Brisbane’s Out of the Box Festival of Early Childhood is a much loved winter event, well known to readers of Lowdown Magazine and lovers of performance for audiences aged three to eight years of age. Taking place at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) earlier this year in June, it’s a big day out for families and school groups that excites minds and tires out legs; little and large.

Artistic director for this year’s festival Rose Myers’ delivered a festival program that had Brisbane’s QPAC awash with sound. Every performance utilised music in many different ways. I spent the week with my ear to Out of the Box: there was much to hear.

At the Cascade Court at QPAC the fountain is dry, but the Out of the Box World Stage pumped all day, flanked by plumes of sausage-flavoured smoke. High energy acts were thrust at the audience all day, Elicit Inc’s hip hop locked into their juddering, mashed up soundtrack with mischief and joy. But where were the quiet spaces?

“If you’re 0-3 come sing with me!” A modest sign invites all into an intimate space, walled by parents and carers, where the youngest audience members listen and move. They gently participate in songs about snakes that go up and down, physicalising the basics such as pitch and rhythm. Annie Petersen is unerringly courteous and encouraging of her charges and there is a focus and pleasure in the doing of music here that shuts out all else.

In Studio 2 is South Australian Wind…