12 – 15 March 2026
Make Your Entrance by Brooke Green is about body language, how performers walk on stage and celebrates important women in the time of Franz Joseph Haydn at the Esterhazy Court. The pianist Maria Anna von Genzinger was an influential correspondent with Haydn. Countess Ilona Zrinyi was a courgaeous leader of the Hungarian resistance against the Austrians. This is a playful piece that culminates with “A Toast to Papa Haydn” to make up for the many accolades he didn’t receive at this time. Commissioned by Laura Vaughan for concerts with The Gryphon Baryton Trio.
12 March – Sydney
14 March – Orange Chamber Music Festival
15 March – Bermagui
22 – 30 August 2026
Djeeban and the Moon is a new work by Brooke Green for two bass viols. Djeeban/Djeebahn/Deeban is the Indigenous name for the Port Hacking estuary and river in southern Sydney, on the northern border of the Royal National Park. In the local Dharawal (or Tharawal) language, the name signifies the area’s tidal nature and shallow sandbanks at low tide. Djeeban was noted by Matthew Flinders before he named the river after the convict Henry Hacking. Shockingly, Hacking’s legacy is associated with violence against women and murder in the colony, including the death of the Bidijigal warrior Pemulwuy. There are ongoing community movements to rename the river Djeeban – Port Hacking.
Brooke writes:
Djeeban is the river of my childhood in Gray’s Point and even though much of the Indigenous culture of the area has been lost, evidence of indigenous habitation, such as shell-stacked middens and rock art was never hard to find. A nearby suburb, Jannali, means ‘place of the moon’ in Dharawal. In Djeeban and the Moon, I imagine the birth of the river, from the bubbling up of little streams, Indigenous and Chinese influence – the latter had a robust fishing industry there in the 19th century – but always there is the gravitational pull of the moon. Just past the mid-point of the piece, the tide turns, everything recedes and we are drawn back to the beginning of the river’s time, deep into the earth.
Djeeban and the Moon will be premiered by Laura Vaughan and Liam Byrne (Berlin) during their Liquid Threads tour of Australia.
22 August – Bundanon
23 August – The Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House
25 August – Hobart
26 August – Launceston
28 August – Melbourne
30 August – Gippsland
Sunday 22 November 3pm
St Cecilia’s Day Concert 2026
Amazons Past and Present
Stories about the Amazons – a fierce and noble tribe of women warriors have long fascinated artists, writers, explorers and musicians. For St Cecilia’s Day 2026, Josie and the Emeralds present music with Amazonian themes from the Renaissance through to modern times.
The removal or binding of a breast by Amazons to enhance their archery skills has inspired many breast cancer patients. Currently, one in seven Australian women are diagnosed with breast cancer, undergoing an arduous regime of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and long-term medications often with difficult side-effects.
Dorothy Porter (1954 – 2008) was one of Australia’s most charismatic literary figures. After extensive treatment for breast cancer, she somewhat reluctantly identified as an Amazon. We will perform several of Brooke Green’s settings of her poetry.
In 2025 Brooke Green was diagnosed with breast cancer and for this concert, is writing music that reflects her experience of Amazonian transformation, along with a setting of Fanny Burney’s graphic description of her mastectomy in 1811.
Glebe Music Festival
Glebe Town Hall
Tickets
Josie and The Emeralds 