Adelaide UNESCO City of Music

Music is integral to our City’s unique culture and heritage and our standing on the global stage. The year 2025 will mark a decade since Adelaide was officially recognised as Australia’s first, and only, UNESCO City of Music. Since 2015, Adelaide has been proudly part of this global network of creative cities that celebrate, prioritise and leverage culture for sustainable development.

Famously known as both a City of Churches and a City of Pubs, live music can be found in both, with Adelaide home to some of the world’s finest pipe organs and choirs as well as its most progressive and popular artists.

With year-round world-class festivals and events, including WOMADelaide, the Adelaide Cabaret Festival, the Adelaide Festival and Adelaide Fringe – Australia’s biggest arts festival - Adelaide plays host to international performers and audiences in our iconic cultural venues and Park Lands.

The City of Adelaide is committed to fostering a rich music ecosystem, in partnership with creative practitioners, organisations and agencies, so our communities can flourish.

We invite everyone to raise their voices and their glasses, in support of our local talent, and in celebration of the good life.

1. Music has always been at the heart of Adelaide's cultural life. The Adelaide Town Hall has been the city’s premier venue for concerts, civic receptions and public gatherings since 1866 and is home to the J.W. Walker & Sons pipe organ. Today it continues to host concerts with regular performances by Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Musica Viva, Fever Candlelight Concerts, Australian Chamber Orchestra and more.
2. The Elder Conservatorium of Music was established in 1898. The first in the country, and among the oldest in the Southern Hemisphere, ‘The Con’ teaches music performers, creators, educators and researchers.

   In 2024, the Helpmann Academy celebrates 30 years of supporting creative practitioners at the start of their careers. The only organisation of its kind in Australia, it’s a unique collaborative partnership that unifies the skills and resources of South Australia’s universities. Helpmann Academy hosts ‘A Night of Jazz’ an annual Jazz Awards event and concert.

3. The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, South Australia’s largest performing arts organisation, was founded in 1936, and delivers more than 100 concerts each year.

   ABC Classic, Australia’s classical music radio station, was established in 1976 as ABC-FM, at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s studios in Collinswood.

4. On 12 June 1964, the Beatles visited Adelaide during their only Australian tour and were greeted by the biggest crowd of their career. Around 300,000 people lined the streets from the Adelaide Airport to the Adelaide Town Hall, with the pop group famously waving to their frenzied fans from the Adelaide Town Hall balcony.
5. The Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (CASM) founded in 1972 is the only devoted university-based centre for studies in Australian Indigenous music and a national hub for First Nations excellence. Led by Grayson Rotumah and Dr Dylan Crismani, CASM alumni include Electric Fields, No Fixed Address, Coloured Stone and Us Mob.

6. Established in 1973, Adelaide Festival Centre was Australia’s first capital city arts venue. It welcomes more than 1 million people each year and is one of Asia Pacific’s leading cultural centres.

   Adelaide has been the host city for WOMADelaide – World Of Music Arts & Dance - an iconic open-air festival for over 30 years. The Adelaide Festival, Adelaide Fringe, Adelaide Guitar Festival, Cabaret Festival, OzAsia Festival, Unsound and Harvest Rock and many other major festivals and events keep our City of Music humming year-round.

7. Adelaide hosts national music conference Indie-Con and independent music awards night the AIR Awards, both presented by the Australian Independent Record Labels Association (AIR). Each August national and international music industry converge on Adelaide for three days of conference programming, networking and celebrations. These events support the growth of the Australian music industry and provide development opportunities for the sector.
8. In 1997 Music SA launched as a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to helping SA artists develop their careers and continues to provide vital audience and career development initiatives such as Good Music Month and Scouted. The Music Development Office, established in 2014, is dedicated to supporting and championing the growth of the local contemporary music industry in South Australia, and was the first government office of its kind in the country.
9. In 2020 the City of Adelaide launched its City of Music Laneways initiative, an invitation to find out more about our musical trailblazers, our world-class artists, and our live music venues. Explore vibrant artworks that celebrate Sia Furler, Cold Chisel, Paul Kelly, No Fixed Address, and the Exploding White Mice, and experience the pubs, clubs and halls across the CBD and the West End that support our vibrant creative community.
10. In 2024, Electric Fields were the second South Australian act selected to represent Australia at the Eurovision Song Contest held in Malmö, Sweden after Guy Sebastian’s appearance in 2015 in Vienna, Austria.

Adelaide’s music credentials are both ancient and modern.

Our rich musical history begins over 65,000 years ago, with the songlines of our First Nations peoples, stories of connection with Country by the world’s oldest continuous living culture. Music by contemporary artists such as Ruby Hunter, Frank Yamma, Coloured Stone, No Fixed Address, Trials, Electric Fields and DEM MOB, express the strength, resilience, and creativity of Aboriginal peoples and cultures, from the Adelaide Plains of the Kaurna Meyunna (Kaurna People) to the seas and coastal lakes of the Ngarrindjeri, and across the red earth of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY).

Adelaide’s reputation as a place where homegrown talent can achieve global fame is widely regarded as stemming back to the 1960s, however musicians from earlier decades also took the world by storm, such as baritone Peter Dawson and contralto Clara Serena.

Iconic Adelaide bands The Master’s Apprentices (Jim Keays, Mick Bower), The Twilights (Glenn Shorrock, Terry Britten), and Zoot (Darryl Cotton, Beeb Birtles, Rick Springfield), and Bev Harrell rose to international fame in the 1960s. This Adelaide sound wave continued in the 1970s when Shorrock and Birtles, along with Graeham Goble, formed Little River Band, and Bon Scott (later of AC/DC fame) got his head start with an outfit called Fraternity, while Eric Bogle and John Schumann with Redgum made their mark on the indie/folk scene.

Paul Kelly, now regarded as a national living treasure, was getting his start playing small local venues including the Box Factory. Ngarrindjeri and Erawirung woman Ruby Hunter met Archie Roach, a Gunditjmara and Bundjalung man, at the People’s Palace, the Salvation Army’s Adelaide hostel in Pirie Street, beginning a lifelong love and creative partnership, committed to truth-telling and activism. Ruby Hunter was the first Aboriginal woman to be signed to a major-label recording contract.

By the 1980s, Cold Chisel, The Angels, and No Fixed Address – the first Aboriginal band to tour internationally – were among the biggest groups in Australia, and independent record label Greasy Pop Records gave South Australian underground artists such as the Exploding White Mice a national and international profile.

The Superjesus, Mark of Cain and Hilltop Hoods kept the rhythm in the 1990s, and in the 2000s acts such as The Audreys, Wolf & Cub, I Killed the Prom Queen, Beccy Cole and Luke Million hit the spotlight. Today Adelaide born artists including Sia Furler, Guy Sebastian, Tkay Maidza, Electric Fields, Teenage Joans, Bad//Dreems and West Thebarton continue to make their mark on the international music scene.

The City of Adelaide works with music organisations to amplify our UNESCO City of Music designation. Learn more about what they do and the services they offer:

• Adelaide City of Music

  Expand your networks and your horizons through the Monthly Music Meets hosted by Adelaide City of Music office, the representative organisation for the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) working locally.

  Its mission is to celebrate and create opportunities for South Australia’s diverse music culture across the UNESCO Creative City Network and beyond.

  ACOM services, value, and position in the state’s music ecosystem will align and benefit our state’s cultural, tourism, urban, and development strategies.

  Located at 25 Pirie Street, just off Paul Kelly Lane, the Adelaide City of Music office is proudly supported by the City of Adelaide through a cultural strategic partnership.

• Music Development Office
• Music SA
• Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music
• Helpmann Academy
• Carclew
• Nexus Arts
• School of Chinese Music and Arts
• Live Music Office

• Adelaide City of Music resources
• APRA AMCOS

• One Music

• Support Act
• PPCA - Phonographic Performance Company of Australia Limited
• Music Australia
• SCALA – Songwriters Composers and Lyricists Association
• ALMBC - Australian Live Music Business Council

Include the City of Music Logos to promote your gig or music program.

Share your music event even more widely by listing your event in the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW).

Visit UNESCO Cities of Music to learn more about other music cities around the world.