Arts editor HELEN MUSA scans the Canberra arts scene and share the what’s what in the latest Arts in the City column.

Elvis tribute artist Ben Portsmouth embarked on his career in 2005 when he formed the Taking Care of Elvis band. Praised by fans for his close resemblance to Elvis Presley, he will be at Canberra Southern Cross Club on July 17.

The Girl Who Glows, by Zeeko and Jo Turner, is a musical adventure for the school holidays made in Canberra about a girl who glows. Zeeko – musicians Jess Green, David Hewitt and Jess Ciampa – combined with theatre maker Jo Turner to create a work Inspired by Julia Baird’s book Phosphorescence. Expect original songs, puppets, rapping platypuses, operatic tortoise frogs and mystical curlews on an epic trans-Australian journey. The Street Theatre, July 18-21.

Canberra secondary school students have shone in Musica Viva Australia’s National Strike a Chord competition. The Australian Music Prize of $1000 went to BAM, a violin, viola and cello ensemble from Narrabundah College and Canberra Grammar. The Junior Prize of $200 went to the Kingsland Cello Trio, students from Charles Weston Primary, Canberra Grammar and Canberra Girls Grammar. The novice winner of $400 was the ANU Junior Guitar Ensemble, classical guitar students from Telopea Park High School and Canberra High School. And, making it through to the Grand Final in August, is Syncopact, a marimba and percussion group from Canberra Girls Grammar, Mount Stromlo and Lyneham High School.

The National Gallery has announced a shortlist of five finalists for the $60 million Sculpture Garden Design Competition, which called for designs to revitalise the three-hectare garden. The winning design will be announced in October. 

Canberra photographers Hilary Wardhaugh and Ian Skinner are among the 35 selected finalists in the Australian Photographic Society and Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre’s 2024 Mullins Conceptual Photographic Prize. 

Canberra-raised filmmaker James Hunter’s short black-and-white bush psychodrama Nest was named one of the 25 “coolest” festival films in the world by MovieMaker Magazine and has been shown at international film festivals from Vancouver to Barcelona. Now, Hunter tells us, it is viewable online at youtube.com