Monash University Performing Arts Centres (MPAC) has unveiled its 2025 program, filled with stunning music performances, captivating theatre and dance, thought-provoking family fun and a brand-new one-day jazz festival. The Count’s Jazz Club also returns with critically acclaimed acts, and will now feature Blakout Month in the weeks between National Reconciliation Week and NAIDOC week, putting First Nations artists in the spotlight. Following an unforgettable year of shows across multiple state-of-the-art venues, audiences can look forward to more stellar events in 2025.
2025 program highlights include:
Big Jazz Day Out – An epic jazz party hosted by Monash University on 3 May.
The Ian Potter Centre of Performing Arts will transform into an epic jazz club across four unique spaces. Over 150 musicians will perform a mix of original jazz, swing, Latin jazz and big band, including award-winning artists Paul Grabowsky, Ngaiire (pictured right), Emma Donovan, Monash Art Ensemble and ATM15. The festival will also offer insightful workshops and interactive jam sessions. Audiences can roam between spaces, indulge in tasty treats from on-site food trucks, and immerse themselves in world-class Australian jazz for one BIG jazz day out.
THE WET – by First Nations-led circus ensemble Circa Cairns in the Alexander Theatre on 21 – 22 March.
THE WET has been created on Country across Far North Queensland in response to the landscape and endless yarns with community. Drawing on these ancient stories of the wet tropics, this dynamic acrobatic show thrills while connecting everyone to Country. Conceived by Harley Mann (Wakka Wakka) and embodied by the Circa Cairns ensemble, THE WET is powerfully enduring circus, dripping with culture.
Night Night – The Last Great Hunt presents this brand-new show in the Alexander Theatre on 23 – 24 May. (pictured left) From the creators of Lé Nør [the rain], Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer and New Owner, The Last Great Hunt’s Arielle Gray and Tim Watts have teamed up with co-director Luke Kerridge and composer Rachel Claudio to present their newest creation, Night Night. Highly visual and playfully cinematic, Night Night tells the heartwarming story of life, death and other dimensions. Using puppetry and digital trickery, Night Night probes the thin veil between worlds, taking inspiration from the many wondrous and terrifying things that occur both in reality and in our imaginations.
Monash Academy Orchestra (MAO) return with concerts in the Robert Blackwood Hall, running February – August.
Consisting of Monash University students mentored by professional musicians, MAO is an orchestra committed to sharing the joy of musical performance. Kicking off the concert series is Rachael Beesley on 28 February. Rachael is an internationally renowned Australian/British violinist, director and music educator and co-artistic director of the Australian Romantic and Classical Orchestra, she features on over 50 album recordings and broadcasts for radio and television and is in demand as a chamber musician and soloist, regularly collaborating with contemporary composers. More MAO concerts in May and August are to be announced
Marrow – An Australian Dance Theatre performance taking place in the Alexander Theatre on 4 – 6 June.
Set on a shared ground where politics and identity are not our totality, Marrow is a muscular dance work that tangles with layers of smoke and light to disassemble our dominant cultural narratives and reveal the truth of our past. Bracingly honest, Marrow is a clear-eyed and powerful work that sifts through the smoky forms of our national conscience to imagine a new future that acknowledges the push of our present moment.
Family Fiesta – MPAC’s annual school holiday festival, bursting with fun and educational shows on 7 – 12 July.
Family Fiesta heads to Antarctica in 2025, with a fun-filled festival for 0–12-year-olds and their families, inspired by the world’s largest ice sheet. Monash University’s latest research and explorations in Antarctica will help shed light on this mysterious and remote continent, in a highly creative, scientific, but not quite so freezing, Family Fiesta, flowing with ice play, glacier music, theatre inspired by krill and whales, and a much more, will take place across The Ian Potter Centre of Performing Arts.
Sundays in The Sound Gallery chamber music concert series continues in the David Li Sound Gallery, April – August. These stunning Sunday sessions take place in the acoustically superb David Li Sound Gallery and kick off with Arcadia Wind with Paavali Jumppanen on 6 April. The imaginative and versatile Finnish virtuoso Paavali Jumppanen has established himself as a dynamic musician. The Boston Globe praised the “overflowing energy of his musicianship” and The New York Times cited his “power and an extraordinary range of colours.” In recent years Paavali Jumppanen has dedicated much of his time to performing cycles of the complete Beethoven and Mozart piano sonatas
Other highlights in the Sundays in the Sound Gallery series include Slava and Sharon Grygorian on 18 May, Fred Leone on 1 June, Allara Briggs Patterson on 6 July, Kate Milligan on 27 July, and Annie Hsieh’s, Swell on 17 August.Swell will have its world premiere at Sundays in the Sound Gallery, presented by MPAC. Written in close collaboration with Australian violist Phoebe Green, Swell, is a new work for solo viola d’amore and live electronics, and expands the ideas of reverberation both as a phenomenon and a metaphor.
Sayes Arares – A poetic multichannel visual and sonic documentary by renowned musician and songwriter David Bridie in collaboration with artists from the Wantok community. Showing in the David Li Sound Gallery on 16 – 20 September, Sayes Arares takes the audience deep into the Middle Sepik region of Papua New Guinea. Using the technological capabilities of the David Li Sound Gallery, audiences will be transported to rural Papua New Guinea for a unique cultural experience that few outsiders are privileged to witness. Both free and ticketed events will be part of this public presentation.
Romeo and Juliet – by Bell Shakespeare in the Alexander Theatre on 23 October.
MPAC’s annual collaboration with Australia’s premier Shakespeare theatre company, , Romeo and Juliet. Introduces the magnetic Madeleine Li (NIDA 2023) as Juliet in the greatest love story ever told. Peter Evan’s critically acclaimed production is not to be missed. After a chance meeting, an intense but forbidden love is ignited between two young lovers, Romeo and Juliet, and despite the unending, violent feud between their families, they will risk everything to be together.
2025 promises to be another year jam-packed with shows, events and festivals, presenting spectacular experiences for all. Tickets are on sale now at monash.edu/mpac
