FULL PROGRAM ANNOUNCED 21ST SXS CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL

TAMBORINE MOUNTAIN 22-24 AUGUST 2025

The 21st SXS Chamber Music Festival 2025 (SCMF), proudly owned, operated, and presented annually by Southern Cross Soloists (SXS), one of Australia’s most formidable and long-running national chamber music ensembles (30th anniversary year), announced today its full program for what will be a sensational nine event program. The 21st festival edition, curated and delivered by three-time Grammy awarded Queensland musician, Festival Director Tim Munro, unfolds across three days from Friday 22 to Sunday 24 August 2025. The festival is proudly presented by SXS in partnership with the Shambala Estate, Tamborine Mountain. 12 virtuosic artists from across Australia and internationally, will bring music to the mountain for a glorious Winter weekend escape on Tamborine Mountain, Scenic Rim, a place of outstanding natural beauty. All events for the 21st festival edition are held within the stunning surrounds of Shambala Estate.

These exceptional artists will provide invaluable experience to our SXS 2025 Next Gen Artists who will perform a recital in The Chapel Series. The festival is broken into three sections: a Festival Welcome; The Chapel Series; and The Galaxy Ballroom Mainstage Concerts.

The 21st SXS Chamber Music Festival 2025 program:

Friday 22nd August

• Festival Welcome: The Single Petal - 7pm Friday August 22, Galaxy Ballroom and Bar

  A little festival taster to whet your appetite for the weekend ahead. Voices sing to us from the past in a program of dances and heartbreak.

  
  

• The Chapel Series:

• Next Gen Recital - 5pm Saturday August 23, Chapel

  Watch Young Queensland Artists at the beginning of their performance careers here. Who knows who will be the next emerging talents performing on the big stages of the world?

  
  

• Rest These Hands - 8pm Saturday August 23, Chapel

  An intimate, candlelit performance of Bach in Shambala’s Chapel. Slava and Sharon Grigoryan trade movements of the exuberant Third Cello Suite, complemented by the quiet beauty of music by Anna Clyne and Eve Beglarian.

  
  

• Coffee and Conversation - 10am Sunday August 24, Chapel

  Come behind the curtain as Tim Munro leads an engaging conversation with festival artists.

The Galaxy Ballroom Mainstage Concerts:

Saturday 23rd August

• Small Birds Play - 11am

  On the mountain, small birds play. This program weaves together birds from across the globe-the songs of plovers, honey eaters, shrike-thrushes. Truly an idyllic morning vision.

  
  

• The Oravas - 2pm

  Queensland’s pride, the world-class Orava Quartet return to the Southern Cross stage for a program of love songs, without words.

  
  

• Alex and Sholto in Recital - 6pm

  Alexandra Flood, with “a voice to drown in” (The Courier Mail), joins Sholto Kynoch, one of the world’s great lieder pianists, for a recital program of captivating beauty.

Sunday 24th August

• Sharon and Slava - 12pm

  This team has an unrivalled record: Slava is an acknowledged guitar master and Sharon has a formidable career as a chamber and orchestral musician. Their program at Tamborine Mountain dances and sings with full-throated love and delight.

  
  

• Fandango - 3pm

  A grand finale filled with revelry and joy, featuring the festival’s many artists.

The duration of all events is no longer than 60 minutes.

Artists will perform over 30 sublime chamber music works from 25 composers, 11 of whom are female, across the two-day, three nights multi award-nominated festival.

Festival Director and SXS flute soloist Tim Munro said “Chamber music is about connection, from one heart to another. In putting together this program, I asked myself how to connect musicians, how to connect with audiences, and how to connect to the community. How to make this time on Tamborine Mountain special: intimate, intense, pleasurable. I wanted to gather a crew of world class chamber musicians who are also wonderful humans. They all appear in many guises across the festival–as soloists, duo partners, chamber musicians–and many are bringing dream projects. Throughout the weekend we cross centuries and continents. There are intimate solos and boisterous septets. Songs with and without words. Love gained and love lost. Sounds of whimsy and nostalgia, sounds both strange and captivating. And musical friends, old as well as new.”

Cr Kerri Cryer (Councillor for Scenic Rim Regional Council, Division 2) said “As Scenic Rim's Portfolio Councillor for Community, Arts and Culture, I am excited by the line-up for the 21st SXS Chamber Music Festival to be held at Tamborine Mountain in August. The Scenic Rim welcomes the staging of this event in our region which continues to build on its reputation as a centre of arts and culture. The spectacular natural beauty of Tamborine Mountain will provide the perfect backdrop for the performance of stunningly beautiful works of chamber music that will delight locals and visitors to our region alike.”

General tickets and lunches (Saturday/Sunday) are on sale now via the festival website https://www.sxsfestival.com/.

The 21st SCMF continues its tradition of working closely with local partners to deliver exceptional experiences for audiences, residents and visiting tourists. The award-winning Head Chef Yiani provides tantalising meals from the Shambala Estate kitchen with meals on sale now via the ticketing site. A fully licensed bar and coffee/tea cart will be available throughout the festival. Bring a picnic and have meal breaks in the stunning garden surroundings or eat your purchased meal in style in the comfort of the Waterfall Pavilion.

4MBS Classic FM will again partner with the festival to provide day trip packages from Brisbane for its subscribers - information about the packages will be announced soon via 4mbs.com.au. The festival is less than an hour’s drive from the Gold Coast and can be reached via regular shuttles from the Gold Coast and its airport. Accommodation can be easily sourced from https://visittamborinemountain.com.au/accommodation-on-tamborine-mountain/.

The 21st SCMF promises to light up the town of Tamborine Mountain and surrounding districts again this August with a thrilling program that embodies the significant achievement of presenting world-class classical music in a festival setting to audiences from all over Australia for over two decades.

About Southern Cross Soloists (SXS) and the SXS Chamber Music Festival (SCMF):

SXS, celebrating its 30th Pearl Anniversary year, is a not-for-profit Brisbane based small arts organisation. SXS performs three concerts a year for its long running QPAC Series in the prestigious Concert Hall presented by SXS and the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC). SXS also delivers a successful Sunset Soiree Recital Series, now in its third year, which performs in Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Redlands, and travels to regional Queensland towns. SXS commissions new Australian works for didgeridoo and small ensemble through its long legacy project the SXS Didgeridoo Commissioning Project 2022 – 2032 and has long running educational programs, the 12th Next Gen Program and 10th Margaret Schindler Vocal Scholarship. Synonymous with delivering virtuosic music-making both in Australia and internationally, SXS presents the annual SXS Chamber Music Festival (SCMF). This much-loved festival, now in its 21st year, is a calendar highlight for chamber music lovers nationally.