REVOLUTION, foment and cataclysmic changes were very much in mind when Canberra International Music Festival director Roland Peelman put together his 2017 program, which he has partly unveiled.

Over 11 days, he predicts, “great milestones in our history” will provide the context for more than 25 musical experiences, many of them in Canberra’s most famous buildings.

The National Museum of Australia, for instance, will be the setting for “Harvest of Endurance”, 18 compositions especially composed for the huge scroll of the same name, with narration by William Yang.

The rabble-rousing musicians on show include Mozart and Shostakovich, but also Bach, Handel, indigenous artists and composers such as Robert Davidson, Elena Kats-Chernin and Andrew Ford.

Children’s music will be to the forefront in 2017, with didgeridoo-player William Barton joining festival artists for an exploration of Aboriginal children’s songs and stories, alongside Ford’s settings of traditional English nursery rhymes.

Mr Tim and Ensemble Offspring will present “Blinky Bill: a Koala Revolution”. Billed as “a family concert for possums and their koalas, ages 3-8”, it’s at the National Library.

Peelman is saving much of his ammunition until later – after all the festival doesn’t run until April-May – but he hints at the appearance of Israeli clarinettist Orit Orbach, the Paris-based Van Kuijk Quartet and the Canadian Brass quintet, described by him as “consummate showmen and musicians of jaw dropping ability”.

Canberra International Music Festival, April 27-May 7, bookings to cimf.org.au