The Open Road

Freedom and Wanderlust

A compelling encounter between English and contemporary Australian art song, ACOCO’s second concert in the 2026 Mietta Foundation Song Series pairs Ralph Vaughan Williams’s beloved Songs of Travel, with the Australian premiere of Kate Moore’s The Open Road.

American-born, Melbourne-based mezzo-soprano Margaret Trubiano premieres Australian/Dutch composer Kate Moore’s cycle The Open Road, bringing Walt Whitman’s stirring celebration in casting off constraint in pursuit of freedom and self-discovery into the 21st century. Margaret Trubiano is joined by harpist Tijana Kozarcic, Coady Green on keyboard, and Mat Jodrell on flugelhorn.

Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel takes poems by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson to follow a wanderer through freedom, longing, love, memory and homecoming. Enduring melodies give intimate voice to the exhilaration - and solitude - of a life lived on the move. Performed as a split cycle, led by baritone Darcy Carroll with ACOCO Rising Artists, and pianist Sangmi Kim making her ACOCO debut.

Together, these entrancing song cycles bridge twentieth-century English music and twenty-first-century Australian wanderlust, inviting us to leave, journey, seek - and find beauty in the road itself.

Tickets

Standard $89 ($79 Concession)
Student $45
Group 10+ $69

Please note, seating in the Primrose Potter Salon is General Admission.

A Transaction Fee between $4 and $8.50 applies to orders made online and by phone. Delivery Fees may also apply. A ticket limit of six is in place online to ensure fair ticket access for all. Want to bring a bigger party? Call our Box Office during business hours on (03) 9699 3333 to book.

Artists

The Open Road
Margaret Trubiano mezzo soprano
Tijana Kozarcic harp
Mat Jodrell flugelhorn/trumpet
Coady Green keyboard

Songs of Travel
Darcy Carroll baritone
Sophie Bisset soprano
Genevieve Gray soprano
Alexandra Amerides contralto
Callum McGing tenor
Sangmi Kim piano

Program

Kate Moore (words by Walt Whitman)
The Open Road (Australian premiere)

Lyre
We must not stop here
I will be honest with you
Whoever you are come travel with me
Mystic trumpeter
They too are on the road
Journeyers
We will sail
Spin bird
To that which is endless
Whoever you are come forth
The open road
The road is before us
You flagg'd walks

Ralph Vaughan Williams (words by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Songs of Travel 

The Vagabond
Let Beauty awake
The roadside fire
Youth and love
In dreams
The infinite shining heavens
Whither must I wander
Bright is the ring of words
I have trod the upward and downward slope