Utzon Music
A musical journey across traditions
Utzon Music 2026 celebrates the vibrant diversity of chamber music as it evolves across the centuries to the present day with a fascinating program that spans historically informed music to folk to electronica, improvisation and beyond. The program features musicians from Australia and abroad, many of whom will be making their Australian and Opera House debuts as they perform music from France, Iran, Japan, Sweden and other countries around the world. Early music will be heard alongside contemporary sounds and world premieres on a range of instruments, including the shakuhachi, the oud, the viola da gamba, guitar, cello and the human voice. Apart from one special performance in the Studio, all performances will take place in the intimate setting of the Utzon Room, combining transcendent musical experiences with glorious harbour views.
Sydney Opera House thanks Event Partner Pommery, Idealist donors Ezekiel Solomon AM, Ingrid Kaiser, Sheli Lubowski, Dr Eileen Ong, and Patsy Crummer for their support of Utzon Music.
Explore the program
Genevieve Lacey, Curator
Musician and arts advocate Genevieve Lacey creates, performs and curates. Her work can be experienced in museums, concert halls, parks and gardens, festivals and the digital realm. A tireless champion of Australian music, and the centrality of arts and culture in any thriving community, she’s been touring internationally for decades as a recorder virtuoso, has a substantial recording catalogue, a swathe of awards, and an ABC film Recorder Queen has been made about her life. She serves her community in countless voluntary ways, advising and mentoring in diverse contexts.
Works include Breathing Space (a permanent sound installation for the National Museum of Australia), Finding Our Voice (a hybrid festival, celebrating Australia in sound), Consort of the Moon (a massed choral ritual), Pleasure Garden (a listening garden), Recorder Queen (a semi-animated documentary film), and Soliloquy (a re-invention of the solo recital). Current collaborators include writers Alexis Wright and Chloe Hooper, composer-improviser Erkki Veltheim and theatre maker Michael Kantor.
As a recorder virtuoso, Genevieve makes regular appearances as a soloist with Australian and international orchestras including the Australian Chamber Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Concerto Copenhagen, the Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmanian and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras and Melbourne Chamber Orchestra. She has performed at the Lindau International Convention of Nobel Laureates, for Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey, as a concerto soloist in the Royal Albert Hall for BBC Proms, at the opening night of the London Jazz Festival and on a basketball court on Thursday Island with Australian indigenous ensemble The Black Arm Band.
An advocate for her instrument as well as for contemporary composition, Genevieve has commissioned and premiered works by composers as wide-ranging as Australians Lou Bennett, Brett Dean, Elena Kats-Chernin, Andrea Keller, Mary Finsterer, Hollis Taylor, Paul Grabowsky, Liza Lim and Ben Frost, as well as Erkki-Sven Tüür (Estonia), John Surman (UK), Max de Wardener (UK), Jan Bang (Norway), Christian Fennesz (Germany), David Lang (USA), and Wang Peng (China).
Genevieve currently serves on the board of A New Approach (ANA) and chairs ANA's Advisory Group. She's a former Chair of the Australian Music Centre board (2016-21), artistic director and co-executive producer for Finding Our Voice (2021-23), artistic advisor to UKARIA Cultural Centre (2015-23), and inaugural artistic director for Musica Viva's FutureMakers (2015-22). Her curatorial expertise has been sought out by LiveWorks (Performance Space 2020-22), Rising (2019-20), Adelaide Festival (2019), and Melbourne Recital Centre, where she was artist-in-residence (2018). She's currently the curator for Utzon Music, Sydney Opera House and Boyd Music Series, Bundanon.
With an extensive and ever-expanding discography, Genevieve has won ARIA (Australian Recording Industry) and AIR (Australian Independent Record Labels Association) awards, Helpmann and Green Room awards, Churchill, Freedman and Australia Council Fellowships, the Melbourne Prize for Music (Outstanding Musician Award), Excellence in Classical Music (Australian Women in Music Awards), John Truscott Artists Award, and the Sidney Myer Individual Performing Arts Award. In 2024, Breathing Space won Work of the Year, Electroacoustic/Sound Art in the AMC/APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards, and Genevieve was honoured with the National Luminary award.