Sacha Gibbs-McPhee
Clarinettist
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Professional Concerts in the Noosa, the Sunshine Coast, and Hinterland, Featuring Australia's Most Elite Musicians
2026 Series
The most ambitious season to date. This year, Noosa Chamber Music is presenting four wonderful programs of beautiful chamber music over four seasons. Six new guest musicians join four returning musicians to play music which is equal parts intimate and expansive, classic and novel, florid and simple. Artistic Director Sacha Gibbs-McPhee has lovingly crafted four courses with seasonal ingredients, paired with the finest musical talent in Australia for his discerning local friends.
Summer
Mistral Melodies
Mostly French music for mostly woodwinds.
The French Riviera is beautiful in Spring, but hold onto your hat! The winds of the Mediterranean have inspired poets since Homer, but none match the power of the maddening Mistral, a northwesterly which blasts the south of France, Spain, and Italy.
In the golden age of French music, another kind of wind inspired artists like Ravel, Ibert, and Fauré. It was blowing through the woodwind instruments of a new generation of virtuosi who pushed the limits of these colourful and noble instruments.
Queensland's finest wind players are gathered in Noosaville for one concert only, this Summer.
Autumn
The Six-Stringed
Atlantic Voyage
Old World Treats and New World Beats for Clarinet and Guitar.
Invented in Ancient Greece and reborn in medieval Spain, the guitar has accompanied traditional song and dance for centuries.
On its long journey, Guitar music cultivated a rich musical style, by gathering new traditions without abandoning old ones. Arabic melodies and scales from the time of the Moors combined with European harmony and counterpoint, later merging with African rhythms and jazz, and across the Atlantic, a new style was born in Latin America.
Rameau, Scarlatti, and Schubert are contrasted by Chôros, Bossa Nova, Samba, Tango, and Balada in novel arrangements for a natural pairing of versatile instruments.
Winter
Die Zauberklarinette
Mozart’s midwinter quintet - warming hearts since 1789.
"I have never heard the like of what you contrived with your instrument... your instrument has so soft and lovely a tone that no one can resist it."
Praising his new friend, the clarinettist Anton Stadler, Mozart set to work at once composing works which defined his mature style. His Clarinet Quintet was the first of its kind, and was favourite of audiences from the 18th Century to the present day.
Herbert Howells and Ferruccio Busoni compliment this timeless masterwork in their own styles.
Spring
Belgian Air and Alloy
Wherever the saxophone goes, it goes boldly.
Adolphe Sax, the ghost-child of Dinant, narrowly escaped his untimely death by poison, asphyxiation, explosives, and gravity.
History was almost robbed of a genius inventor. His Frankenstein-clarinet, a musical chimera of brass and woodwind, is a marvel of musical engineering and a joy to play and hear.
Traditional styles of Schumann, Milhaud, Rachmanninov, and Bozza are contrasted by Phil Wood's Jazz Sonata, timeless standards, and a bit of Henri Mancini.
A Springtime breeze of light and easy music concludes the main concert series of 2026.
Great Things Come In Small Concerts
The Noosa region is a vibrant hub of art and music enthusiasts. The local choirs, theatre companies, art galleries, orchestras, and fine art societies thrive by entertaining locals, and enticing national and international tourists. Locals demand a higher class of art and culture, and they shall have it.
Noosa Chamber Music (established in 2024 in its prototype Coastal Cadenzas concert series) has established itself as the region's most premium cultural institution, regularly inviting celebrated and prestigious musicians to perform in artfully crafted chamber music programs.
For centuries, legendary composers, famous musicians, and members of high society would meet as friends in the opulent chambers of dukes, barons, and kings to play a special kind of music where everyone was a soloist. As music evolved through the Nineteenth Century, chamber music was the medium where composers were most free to write works in novel styles, pushing the limits of their artistry. These pieces were also the most personal and honest compositions, as they were often writing for loved ones and close friends.
Chamber music demands from every player their complete attention, effort, and passion. The music will not perform itself, and it is the duty of all musicians to uplift their audience's spirit, to comfort and heal, to challenge and inspire, and to dedicate their heart to every note and phrase.
Artistic Director | Sacha Gibbs-McPhee
I grew up in Peregian Beach, where I learned piano from my mother, later taking up the clarinet at the local primary school. Playing in the local youth orchestra, I discovered a yearning to become a professional musician. With a new goal in sight, I moved to Brisbane to study at UQ with the QSO players, and then to London, where I studied at the Royal Academy of Music under the guidance of the LSO and Philharmonia players.
Learning from Europe's best musicians, I gained skills and prestige performing under legendary conductors in famous concert halls and attaining mastery over my instrument.
I returned home because it is my desire to build my own kind of musical institution in my home town, and perform concerts for the local community. Many of the mentors and teachers who guided me as a child still reside in Noosa and the Sunshine Coast. It is thanks to them, and others who supported me during my studies and while I was establishing my performance career, that Australia's best musicians now join me on stage to play the music which has inspired me through my life.
In return, I seek to build an enduring art-music industry in Noosa which delights the public and inspires the next generation of musicians to discover this beautiful art-form and the joy it brings all of us.
Driven by an unshakable will and a passion for the discovery and creation of beautiful art, I promise to offer you the best concerts you have ever attended.
