What we believe

At Monash University Performing Arts Centres (MPAC) we believe in providing opportunities that empower both artists and experts from other fields. By linking them together we generate new art works, new ways of communicating ideas and new thought paradigms.

Applications open Monday 2 March 2026.  

MPAC Commissions (downloadable link to PDF – coming soon)

MPAC Sound Gallery Commissions (downloadable link to PDF – coming soon)

What we offer

MPAC offers a creative vision that is unique in Australia, where research excellence meets the transformative power of artistic collaboration.  We reach into Monash University’s communities of researchers and experts, as well as world-leading technologies, linking them with artists to create a range of outcomes.

Supporting new works with resources, venues, and personnel, we commission and present works by leading practitioners from Australia and around the world.

Little Blue Dot – Lemony S Puppet Theatre

Working closely with Monash University’s School of Physics and Astronomy, Lemony S Puppet Theatre had a two-week creative development in the David Li Sound Gallery. They generated ideas for a puppetry and performance work for 5-12 year olds and their families, tackling some of the world’s greatest questions about existence and our place in the universe.  Little Blue Dot was commissioned, fully scripted and directed as a visually striking, warm-hearted theatre performance underpinned by accurate science. It premiered, with 5-star reviews, as part of MPAC’s Family Fiesta in July 2024.

“The threads of science and humanity were so astutely woven together that I marvelled at the beauty of it…I hope it finds its way into every single classroom in Australia and beyond.” – Artshub * * * * *

Beneath Our Feet

Beneath Our Feet is a theatrical play installation for 4-8 year olds, exploring the world of fungi, soil and microbes.  Artists Lauren Swain and Sophia Derkenne connected with soil scientists and biogeochemists from Monash University’s School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, with the provocation: if children could shrink to microbial size, what would they discover about the abundant life of soil?  Following a two week creative development, including several test sessions with primary school students and teachers, Beneath Our Feet is moving into a commissioning and rehearsal phase for premiere presentation at Family Fiesta from 1-4 July 2026.

Swell – Annie Hsieh

For viola d’amore and live electronics

Written in close collaboration with Australian violist Phoebe Green, Swell is a musical essay on how memories are reawakened upon each recall to conjure a swell of emotions that are internalised, learned, and embodied to help shape our unique sense of self.

Reverberation helps us sense and understand the space around us, shaping how we interact with our environment. The work explores this concept from the micro level to the macro, and from the inside to out: the physical vibrations between microtonal frequencies (‘beating’) represents the physicality of reverberation as an inner, embodied phenomenon; the natural unique resonance of the viola d’amore, contributed by its additional set of sympathetic strings and the amplification of such using the Meyer Constellation System, is a sonic metaphor for the distance of memories as they are remembered; the musical materials developed over the duration of the work will function to affect a structural resonance akin to the experience of walking down a memory lane.

Swell premiered in the David Li Sound Gallery on Sunday 17 August, 2025.

Given Volume – Matthias Schack-Arnott

Given Volume is a multi-platform work very much at the forefront of contemporary musical practice. Created by Schack-Arnott, it is a work for live percussion and immersive electronic sound that is spun into webs of sound that envelop the audience. Utilising the 63-channel system of the David Li Sound Gallery to its full potential, the work creates pulsating rhythmic waves of visceral and ecstatic sonic textures. The work is the culmination of three years of research into the entanglement of acoustic resonance and electronic sound, informed by notions of sonic spectres, musical traces and doubling.

Given Volume premiered in the David Li Sound Gallery on Sunday 22 September, 2024.