Where: Adelaide Town Hall
Bookings: Closed
Loop Tour. Adelaide Oval. 5 Mar 2026
On a warm late-summer evening, more than 50,000 fans stream into Adelaide Oval for Ed Sheeran’s return to Adelaide, this time with his Loop Tour. The stage design speaks immediately to the scale of the night: a vast curved screen and stage anchor the set, a raised central platform at its centre from which a telescopic bridge extends to a small circular stage in the heart of the stadium. It is a setting built for spectacle, yet its centrepiece remains a single performer with a guitar and a suite of loop pedals.
In the intro, Sheeran gestures to a looping rig beside him, explaining the philosophy of the show. “Everything you hear tonight is played live,” he says. “There are no backing tracks.”
Sheeran wastes no time demonstrating that premise. You Need Me, I Don’t Need You explodes out as the opener, its rapid-fire lyrics punctuated by bursts of live scatting while he layers rhythm, percussion, and guitar through the looper. The technique—building a song piece by piece in real time—remains the defining magic trick of Sheeran’s live show. Watching him construct the groove from scratch is a thrill, even for seasoned audiences.
Between songs Sheeran grins at the sea of faces and announces that Adelaide marks the seventeenth and final show of the Australia and New Zealand run. “Let’s make it the loudest,” he urges—a challenge the crowd takes seriously all night.
Sapphire follows, the stage in a wash of saturated reds and blues on the giant screen behind him. When the chorus hits, fireworks streak into the sky above as tens of thousands of voices shout the word ‘sapphire’ back at the stage. It is a moment of pure pop theatre.
The energy surges again with Castle on the Hill, the folk-pop anthem transforming into a gallop. Its driving beat and nostalgic storytelling feel tailor-made for a crowd this size, with fireworks punctuating each chorus like exclamation points.
But Sheeran knows when to pivot from bombast to intimacy. By the fourth song, The A Team, the tempo drops and the stadium dims to near darkness as the sun finally sets. One by one, phone torches begin to glow until roughly 50,000 tiny lights shimmer across the stands. In a venue designed for sport and spectacle, the effect is strangely delicate—a moment of quiet solidarity between performer and audience.
Sheeran uses the lull to chat. “It’s amazing to see so many young faces in his audience,” he notes. As a child, he tells the crowd, he’d seen Green Day with his father at age ten. It is one of the experiences that first made him dream about playing arenas himself.
Shivers is up next, a dance-pop track reconstructed layer by layer through the looper until the beat thumps across the stadium. Then comes Don’t, during which the telescopic bridge extends towards the central platform, Sheeran striding across it to the smaller circular stage surrounded by fans, leading a call-and-response chorus that echoes through the oval.
Some of the night’s most powerful moments come when the show slows down. Introducing Eyes Closed, Sheeran speaks of grief and the loss of his friend Jamal Edwards. The song, he explains, was written during a period of mourning. When the chorus arrives, Sheeran steps back from the microphone and lets the audience sing the words themselves—a communal release that hangs in the air long after the final note.
The mood lifts when an audience vote (via QR codes) prompts for the next track. The choice is Sing, and it flips the atmosphere into full party mode. Sheeran bounces between loop pedals and guitar, testing the edges of his falsetto while the crowd fills the choruses with elongated whoa-ohs.
I’m a Mess follows with thousands clapping the rhythm in sync, before the evening dips again into reflection. Visiting Hours, one of Sheeran’s most poignant songs about loss, is delivered with a visible emotional weight. Once again the torches are aloft, transforming the stadium into a field of flickering lights.
Give Me Love builds slowly from gentle guitar to soaring climax. As the chorus swells, jets of flame burst from towers flanking the stage, bathing the performance in heat and light. Sheeran then splits the crowd into two halves, conducting them in a surprisingly tight two-part harmony.
By this point the show has reached a point where the scale of the venue threatens to dwarf the solitary performer. The arrival of Irish folk group Beoga—collaborators on Galway Girl—provides a welcome shift. The band’s fiddle, bodhrán, and accordion inject a rush of Celtic energy into the set.
Galway Girl erupts into a dancefloor jig, complete with green fireworks overhead. Nancy Mulligan and I Don’t Care kept the tempo high, the additional musicians giving the music a fullness that carries easily across the enormous space. On Old Phone the fiddle stands out, weaving an agile melody that showcases the instrument’s virtuosity.
Perhaps the most visually striking moment comes during Camera. As Sheeran sings the line “I don’t need a camera to catch this moment,” he asks the audience to take out their phones and snap a picture with the flash on. In an instant, roughly 52,000 flashes glitter in the dark like a constellation of stars. The effect is equal parts remarkable and moving.
The band’s final number, Celestial, has the entire stadium jumping in rhythm before they depart, leaving Sheeran alone again with his guitar for Photograph. Stripped back to its simplest form, the ballad hushes the crowd into attentive silence.
Another extended storytelling interlude follows. At seventeen, Sheeran says, he left his small hometown and moved to London with little more than determination and a guitar. The music industry didn’t immediately welcome him, he shares; he spent years writing songs for others before finding his own voice as an artist.
To illustrate the point, he launches into a medley of hits he has written for other performers: Eastside, originally recorded by Halsey and Khalid; 2002 by Anne-Marie; Cold Water by Major Lazer; and the ubiquitous Love Yourself, made famous by Justin Bieber. It is a reminder that Sheeran’s influence extends far beyond his own catalogue.
From there the set rolls into a pair of crowd-pleasing classics. Thinking Out Loud ignites one of the night’s biggest singalongs, while Perfect has the entire stadium swaying together under the lights.
The final stretch leans again on Sheeran’s looping prowess. I See Fire builds from a pulsing rhythm tapped onto the guitar body, its layered beat vibrating through the stadium with accompanying imagery from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Symmetry, typically a collaboration with Karan Aujla, emerges here as a solo showcase of looping wizardry, its tribal rhythms marking a stylistic departure from his usual pop-folk comfort zone.
Then comes Bloodstream, arguably the night’s most explosive performance. Lasers slice through the darkness while the song’s rhythm expands into a massive electronic pulse. Each chorus is punctuated by bursts of flame from the towers, turning the stage into a furnace of light and sound.
Afterglow brings the pace down again before Sheeran thanks the crowd and slips offstage. The audience response is immediate and deafening as we demand an encore.
The encore wastes no time delivering what everyone wants. As the opening chords of Shape of You ring out, the entire stadium leaps to its feet. Azizam follows with a thick looped beat that has the crowd bouncing once more, and by the time Bad Habits arrives the night has fully returned to party mode.
For all its highlights, the concert reveals an intriguing tension at the heart of Sheeran’s live concept. His looping technique remains a marvel—a one-man orchestra built in real time—and his storytelling between songs makes him one of pop’s most endearing stage personalities. Yet in a venue as enormous as Adelaide Oval, the intimacy that makes his music so appealing can sometimes feel diluted by sheer scale.
When Beoga joined the stage, the music suddenly fills the space with greater ease. Their presence hints at how powerful the show could be with more instrumental support. Alone, Sheeran commands attention through sheer charisma and craft, but a stadium occasionally asks for something bigger than one man and a pedalboard.
Still, the night proves why Sheeran continues to connect so deeply with audiences around the world. He performs with a sincerity that doesn’t feel manufactured, and when the crowd sings along—as they did repeatedly throughout this performance—the distance between artist and audience dissolves.
As the final notes fade and 52,000 fans file out into the Adelaide night, the verdict is clear. The Loop Tour may be built on technological ingenuity, but its real engine is something far simpler: a songwriter, a guitar, and a crowd willing to sing every word back.
Paul Rodda
When: 5 Mar
Where: Adelaide Oval
Bookings: Closed