Last year’s Australian Festival of Chamber Music was to have been Artistic Director Kathryn Stott’s final program at the helm and a celebration marking the event’s 30th iteration, the 25th anniversary of its resident ensemble, the Goldner String Quartet, and the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. For reasons all too familiar, the festival was cancelled in 2020 – however, the AFCM announced that Stott’s final program would go ahead with, schedules permitting, the same line-up of musicians and artists, under the title Carnival.

Kathryn Stott and the Goldner String QuartetKathryn Stott and the Goldner String Quartet. Photo courtesy of the AFCM

“The daunting prospect of the 30th Anniversary Festival being cancelled has simply been gut wrenching for everyone concerned, so I’m absolutely thrilled that AFCM has been able to postpone the program to 2021,” Stott said when the announcement was made in April last year. “With musicians facing almost daily cancellations of their concerts, this action is a great lifeline to all our festival artists in this difficult time. I would particularly like to thank incoming Artistic Director Jack Liebeck for his generosity in postponing his own first festival and giving me the possibility of presenting...