Monash School of Music and Performance

Imagine sitting in the front row of your very own concert, pausing and rewinding to hear your favourite moment again, or slowing down to see exactly how they played that bass fill!

Last week Oliver Lardner came to the School of Music and Performance and filmed a jazz quartet of staff and students, as a part of our exploration of immersive technologies and teaching of spatial audio in Composition and Music Technology.

Our Ottosonics Orb was the centre of a truly immersive sound experience on Friday - with a special showcase featuring original Ambisonic works written by our students 🔊

Photos: Skyler Ye

Applications are now open for the 2026 Peter Tahourdin Memorial Composition Prize.

The $1,000 prize will be awarded to a student composer from anywhere in the world for a piece notated in “animated notation” - a living frontier of contemporary music.

To apply you must be a current undergraduate/ honours or HDR student in a university music department. There is no age limit on the prize.

Applications close 5pm Friday, 17 July - read more and apply at monash.edu/arts/music-performance/information-for-current-students/scholarships-and-prizes

Don't miss our final Day of Play performance for Semester 1 - happening tonight from 6pm featuring the Popular Music First Year Large Ensemble!

Join us in the Performance theatre - no bookings required: monash.edu/arts/music-performance/news-and-events/events/events/Day-of-Play,-Semester-1

///FREE EVENT /// Join us this Friday, 5 June from 3pm for Ottosonics Showcase: Immersive Ambisonic Works 🎧

Experience a series of 4–6 minute original student compositions of Ambisonic works that explore sound in three dimensions, where space itself becomes part of the music. Using advanced spatial audio techniques, these pieces move beyond stereo to surround you with evolving soundscapes shaped through motion, elevation, distance, and transformation.

Step inside the orb and hear these works exactly as they were meant to be experienced - all welcome, no bookings required.

Last month our students performed at the launch of Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA, published to accompany Spong’s solo exhibition now showing at MUMA.

Our students performed Spong’s sculptural instruments - created since 2016, which form an evolving personal gamelan that were brought to life by this special performance 〰️

Credit: Sriwhana Spong: HA HA HA, 2026, performance view, Monash University Museum of Art, Naarm/Melbourne. Photos: MUMA

Did you join us for the 2026 Day of Strings? A huge thank you to our special guests for the day - Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra.

Attendees were taken through masterclasses and a side-by-side rehearsal and performance in a huge day of learning and creativity 💫 🎻

Photos: Rachael Beesley

That's a wrap on our 2026 Day of Woodwind! 🎷

This year we were joined by so many exceptional guest performers who took our students through a day of musical masterclasses, workshops and discussions. So much to explore, hear and learn in one massive day - we can't wait to do it all again next year!

Images: Douglas Burns

Late last year our students participated in a very special recording project through the Our Music in Culture Study Tour: On Country Experience (ATS2331/ATS3331).

The project centres relationship-building, appropriate protocols, and shared decision-making which resulted in a collection of works that engage with story, place, and contemporary Australian sound in ways that honour cultural integrity.

The resulting album ‘Long Journey’ is now available to stream at the link in our bio - you can also experience the music live at this week’s Lunchtime Concert.