Image Description : Event poster on a bright lime-green background. On the left, a black-and-white fork and knife stand upright like a place setting, next to the title EAT THE SCORE in large, bold black letters. Torn scraps of paper are scattered around: fragments of sheet music, a printed recipe card, a photo of musicians’ hands holding bows over a table with wine glasses, and a head of cauliflower. Purple text in the lower right reads: 7PM, 27 NOV, 21 SHEPHERD.
EAT THE SCORE BackStage Music turns 10
7 PM Friday, 27 November 2026
21 Shepherd 21 Shepherd St, Marrickville
Presented by BackStage Music Celebrating 10 years of living music
Ten years of BackStage Music, served up as a dinner party.
For the past decade, we’ve been quietly rewiring the traditional concert experience, ditching formal halls for vibrant, unconventional spaces where music and audiences connect.
To mark our 10th birthday, founders Elizabeth Jigalin and Lamorna Nightingale are channeling our favourite ritual—the warm, chatty, post-show-dishes energy of a great dinner party—into a full-blown celebratory event: EAT THE SCORE.
We’ve crafted an event menu featuring highlights from ten years of adventurous live performance. We don’t want to spoil every surprise, but you can count on party bags, love letters, live on-the-spot musical commissions, outfits translated into sound, and salad making.
Fair warning: This celebration comes packed with live experimental sound, outrageous outfits, and gentle, highly entertaining attempts to extract money from your wallet for a good cause! Backstage Music is powered by community support, and donations are the secret ingredient that keep our music accessible to everyone in the room.
What your ticket gets you: Music, party snacks, and a bowl of our signature cauliflower soup (just remember to BYO salad vegetable!).
So dress up, grab a date, and celebrate the next decade of boundary-pushing sound!
What to Expect
A Ten-Year Menu: Highlights from a decade of BackStage Music, served as a dinner party.
Participatory Works: Make a salad, write a love letter, commission a piece on the spot, and hear outfits translated into sound.
Food Included: Party snacks and a bowl of signature cauliflower soup. Bring your own salad vegetables.
Dress Up: Outrageous outfits encouraged.
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A menu of highlights from ten years of BackStage Music.
#2 Proposition: Make a Salad (1962), Alison Knowles. Bring vegetables and tools to make salad
RGB Glass Rainbow Maker (2018), Amanda Cole. Wine glasses, lights and speakers
101 Things to Do with Cauliflower (2018), Angus Davison
after Morning Piece (1964–65), Yoko Ono, arranged by BackStage Music
Clothing Music (2021), Christine Johnston and Sonya Lifschitz. Clothing, big hair, bespoke scores, a clothesline, a saw and songs
De Profundis (1978), Sofia Gubaidulina. Accordion
the piano is my favourite animal (2026), Elizabeth Jigalin
Cake Piece (2014), Caitlin Rowley. Cake, plate, knife and screams
new work (2026), Aidan Eccleshall, Imogen Plunkett-Hamer and Henry Egan
Cheap Commissions (1980), Pauline Oliveros
Love Letters (2021), inspired by Damian Barbeler. Write a love letter or score to a past BackStage artist or show memory
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Damian Barbeler
Damian Barbeler is an award-winning composer, multimedia and interactive sound sculpture artist specialising in fully integrated holistic music-based multimedia works for stage or installation. Damian has been involved in many, many BackStage shenanigans as a curator, producer and general ‘ideas man’.
“Something will get on the stage”
Amanda Cole
Amanda Cole is a Sydney based composer working in the areas of art music, experimental music, electronic music and sound installation. Amanda first presented her work in Sound-Light Geometries in 2018 and has been seen in the audience at almost every show!
“Weird is wonderful”
James Crabb
Internationally praised for his breathtaking virtuosity and versatile musicianship, Scottish born James Crabb is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading classical accordionists. James blew us away with De Profundis at Hand Unmade in 2024.
Solomon Frank
Solomon Frank is an Australian performer and composer living and working on Cammeraygal land, whose inter-disciplinary practice straddles cross-species musical collaboration, vacuum cleaners and time travel. Solly has also been seen at just about all BackStage shows over the last 10 years. He was involved in the World Premiere performance of ‘101 Things to Do with Cauliflower’ in 2018 and also curated ‘Human’s Got Talent’ in 2024.
“BackStage helped me emerge, blossom and thrive”
Elizabeth Jigalin
Elizabeth Jigalin is a composer, performer and artist who lives on Gadigal land. Guided by curiosity, she collaborates and creates across art-forms. In 2016, she co-founded BackStage Music with Lamorna Nightingale and performed with The Music Box Project at the very first performance, in 2017 opening for Ashley Bathgate and in 2022 as part of Clarity Engine.
Christine Johnston as Madame Lark
She has a musical-saw and a zeal for the many and varied voices of birds. Madame Lark offers her own vocal interpretations of the things around her with a particular interest in hair, drawings, shapes and pedestrian elements of society. Christine first performed Clothing Music at the BackStage Music ‘Now You Hear Her Festival’ at World Square in 2021.
“Joyful muck-arounds from the lounge-room transferred to the most interesting spaces”
Sonya Lifschitz
Sonya Lifschitz is an award-winning Ukrainian-Australian pianist, performance-maker, pedagogue, artistic researcher, and cultural leader at the forefront of classical and contemporary art music. Sonya first performed Clothing Music at the BackStage Music ‘Now You Hear Her Festival’ at World Square in 2021. In 2020 she was involved in developing a new work with Angus Davison as part of the OffStage lock-down project.
“I remember walking into my first gig at Woodburn Creative and thinking… this is beyond cool.”
Lamorna Nightingale
Lamorna Nightingale is a freelance flautist, concert presenter, educator and publisher who is passionate about the future of art music in Australia. Lamorna is the artistic director, treasurer and founder of BackStage Music.
“… I’ve always loved putting on a good dinner party”
Nardi Simpson
Nardi Simpson is a First Nations, Yuwaalaraay storyteller, composer and singer/songwriter based in Sydney. Nardi curated ‘Cool Becoming Warm’ and performed in ‘Stories of Water and Earth’, both in 2024.
Aidan Eccleshall
Aidan Eccleshall is an emerging composer and clarinettist based in Sydney’s inner west, with a passion for new music and experimental composition. Aidan was an intern for BackStage Music and curated Prompt + 1, our first youth-focused event. He also performed in Midnight Static.
“I’ve been working in hospitality to support my music, now the kitchen is the music”
Imogen Plunkett-Hamer
Imogen Plunkett-Hamer is an Eora-based songwriter, producer and guitarist, crafting experiments in rock, electronics and improvisation. Imogen was an intern for BackStage Music and curated Prompt + 1, our first youth-focused event. She also worked on production for Midnight Static.
“My favourite after dinner treat is the pot I cooked in”
Henry Egan
Henry Egan is focused on electronic performance, composition and classical trumpet. This is his BackStage Music debut.
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Public Transport: Take the 428 bus from the city along George St and get off at Denby St. Walk about 5 minutes along Addison Rd, turn left into Shepherd St, then left again at Jebez St. Stanmore Station is about a 20-minute walk.
Parking: Free street parking, usually easy to find at night. For an accessible parking spot, contact Michelle at michelle@livingroomtheatre.org.
Community Transport: Leichhardt Marrickville Community Transport Group offers door-to-door transport (lctg.net.au).
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Bathrooms: One gender-neutral bathroom is available. Please note the toilets are not accessible.
Assistance Animals: Welcome. Drinking water is available, and Victoria Park (corner of Enmore and Edgeware Rds) is nearby.
Accessible Parking: Contact Michelle at michelle@livingroomtheatre.org to arrange an accessible parking spot.
Access Needs: Please get in touch with us about any access requirements so we can help you plan your visit.
Image Description : Two musicians in silhouette play stringed instruments against a bright, pale yellow-green backdrop. Their bows cut diagonally across the frame, and round, out-of-focus shapes on thin stems float in the background around them.
Sound Out West: Support More BackStage Music Events in Western Sydney!
For our 10th birthday, help us keep live music community-funded and accessible. We're raising donations through an Australian Cultural Fund campaign to support our work developing fearless, adventurous and decentralised musical art in Western Sydney in 2027 and beyond.
