Fine Arts and Music at Melbourne - VCA & Conservatorium

Some stories are told, while others demand to be heard ✨

Our VCA Acting and Design & Production students stepped into the world of 'Tales from the Arabian Nights', exploring how people face forces beyond their control, find solace in tragedy and the fragile line between good and evil within us all.

Learn more about our graduating artists → unimelb.me/4fAmdSL

📸 Gregory Lorenzutti

Showcasing the creative voices of Indigenous student artists, Wilin Connect 2026 launched last week 🖼️

Running for its second year, this project and art installation is a collaboration with the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development, Melbourne Connect and Lendlease, honouring connection, culture and community through visual storytelling.

Discover the works of four incredible artists on display across the mezzanine level of Melbourne Connect. Each piece offers a window into their unique story of connection to Country and community, one that deserves to be seen and celebrated.

An invitation to move, listen and think 🐎

Attuning to the histories of the Southbank Arts Precinct, 'we are all animals' opened last night, exploring how human and non-human lives navigate coexistence and ecosystems across time.

This spectacular interdisciplinary work brings together our graduating VCA Dance and Design & Production students with a live score performed by our Music Composition and Music Performance students from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.

Guiding audiences through The Stables, the performers encounter stories woven into the site's history, beginning and ending outdoors on the traditional lands of the Bunurong, Boonwurrung and Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation.

Learn more about our graduating artists → unimelb.me/4dz3ohu

📸 Gregory Lorenzutti

When you walk through Melbourne, the grasslands beneath and around the city probably aren’t the first thing you notice 🌾

Composer and PhD candidate Kate Tempany’s 'Grasslands Suite' brings this fragile ecosystem to life through intercultural music, blending Hindustani sarod and tabla with Western instruments to capture its beauty, resilience and wonder.

Kate explains how “these grasslands are a unique, richly biodiverse ecosystem which once stretched from Melbourne to the Western District, and now survives only in critically endangered fragments."

Read More → unimelb.me/4tRUMYf

UniMelb students, staff, and our broader community are invited to gather in the Wilin Garden at our Southbank campus to recommit to Reconciliation and to celebrate the vital role of the Wilin Centre for Indigenous Arts and Cultural Development.

Each year, we come together for Lighting the Wilin, a beloved annual event which recognises National Reconciliation Week. After Lighting the Wilin, we invite you to join us in the Fiona and Sidney Myer Gallery for morning tea and the newly opened exhibition, Country to cloth: screen printed fabric from Injalak Arts.

Register now → unimelb.me/498msk3

Feeling like a bit of a Mongrel 😜

A highlight each year, Mongrel brings together our Music Theatre and Interactive Composition students to develop their own original works that are raw, inventive and unapologetically iconic.

📸 Liv Morison

Today, we are pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Carolyn Evans as UniMelb’s 22nd Vice-Chancellor.

With a long and proud history at our university, Carolyn completed her undergraduate study at UniMelb, later returning as Dean of the Melbourne Law School and holding various leadership positions on the University Executive.

“It is a great honour to be appointed to the University of Melbourne as its Vice-Chancellor. The University has a transformative impact on the lives of individual students through its teaching, and on local and global communities through its research and engagement.” – Professor Carolyn Evans.

Professor Evans will commence on Monday 5 October → https://unimelb.me/3OyXJye

A story of loss, longing and quiet devotion 💔

Originally set in 17th-century Italy, the verismo tragedy of Suor Angelica centres around life in a convent that is both tender and devastating in equal measure.

This century-old opera found new breath on stage with our Master of Music (Opera Performance), Honours and Undergraduate Voice students at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.

See more highlights and full credits → unimelb.me/3QfnO5C

📸 Liv Morison

Still reminiscing about the VCA Art Grad Show 2025 🎨✨

From bold installations to deeply personal works, last year's visual feast brought together over 140 graduating visual artists who pushed boundaries and redefined contemporary practice.

If you didn't get the chance to experience it, see more via our showcase gallery → unimelb.me/4b04HVT

📸 Gregory Lorenzutti

A little chaos, a little satire...and a lot to think about 🎭

Mahagonny Songspiel brought Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s sharp, provocative world to life, as our students took on a work that blurs the lines between opera and political theatre.

Get to know our opera students at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music → unimelb.me/3QfnO5C

📸 Liv Morison