Here’s arts editor HELEN MUSA’s latest Arts in the City column. 

Australian rock legend James Reyne brings The Fall of Crawl Tour to Canberra in a nostalgic celebration of the songs and stories of Australian Crawl. Canberra Southern Cross Club, Woden, April 2.

In a recent ceremony, the Australian government formally returned a group of pre-Hispanic artefacts, including three Olmec ear-shaped plaques, a Zacatecas funerary bowl and an Aztec ceramic whistle to Mexico after they were intercepted by Australian Border Force in 2023 and identified as having been illegally exported. 

Daniel Riley, artistic director of Australian Dance Theatre, has been announced as the new ambassador of Quantum Leap, Canberra’s youth dance organisation. Riley was a member of the first generation of young artists to participate in its programs during the late 1990s.

Canberra Mandolin Orchestra hosts Dancing Feet ’26, the lively finale of the UPSTAGEING Canberra Festival, inviting audiences to join an afternoon of bush and social dancing with plenty of toe-tapping music, raising funds for orphanages and sick children in Poland. Ainslie Arts Centre Main Hall, March 29.

Presented by the Canberra Choral Society, also as part of the UPSTAGEING Canberra festival, Our Stories, directed by Dan Walker, brings together the CCS choir with soprano Rachel Mink and baritone Alasdair Stretch, a string quartet and pianoforte, exploring songs shaped by lived experience. James Fairfax Theatre, National Gallery of Australia, March 29.

Under the artistic direction of Louis Sharpe, the National Capital Orchestra opens its season with a program featuring Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto performed by Mia Stanton, Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony, and Sonic Boom by Australian composer Natalie Williams. Snow Concert Hall, March 29.

Super Rats dive into the rich traditions of Romanian music in a performance featuring shepherds’ doinas, dances from the rivers and plains of Oltenia and songs drawn from the fading musical glories of Bucharest, the result of decades of obsessive study, they say. Smith’s Alternative, March 29.

Art Song Canberra welcomes Australian soprano Lorina Gore, trained in Canberra, for Romance Sublime! joined by Canberra accompanist Anthony Smith in a program including Strauss’s Opus 10 alongside songs by Quilter, Sondheim and others. Wesley Music Centre, March 29.