Unladylike Big Band: Queensland Stories
Featuring the music of Rafael Karlen
Support: Un-Young-Ladylike Big Band
Monday 12 October 2026 | 7:30pm
Underground Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse
Brisbane International Jazz Festival presents a special night celebrating new music, collaboration and the next generation of Queensland jazz, led by the extraordinary 17-piece Unladylike Big Band.
At the heart of the concert is the premiere of a new Queensland iteration of The Dying Art of Discourse, a major work by acclaimed Australian composer and saxophonist Rafael Karlen, developed in collaboration with the musicians of Unladylike Big Band.
Created for jazz orchestra, The Dying Art of Discourse explores the increasingly complex ways we communicate, exchange ideas and understand one another in contemporary society. For this special BIJF performance, Karlen’s composition has been developed through a creative process with the ensemble, allowing the individual voices and improvisational approaches of its musicians to help shape the music.
Unladylike Big Band is Queensland’s premier all-women and gender-diverse big band. Founded and directed by saxophonist Cassie Whitehead, the ensemble brings together some of Queensland’s leading jazz musicians while championing greater visibility, representation and opportunity for women and gender-diverse instrumentalists in jazz.
Support: Un-Young-Ladylike Big Band
The concert will also feature a special short set by the Un-Young-Ladylike Big Band, a new ensemble of female, non-binary and trans high-school jazz instrumentalists.
Led by Kellee Green in collaboration with Cassie Whitehead and Unladylike Big Band, the young musicians will come together for a series of rehearsals before taking to the Brisbane Powerhouse stage as part of the Brisbane International Jazz Festival.
Bringing these two ensembles together celebrates both the outstanding musicians shaping Queensland jazz today and an emerging generation of young artists who will help shape its future.
Monday 12 October 2026
7:30pm
Underground Theatre, Brisbane Powerhouse
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This project is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.
The Brisbane International Jazz Festival acknowledges the Turrbal and Jagera people as the Traditional Custodians of Meanjin, on which we have the privilege to make music. We recognise their long history of music making and continuing connection, to the land and waters.
