Melbourne French Horn heroine Carla Blackwood ushers us into a monumental day of music with the heraldic Interstellar Call from Olivier Messiaen’s From the Canyons to the Stars, complete with the chattering bird calls of the Chinese Thrush and the Canyon Wren. Celebrated Sydney composer Natalie Williams’ Talking Points, featuring violist extraordinaire Christopher Moore, depicts the viola and piano interacting as characters in a conversation, in turn revealing their character traits, jostling for supremacy, and expressing nostalgia for their shared past, until the viola disappears into eternity. Christopher is then joined by esteemed colleagues for Gabriel Fauré’s luscious first piano quartet – considered to be one of the masterpieces of his youth, wonderfully lyrical and trailblazingly inventive for his time, intoxicating and other-worldly with themes that seem constantly to be drawn skywards.