The annual Bang on a Can Marathon in New York was started in 1987 in order to break down barriers between musical communities, bringing together innovative music-makers across different styles in a single mammoth event. It’s a major date on the new music calendar, and one which Australian composer Lyle Chan has tuned in to every year from the other side of the world since it was first streamed online. “I just love that idea of a huge concentration of new music,” Chan tells me ahead of his own marathon new music event, Extended Play, which will take over City Recital Hall for 12 straight hours at the end of August. “A lot of people in the new music community know that I’ve been talking about a marathon style event for many, many years.”

Extended Play will see musicians and ensembles from across Australia’s new music scene – including Ensemble Offspring, Elision Ensemble, Topology – as well as the Bang on a Can All-Stars themselves, converge on City Recital Hall to perform between 12 noon and 12 midnight in a festival that’s part marathon, part tasting plate, part industry trade show and part John Cage Musicircus.