Artistic Director
Eugene Ughetti
"Off on another challenging acoustic adventure, Melbourne percussionist Eugene Ughetti is currently showing why he is one of this country's most talented artists in the field of advanced contemporary music."
The Age (30 Jan, 2008)
"Eugene Ughetti seems to live, breathe and, well, speak percussion."
The Age (1 June, 2005)
"...a blend of precision playing and showmanship, especially on Ughetti's part; he is a musician who relishes challenge and the opportunity to brandish his virtuosity."
The Age (21 Aug, 2001)
Eugene Ughetti is a Melbourne based percussionist, composer and artistic director of Speak Percussion. He has studied with significant artists from most continents and completed a degree with Honors in Classical Percussion at the Victorian College of the Arts. His professional experience is diverse but his particular focus is new music and hybrid-arts collaboration.
Eugene has performed throughout Europe, Asia, Canada, North America and Australia with a wide variety of artists and in many contexts. He has appeared as a soloist with both the Melbourne Symphony and Victorian College of the Arts Orchestras. In 1998 he was an ABC Young Composer and ABC Young Artist.
Eugene has instigated numerous International arts projects involving Australian chamber music, cross-arts collaboration, commissioning International artists and taking other Australian artists overseas. Eugene has undertaken professional collaborations with choreographers, animators, dancers, installation artists, actors, instrument builders, artistic director’s and has commissioned over forty new solo and ensemble works. This experience includes solo and group work in various premiere Arts Festivals, educational residencies and independent projects.
Eugene performs as a guest with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa (Japan), the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (Malaysia), the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra (Switzerland) and the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra (Japan). He has worked under conductors Lorin Maazel, Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Peter Eötvös, James Levine, Stephan Asbury, Valery Gergiev, Neemi Järvi, Franck Ollu, Markus Stenz, Denis Cohen, Reinbert de Leeuw, Martyn Brabbins, Yuri Temirkanov and Jean Deroyer.
Eugene has collaborated extensively with the Australian arts organisation Aphids. Such work has included premiering many new works by composer and artistic director David Young and giving exclusive performances on miniature percussion instruments made by Rosemary Joy.
Eugene is co-director, with glass artist Elaine Miles, of The Glass Percussion Project. This project was launched in Melbourne in 2006, it received it's international debut in New York in early 2007 and was recently the focus of a full episode of an ABC "Artists at Work" documentary screened on national television twice in 2008.
His engagements with Australian new music ensembles and organisations include ELISION, Libra, the David Chesworth Ensemble, Astra, Synergy Percussion and Chamber Made Opera. He is a founding member of International groups Ensemble Laboratorium, Grenzenlos, the Swiss-Australian Collectables and Ensemble XII (formerly the Lucerne Festival Percussion Group). Eugene participated in the 2004-2008 Lucerne Festival's working under Pierre Boulez and Ensemble Intercontemporain in the Lucerne Festival Academy.
Eugene has lectured and hosted masterclasses in Japan, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, U.S.A, Denmark, Norway, Spain, Portugal and in various capital cities in Australia. He is currently a sessional staff member at the Victorian College of the Arts (University of Melbourne), conducts the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School Percussion Ensemble and is an academic lecturer at Monash University.
http://www.speakpercussion.com
Percussionists
Claire Edwardes
Born in Sydney in 1975, percussionist Claire Edwardes is well known for her combination in performance of a strong, personal interpretation and exciting presentation. Her performances have been described as "engaging to watch", "electric", "riveting", having "infectious brio" and "freshness", "strength and energy" along with "pinpoint accuracy" and "sensitivity" by press throughout the world.
She studied percussion at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where her teachers were Daryl Pratt and Richard Miller and graduated in 1998 with first class honours. She went on to undertake postgraduate studies with Richard Janson and Peter Prommel at the Rotterdam and Amsterdam Conservatories where she graduated in 2003 as a Master of Music with distinction. Claire had great success in many competitions throughout the world and was named Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year in 1999 and awarded first prize in the 2000 Tromp Percussion Competition (The Netherlands), 2000 Vriendenkrans Competition (Concertgebouw, Amsterdam) and the 2001 Llangollen International Instrumentalist Competition (Wales). In June 2005 Claire was awarded the prestigious Freedman Fellowship for Classical Music which will enable her to further develop her international career.
Claire Edwardes is a founding member of Ensemble Offspring (Australia), an active member of new music ensemble, Insomnio (The Netherlands) and has initiated several new ensembles in Europe including her percussion duo with Niels Meliefste, Duo Vertigo. In April 2005 they were awarded third prize in the "Gaudeamus International Interpreters Competition". She has been invited to perform as soloist and chamber musician at festivals such as the Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music, International Gaudeamus Music Week, The Adelaide Festival of the Arts and The Birtwistle Festival (Queen Elizabeth Hall) and Cutting Edge Series’, London and as a soloist she recently performed under Peter Eötvös in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam with the Radio Chamber Orchestra and Ettiene Siebens with the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. Other orchestras she has performed as soloist with include the Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, the Brabants Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the London Sinfonietta and the Australian Youth Camerata Orchestra.
She performs throughout the world regularly with such groups as Ensemble Modern (Germany), Champ d’Action(Belgium), Asko/Shönberg Ensemble (The Netherlands), Percussion Group The Hague (The Netherlands) and Synergy Percussion (Australia). Claire has a keen interest in programming and was recently invited as guest programmer and soloist with Ensemble Offspring, Musica Viva’s Menage Series and Synergy PercussionEnsemble.
She has close working relationships with many composers including Harrison Birtwistle, James Wood and Ross Edwards. Future commissions include works by Sam Hayden, Laurence Crane, Dominik Karski, Elena Kats-Chernin, and Michael Smetanin.
Claire recently recorded "The Axe Manual" with Nicolas Hodges on the Metronome Label, which received rave reviews including 5 stars in the BBC Music Magazine. She has just returned from The Banff Centre where she recorded a CD of works written exclusively for her with her percussion duo, Duo Vertigo. The CD will be released IN 2006 on the Karnatic Lab label.
Percussionists
Daniel Richardson
Daniel Richardson began percussion lessons in high school with Stephen Hardie, and went on to complete a bachelor degree at the Victorian College of the Arts, where he studied with Guy du Blêt and Peter Neville. As a co-winner of the VCA concerto competition, Daniel was soloist for the premiere of Taran Carter’s Soluble Vibrations for vibraphone and orchestra. In 2004 he toured Europe as principle percussionist with the Australian Youth Orchestra. Influenced by a diverse range of music, Daniel studied rock and jazz drumkit with Gerry Pantazis in 2005, and now works as a freelance musician with orchestras, chamber ensembles and bands in Melbourne and interstate.
http://www.speakpercussion.com
exceptmeandmymonkey@hotmail.com
Percussionists
Greg Sully
Greg Sully graduated from the VCA in 1987, studying percussion with Barry Quinn and Rob Clarke. As a professional musician he has worked on, and toured extensively with, many Australian theatre productions including "Hamlet" and "Measure for Measure" (Playbox 1985), "Sweeney Todd" (MTC, 1987), Jimmy Chi’s "Corrugation Road" (Black Swan, 1996 & '98 National Tours), "Trouble in Tahiti" and "Love Burns" (Company B Belvoir St, 1998), and "Small Poppies", also with Company B, (2000,2001 National Tours and an appearance at the Dublin Theatre Festival). He has performed on a regular basis with numerous Australian orchestras, most recently appearing with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria. Greg has also performed in several Australian musical productions including "Les Miserables" (1996 South-East Asian Tour), "Show Boat" (Melbourne, 1999), "Oliver!" (Melbourne 2002), "The Lion Witch and The Wardrobe" (Perth, Adelaide, Canberra 2003) and "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" (MTC, 2006). He has also performed contemporary music with numerous Australian ensembles including Aerial New Music, ELISION, Sydney Alpha Ensemble, Australia Ensemble, and Speak Percussion. Greg was recently appointed Head of Percussion at Mowbray College.
Percussionists
Guy du Blet
Guy du Blêt began his musical studies on piano aged seven and then drums and percussion aged eleven. Born in Melbourne and growing up in Brisbane he studied with Markus Lutz and Alan Cumberland at the University of Queensland and Queensland Conservatorium before moving to Tasmania to study with Gary Wain and complete his Bachelor degree with Performance Honours in 1995.
He then moved on to Sydney to undertake graduate studies at the Sydney Conservatorium with Daryl Pratt and Rick Miller, which was followed by his appointment to Orchestra Victoria (then the State Orchestra of Victoria) as Associate Principal Timpani. He has been Acting Principal Timpani since the start of 2006.
He has appeared as soloist with Orchestra Victoria on numerous occasions, performing the Tim Davies marimba concertino written for him 'The Art of Turning Ice to Water' along with the Anders Koppel work 'Toccata for Marimba and Vibraphone' and most recently the Ney Rosauro 'Marimba Concerto'. He was instrumental in the design and formation of Orchestra Victoria's education programme mOVe (Mentors of Orchestra Victoria) and has been a visiting artist at the Victorian College of the Arts, along with the University of Melbourne for many years as a percussion teacher and performer. Last year he gave the Australian Premiere of Jerome Kitzke’s anti-war work, 'The Earth only Endures' for percussion/vocal soloist.
He is a member of Australia's leading early music ensemble, Ludovico’s Band and was percussionist with Elision from 1998 to 2004 for their productions of Liza Lim's opera 'Yue Ling Jie' (Moon Spirit Feasting) which showed in Melbourne and toured to Berlin and Zurich along with their chamber music programmes in Brisbane and Melbourne. He was the timpani tutor at National Music Camp in 2006 and has been asked to formulate a percussion programme for the Australian National Academy of Music in 2007. Guy has given many appearances for ABC Classic FM along with recitals at the Australian National Academy of Music. Guy has been a guest of Australia’s finest orchestra including the Sydney Symphony and also overseas with the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa. His teaching is a great passion and his students have been contributors to the Australian Youth Orchestra along with Orchestra Victoria and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Photo by: Gil Meydan
Percussionists
John Arcaro
John Arcaro has been a member of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra since 1990. He has also been a guest timpanist/percussionist with Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa Japan, Sydney Symphony, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and the Malaysian Philharmonic. He is the timpanist with the Academy of Melbourne Chamber Players, Australia Pro Arte, and has worked as a chamber musician and soloist with ensembles such as the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Synergy Percussion, Astra, Speak Percussion,The Pokrovsky EnsembleRussia and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Performance highlights have included a critically acclaimed performance of Stockhausen’s Kontakte/ with pianist Michael Kieran Harvey in 1996. John has recorded numerous film scores and performed with a wide range of popular artists, including Frank Sinatra, Olivia Newton-John, KISS and Meat Loaf. John studied in New York and Philadelphia with leading orchestral percussionists and graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) with high distinction. He is currently a member of staff at the University of Melbourne and the VCA.
Photo by: Yatkez
Percussionists
Matthias Schack-Arnott
Matthias Schack-Arnott is a young percussionist who is quickly establishing himself at the forefront of Melbourne’s contemporary music scene. A multi-faceted performer, composer and improviser, Matthias works with artists across many fields, including instrument building, sculpture and sound design.
Matthias has had a strong relationship to Speak Percussion. In 2007 Speak invited Matthias to be the first Young Artist in Residence. Since then, Matthias has become a core player of the group, and has been involved premiere performances of works by Anthony Pateras, David Young, James Rushford and Fritz Hauser. Matthias has appeared as a soloist with the group on several occasions, most notably in 2009 when he presented the Australian premiere of a Brice Pauset percussion solo to a full house at the Melbourne Recital Centre.
Matthias toured Australia with the Australian Youth Orchestra in 2007. He is now a casual member of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, with whom he has performed under Matthias Pintscher, Oleg Caetani and Daniel Harding, among others.
Aphids have embraced Matthias as a key performer in many projects across Australia, performing on miniature percussion instruments designed by Rosemary Joy. In March 2009, Matthias toured Japan with Aphids, presenting a premiere season of new works by David Young. In June/July Matthias will be touring to Sydney and Cairns with this project.
Matthias is also the co-founder and co-director of the award winning new music ensemble, Quiver, described as a ‘talent-rich new body’ by Clive O’Connell (The Age). Known for their refined interpretations of cutting-edge music, Quiver have presented several innovative shows since their debut in mid-2009, and commissioned works by Chris Dench, Warren Burt and Luke Paulding.
Matthias performed a sell-out solo show as part of the Glass Percussion Project at Conical Gallery, an event which explored the sonic potential of glass through live performance in an electro-acoustic context.
Matthias was also a key performer in the four week season of the Glass Percussion Project at Federation Square, Melbourne, in early 2008. This acclaimed season of performances became the focus of an episode of the ABC Television series ‘Artists at Work’, which was broadcast nationally.
In the opening week of the Melbourne Recital Centre, Matthias gave 22 performances with the Glass Percussion Project, to audiences of in total over 10,000 people.
Matthias has been the recipient of scholarships and awards, including the RG Mensa Award for excellence in performance and an ongoing scholarship from Western Chances.
Percussionists
Peter Neville
Peter Neville has been a core member of Speak Percussion since 2003. He graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts and was appointed Head Of Percussion there in 2000. Whilst he works across the range of musical styles he has a particular committment to new music.
As the percussionist of the ELISION Ensemble for twenty years, Peter has been involved with practically all their concerts, compact discs, and international tours. Works including Chris DENCH's DRIFTGLASS, for percussion and ensemble and Richard Barrett's; ABGLANZBELADEN- AUSEINANDERGESCHRIEBEN, have been written for and premiered by him.
Peter is also a member of groups including Jouissance, the David Chesworth Ensemble,The Raga Dolle Salon Orchestra and The Coalition Of The Willing and he has recorded and/or toured internationally with each of them.
His orchestral work has included tours to Europe with the Australian Youth Orchestra and Japan with the Melbourne Symphony.With that orchestra he was also part of the Australian premiere of Messiaen's TURANGALILA Symphony, in the presence of the composer, and he took part in their Australian tour with Elton John.
He has performed in numerous musicals, including West Side Story, Cats and Company and in three Australian tours of the Broadway version of The Pirates of Penzance. He toured Australia as musical director of Tap Dogs. Other theatrical tours have included the Australia/China tour of Playbox Theatre's Cho-Cho-San, and Richard the Third with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Within dance orchestras has has supported performances of the Bolshoi Ballet, the Russian State Ballet, the Nureyev Farewell Tour and the Netherlands Dance Theatre. With HumanVeins Dance Theatre he took part in the Australian premieres of Iannis Xenakis' Oresteia, and was guest drummer with the Balanescu Quartet in their three Australian seasons of Possessed with the Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre.
Peter Neville appears on CD recordings ranging from pop albums by Peter Andre and Deborah Conway to the experimental industrial album "New Maps of Hell" by sound artist Paul Schutze.
Photograph by: Georgia Metaxis.
http://www.speakpercussion.com
Percussionists
Timothy Phillips
Collaborators
Boa Baumann
Boa Baumann deals with contemporary architecture, partly in dialogue with historic building stock, partly with new buildings. Often influenced by unconventional attempts at a solution, his interest ranges from interior conversion via residential buildings to industrial buildings.
His work is characterized by subtle dealings with the environment, the materials used as well as an intensive analysis of the planned use and the future occupants. Spatial sequences, textures, colours, and natural light are further determining elements while setting up his projects.
Building projects are carefully being analyzed, and all reference points and linkings worked out with the aim of finding a simple, practical, and joyful solution for complex problems. The range of materials is always being deduced from the project, follows the concept and the local circumstances.
He is fascinated by the border area between architecture and various fields of art like video, painting, theatre, and music. There, the breeding ground for his projects can be found, which not only can be practical and economic, but also beautiful, poetic, and full of humour.
Collaborators
Daniel Buess
Daniel Buess is a percussionist born in Basel, Switzerland. From 1994-2000 he studied at the "Musikhochschule Basel" with Siegfried Schmid and in Karlsruhe, Germany, with Isao Nakamura. Daniel has been intensively engaged in the contemporary music over the last ten years, in especially experimental composed, improvised music and electronic music throughout Europe. He works as a soloist and performing musician in groups and ensembles for new music including Ensemble Phoenix, Basel, HOW2 percussion, Katarakt. He has direct and intensive contact with a diverse group of composers and musicians of our time.
Collaborators
David Jones
David is often described both here and abroad as being one of the most innovative and musical drummers in the world, a true virtuoso musician. His mesmerising drum solos are dramatic, humourous, surprising and powerful.
In the hands (and feet) of David Jones, the drum kit comes alive as a mini-orchestra, vaudeville act, rhythmic explosion and hypnotic trance-inducer, all in one. Using sticks, brushes, mallets, fingers, elbows, violin bow, dishmops, toys, brooms and any percussion he can lay his hands on, David creates a universe of sounds, textures and rhythms that take you through different cultures, ages, moods and styles.
A true virtuoso musician, David has toured nationally and internationally and has performed and recorded in the genres of rock and pop, jazz, classical, cabaret, theatre, television and improvised works.
He has played with many great artists & bands, such as
James Morrison, John Farnham, Stevie Wonder, John Denver, Marcia Hines, Tommy Emmanuel, Dragon, Don Burrows, Debra Byrne, Rhonda Birchmore, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Larry Adler, Pyramid, Don McLean, Don Burrows, Crossfire, AtmaSphere, MSO, SSO, WDR Big Band (Köln) ...
He collaborates with author/singer Carmen Warrington on their gentle meditational Calm & Creative concerts and also The Sounds of Peace Meditation through Music events.
David was head of the Drum Department at the Sydney Conservatorium for 9 years.
David has released 2 highly acclaimed drum videos and regularly conducts drum workshop / concerts worldwide.
David's music will move you, astound you, energise you, make you laugh, take you into your own world of feelings, and make you think and feel quite differently about drums and percussion.
David endorses:
Premier Drums
Sabian Cymbals
Vic Firth Sticks (DJ Signature model)
Evans Heads
DW Pedals
He is phenomenal, nobody else can do what David does with the drums - it’s amazing.
James Morrison, international artist
David Jones is, in my opinion, one of the greatest, most natural, musicians on the planet. His musicianship is mesmerising and captivating - I’ve always felt he was in a class of his own.
Tommy Emmanuel, international artist
http://www.davidjonesdrums.com.au
Collaborators
Elaine Miles
Dr Elaine Miles is an established practicing artist working in Glass Installation and Interdisciplinary collaborations. Miles holds degrees in Ceramic Design, Applied Arts (Hons), Fine Arts (Masters) and PhD in Fine Arts. Her professional exhibitions, performance art and residency successes are extensive both within Australia and overseas including over 80 exhibitions at numerous high quality venues including various artist run spaces, wPS1 art radio (an affiliate of PS1 gallery/MOMA New York), Roulette Experimental Sound Space (New York), Melbourne Recital Centre, Federation Square, Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery (The National Glass Centre) and various state run Craft Councils. Elaine Miles is the winner of the 2008 Civic Choice Award in the prestigious $60,000 Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture Awards.
Her installations have been selected for the finals of The Cheongju 2nd International Biennial Craft Competition, Korea and also at The International Glass Art Society Conference and The Flameworkers Glass Conference USA. Her sculptural installations have been included in several National Sculpture Competitions including Yering Station Outdoor Sculpture Award, Stanthorpe Regional Gallery Sculpture Awards, The Hutchins Art Prize 2000 Works on Paper (Tasmania), RFC Glass Prize Australian Touring Exhibition, and The Toowoomba Biennial Acquisitive Award & Exhibition (NSW). Elaine has also taken up sculpture/glass residencies in Germany and USA for up to three months at a time.
Elaine Miles is also currently a part time curator at Frankston Arts Centre in visual and new media art. Her background also includes being a project Initiator and co-ordinator on behalf of Contemporary Sculptors Association (CSA) & Country Womens’ Association (CWA) partnership that received support from Arts Victoria, Myer Foundation and City of Yarra for an 18 month program. Elaine has also lived and worked as a volunteer arts tutor at Hermannsburg Aboriginal Community, NT for 6 months, and has also taught workshops and lived in USA alongside communities from the studio glass movement. Elaine’s artwork often reflects her interaction and interest in the history of craft particularly in response to the local and traditional cultures she has worked with. Dr Miles’ speciality is to adopt various crafts practices and to re-contextualize the meaning of quotidian objects within her own artwork.
Miles most recent successes has been enhanced in collaboration with percussionist and composer Eugene Ughetti where they have created a series of art installation/performances under the title of The Glass Percussion Project. The most recent major commission that was presented under the title of ‘intermezzo’ at Federation Square; this was a $100,000 commission/sponsored event. They recently presented 22 performances at The Melbourne Recital Centre inaugural opening week. Other recent exhibitions/performances were at Australian Performing Arts Market in Adelaide, Shepparton Art Gallery and Adelaide Festival Centre. The Glass Percussion Project will tour Asia including The National Museum of Singapore in 2009.
Miles’ artwork is included in the National Art Glass Collection at Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery. NSW and in the Stonnington Museum of Art collection, Deakin University. Miles artwork is currently represented by Wagga Wagga Art Gallery, NSW, Tarrawarra Museum of Modern Art, Victoria, Stonnington Stables Museum of Art, Deakin University, Gigantic Art Space, New York, Yarra Sculpture Gallery, Victoria, and The Faculty of Art & Design Gallery, Monash University, amongst others. Her work has been critically acclaimed and featured in several newspapers including major features in The New York Sun (USA), Atlantic Press (USA), Glass Design (USA), The Age - Robert Nelson, The Age - My Space, The Age -News Features, The Age - Music and The Age Domain sections, The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW), The Herald Sun – news features and home section and The Melbourne Weekly Times. She has had significant features in most major Australian Home Magazines including Belle, Vogue Living and Harpers BAZAAR. As a principal artist as part of The Glass Percussion Project collaboration her work has been the feature of Sunday Arts and an ABC TV documentary for a commission at ‘Intermezzo’ at Federation Square. Miles work and interviews has been featured ABC National, 3rrr, 3mbs and joy fm in relation to her installations and various performance/hybrid art events.
Elaine Miles has received extensive funding support over the years including various major grants and scholarships. Success includes Skills & Arts Development Australia Council, Inter-Arts Australia Council, Ian Potter Foundation Travel Grant, International Touring Arts Victoria, Presentation Arts Victoria, Creation Arts Victoria, Melbourne City Council development, Australian Postgraduate Award Scholarship, Postgraduate Travel Grant Award, Postgraduate Conference Organizers Grant Monash University. She has also received numerous residencies in America, Germany and Australia.
http://www.glasspercussionproject.com
Collaborators
Fritz Hauser
Fritz Hauser was born in 1953 in Basel, Switzerland.
Fritz Hauser develops soloprograms for drums and percussion which he performs worldwide.
Cross-media works with dancer/choreographer Anna Huber, with architect Boa Baumann as well as with director Barbara Frey.
Compositions for percussion ensembles and soloists, sound installations (a.o. Therme Vals), radio plays, music for films and readings.
In the field of improvised music he has worked together with numerous musicians: Urs Leimgruber, Joëlle Léandre, Marilyn Crispell, Christy Doran, Pauline Oliveros, Lauren Newton, Patrick Demenga a.o.
Since the Stockholm International Percussion Event 1998 he has been collaborating with different percussion groups and soloists around the world: Kroumata, Synergy Percussion, Nexus, Speak Percussion, Keiko Abe, Steven Schick, Bob Becker, Michael Askill a.o.
Numerous CDs as soloist and with various groups.
Collaborators
Matt Gardiner
Matt Gardiner is passionate about origami, code, and interactive new media. His recent works are a hybrid of origami and technology.
In 2005, Gardiner built a full scale Origami House from 1 square km of paper, directed Folding Australia: Australia's first international Origami Convention, toured Oribotics in Belgium and Holland, completed an Australia Council residency in Tokyo where he developed a new generation of light interactive robots for Oribotics [laboratory].
Gardiner collaborates with composers, musicians, technicians, and the industrial sector during the creative process. Exhibitions of his work have been shown in Australia, Holland, Belgium, and Thailand.
Collaborators
My Trinh Gardiner
My Trinh Gardiner lived and worked as a designer in Germany before she came to Australia, Melbourne in 2003. She studied at the FH Design Münster, Dept. of Graphic Design and the FH Design Düsseldorf, Visual communication Dept. of Graphic and Multimedia Design. In 2002 she participated in an exchange with Swinburne National School of Design, Dept. of Multimedia Design.
Being well educated My Trinh Gardiner is a versatile professional multimedia and print designer and lecturer. She is currently designing for Airstrip, a young dynamic multimedia company, and as well teaching at Swinburne University, National School of Design.
My Trinh's strengths are designing clean, functional and beautiful computer and print interfaces, revealing and considering the influence of her German design education. Her inspiration and motivation comes from her interest in design research and technology. For Airstrip she produces fresh and new ideas with every project. She loves being involved in artistic projects as a designer and enjoys designing web pages for artistic and driven people.
Collaborators
Myles Mumford
Myles Mumford (1978 - ) is an innovative sound artist based in Melbourne, Australia.
Myles began his musical studies at a young age under the tutelage of his Father and continued to study music throughout his school years. Myles studied an undergraduate degree at the University of Tasmania graduating in 1999 with a Bachelor of Performing Arts (music) with a double major in performance and composition. During his undergraduate study Myles began composing for TasDance and developed a love of creating theatrical performances. Myles also developed an interest in the enveloping world of sound and quickly began to incorporate elements of sound art in his compositions. Myles continued exploring the communicative power of sound with a grant awarded by ArtsTasmania to compose a large scale work for improvising jazz ensemble and electronics in 2000. Myles moved to Melbourne to continue further study in sound art, and studied Sound Design at the VCA with Roger Alsop.
Since moving to Melbourne in 2002 Myles has composed, designed and performed in over 80 theatre performances including contemporary dance, dramatic works, installations and multimedia works. Myles has also created sound designs for over 50 films with screenings at every major film festival in Australia and many overseas. He has also developed a reputation as a record producer and engineer, producing albums for many of Melbourne’s fine musicians.
Myles' main compositional interest is in the use of sound as a communicative medium to create immersing sound worlds. Not limiting the definition of sound Myles includes synthetic sounds, natural recordings, live processing, acoustic instruments and any other "heard" sound including silence to create these sound worlds.
"..a deft touch and a very subtle but complex way of putting together the sounds."
(Andrew Hollo, Hybrid 2004)
http://www.myspace.com/mylesmumford
Collaborators
Richard Haynes
Richard Haynes works regularly as a soloist and ensemble member in collaboration with internationally recognised ensembles / podia. He is well-known as a freelance artist in the areas of performance, improvisation and composition through projects and presentations in the USA, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand / Aotearoa. Richard was born in Brisbane, studied at the Queensland Conservatorium, Australia and at the Hochschule der Künste Bern, Switzerland. He is a doctor of philosophy candidate at SIAL (Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory), a part of the school of Architecture+Design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He is the winner of major prizes in performance such as the 2003 Symphony Australia Young Performer of the Year, the award for Best Performance of Australian Composition from the Australian Performing Rights Association (APRA) and the Australian Music Centre (AMC), a Lord Mayor of Brisbane Performing Arts Fellowship, the 2006 Musikpreis of the Berner Oddfellows (Switzerland) and the prize for most outstanding Solistendiplom at the aforementioned HKB, the Tschumi Musikpreis. Performing highlights have included collaborations with ensembles and artists including Klangforum Wien (Austria / Italy), 175 East (New Zealand / Aotearoa), Ensemble Modern (Germany / Portugal), musikFabrik (Germany / Switzerland), Mark Knoop (Spain / UK), Stroma (New Zealand / Aoeatroa), Eugene Ughetti (Switzerland / Australia) and Australia’s ELISION Ensemble (Australia / Norway / UK / Poland / Germany) pertaining to projects within independent frameworks or festivals / performance forums including La Biennale di Venezia, Brisbane Festival, Salzburger Festspiele, MaerzMusik, OperFrankfurt, Casa Musica Porto, Gulbenkian Foundation Lisboa, Asia-Pacific Composers’ League Festival, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, MusicaViva Australia, Festival Musica Strasbourg, MusikFest Berlin, Sydney Festival, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and the Warsaw Autumn. Solo multimedia projects auditivreisen 1 : asphyxie, Listen my secret fetish and ZYKLUS :: BARRETT have occurred in Switzerland and Australia with future engagements in Denmark, China and the UK; improvisational activity has taken place in collaboration with John Butcher, Richard Barrett, James Gardner, Johnny Chang, Leah Barclay and Marika Sosnowski. [RH - 11.2008]
http://web.me.com/richardehaynes
Collaborators
Richard Vabre
Richard has been making lighting designs for theatre for over 15 years. In that time he has worked in a variety of venues, including many non-traditional theatre spaces such as the Supreme Court, The Old Melbourne Gaol, the rooftop of the South Melbourne Market and the banks of Merri Creek.
He has twice been awarded a Fringe Festival Award for excellence in Lighting Design, for ANACHRONISTICITY (1998) and for HENRIETTA?S LAST SAFARI (2000). He was nominated for a 2003 Green Room Award for Excellence in Design for his body of work and won the Green Room Award Association?s John Truscott prize for Excellence in Design. In 2004 he was nominated for a Green Room Award for his design of THE EISTEDFODD (Stuck Pigs Squealing). Richard was awarded the 2005 Green Room Award for his lighting designs for SMASHED, THE BLACK SWAN OF TRESPASS and TEST PATTERN. In 2006, Richard was nominated for his Lighting Design for VIEW OF CONCRETE.
In 2001 he toured to London, England with Theatre Tarquin?s THIS IS A TRUE STORY and in 2002 he spent 3 months in Erlangen, Germany with Little Monster?s EINZ ZU EINER ZEIT?AND IF THEY?RE NOT DEAD YET, THEY LIVE THERE STILL for the Arena Festival. In 2005 he participated in the New York Fringe Festival with Stuck Pigs Squealing?s THE EISTEDFODD.
Recent credits include THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF A SOUL LOST AT SEA (Here Productions), THE EISTEDDFOD (Stuck Pigs Squealing), DIATRIBE (Melbourne Worker?s Theatre), SIDESHOW (Rawcus Theatre Ensemble), THE BLACK SWAN OF TRESPASS (Stuck Pigs Squealing, as part of the Malthouse 2005 Winter season, directed by Chris Kohn), THE DIABOLICAL ONES (directed by Clare Watson at the Old Melbourne Gaol), TEST PATTERN (Platform Youth Theatre directed by Nadjia Kostich).
2006 productions include LALLY KATZ AND THE TERRIBLE MYSTERIES OF THE VOLCANO (Stuck Pig?s Squealing), A VIEW OF CONCRETE (Malthouse Theatre), LA DOULEUR (Malthouse Theatre), APPLES AND LADDERS and A QUARRELLING PAIR (Aphids, as a part of the Malthouse Tower program), and SCHALLMACHINE 06 (Aphids) and MANTALK (Keep Breathing) for the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts
In 2006 he has been a mentor to lighting designers from Platform Youth Theatre, Union House Theatre, and YGLAM.
Collaborators
Rosemary Joy
Artist / Instrument maker and general manager of Aphids.
Rosemary has worked with Aphids since 1997. Rosemary’s interest in the meeting point between sculpture and music has resulted in a number of collaborations with musicians, artists and
composers. In early 2006, she created a miniature percussion instrument for percussionist Fritz Hauser to perform for a Swiss Radio production of Samuel Beckett’s play WORSTWARD HO. In 2005, she made instruments for Matt Gardiner’s ORIBOTICS project, performed by Eugene Ughetti and music by David Young. Rosemary worked as an artist/instrument builder on Aphids’ SCALE collaboration with David Young, writer Cynthia Troup and musicians Fedor
Teunisse (percussion) and Yutaka Oya (piano) at Bains::Connective in Brussels. Rosemary was an artist and co-curator of Aphids event Instrument Building at Linden St Kilda Contemporary Art Centre in December 2003. For this project she created Field Kits, miniature percussive instruments for Graeme Leak, Vanessa Tomlinson, Peter Humble and David Hewitt. In 2000, Rosemary undertook an Aphids residency funded by the Myer Foundation and began collaborating with percussionist Vanessa Tomlinson to create sculptural instruments. This collaboration resulted in DECOR NUGGETS, a work in miniature, performed by Vanessa at Perth's Club Zho in Perth and VERONIQUE performed at the Sydney Opera House for the 2001 Sydney Spring Festival and at the 2002 Shanghai International Arts Festival. RICEFIELDS with David Young and artist Sarah Pirrie toured to France, Japan and Australia in 1999.
Composers
Alan Lee
Alan Lee is an emerging composer and performer from Melbourne, whose output encompasses chamber, orchestral, vocal, electro-acoustic and incidental music for theatre. He is a recipient of the 2003 National Miriam Hyde Composer-Pianist Award (18-25) and Banyule Young Artist’s Award, and acheived 1st-class Honours in his B.Mus under Brenton Broadstock in 2002. Through numerous development programs, most recently with Symphony Australia, he has worked with The Song Company, Australia Voices, Orchestra Victoria, Michael Kieran Harvey, and Melbourne Symphony. His work has also appeared in MUDfest at La Mama Theatre, the NextWave, and Melbourne Fringe Festivals, including as part of Red Stitch’s award-winning ‘Howie the Rookie’ (2002). Regularly commissioned, he was assisted by the Australia Council in 2003 to write "Aspirance" for the internationally acclaimed Duo Sol, who also recorded the work for the ABC. For the University of Melbourne, his chamber opera "Lapse" (2001) played for two seasons, with one at the Melbourne Museum. Recently, he has been invited to be composer-in-residence for the 2005 Border Music Camp (Albury), and to undertake piano-reductions of concertos by Carl Vine, Brett Dean and James McMillan. He is published by Big Dwarf Music.
Composers
Andrian Pertout
Andrián Pertout was born in Santiago, Chile, 17 October, 1963, and lived in Gorizia, Northern Italy for several years before finally settling in Melbourne, Australia in 1972. He is currently undertaking a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree at the University of Melbourne on Tweddle Trust and Melbourne Research scholarships, studying composition under the guidance of Brenton Broadstock. Composition awards include the Betty Amsden Award – 2005 3MBS FM National Composer Awards, First Prize in the 2004 ISU Contemporary Music Festival/Louisville Orchestra Composition Competition (Indiana, USA), Judges' and Audience Prize of the 2003 Oare String Orchestra Third International "Music for Strings" Composing Competition (Faversham, UK), 2002 Michelle Morrow Memorial Award for Composition, and the 2002 Zavod Jazz/Classical Fusion Award.
Andrián's music has received performances at festivals such as the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) World Music Days 2005 / 23rd Music Biennale Zagreb (Zagreb, Croatia), 33e Festival d'Automne à Paris (Paris, France), Indiana State University 38th Annual Contemporary Music Festival, (Terre Haute, USA), XIII Festival de Música Contemporánea Chilena (Santiago, Chile), and the 22nd Asian Composers League Conference & Festival (Seoul, Korea), which he attended with the assistance of Australia Council for the Arts and Ian Potter Foundation Cultural Trust grants. His music has also been performed and broadcast in Peru, China, Croatia, Hong Kong, France, USA, Belgium, Chile, Italy, Slovenia, Canada, Republic of Macedonia, UK, Netherlands, Austria, Korea and Australia by orchestras that include the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, The Louisville Orchestra (USA), The Foundation Orchestra (USA), La Chapelle Musicale de Tournai (Belgium), and the Oare String Orchestra (UK).
Composers
Anthony Pateras
Anthony Pateras focuses on expanding the organizational possibilities of sound through an exploratory approach to timbre, form and performance. Live, he appears regularly throughout Europe and Australasia in various guises: on prepared piano in the Pateras Baxter/Brown trio, on voice & electronics in duo with Robin Fox, in the mutant hip hop quartet Beta Erko or as a conductor of his own notated works. He has released numerous albums, recording full length releases for Tzadik, Editions Mego, Synaesthesia and Quecksilber, and additionally writes music for film.
As a composer, his notated music has been performed world wide by performers such as the Dutch Radio Kammerorkest, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Flux String Quartet, Slave Pianos and percussionist Vanessa Tomlinson. Recent distinctions include a recommendation at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in Paris (2004), an honorable mention at the EAR Radio Competition in Budapest (2003) and an honorable mention at the Gaudeamus Music Week (2004). His string octet Chromatophore will receive its US premiere in October 2006 from the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and he is currently working on new percussion sextet with electronics for the Slagwerkgroep Den Haag.
Recently, he has performed at the Next Music Festival, Bratislava (2005), Why Note Festival, Dijon (2005), Lieux Communs, Paris (2005), Noise & Glamour, Moscow (2005) Melbourne Festival (2005), Netmage05 Festival, Bologna (2005) What Is Music? Festival, Australia (2002 -2005), Liquid Architecture, Melbourne (2004), Festival de Musiques Innovatrices, St-Etienne (2004), Bomb the Space,Wellington (2004) and Alt.Music, Auckland (2004). He is a founding member of the electro-acoustic sextet Twitch, and has organized numerous concerts of exploratory music in Melbourne as curator of the Articulating Space series and festival.
Pateras has also written music for short films which have screened at festivals in the US and Canada (Telluride, Hawaii, Mill Valley, Montreal), South America (Rio, Sao Paulo), Russia (Message to Man), Australia (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Darwin) and Europe (Cannes, La Huesca, Dresden, Bilbao, Edinburgh, Berlin), winning the Klangmusik Preis for best score at the 2003 Dresden Film Festival.
Composers
Brendan Colbert
Brendan Colbert was born in Ballarat, Victoria, in 1956. After a period of piano studies and work with prog rock bands as keyboard player and songwriter, he began private composition studies in the mid 1980's, first with Brenton Broadstock and later with Riccardo Formosa.
His output (ranging from solo to concerto) currently comprises a substantial number of works, many of which have been widely performed – the last couple of years seeing performances in Australia, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, the UK, and the USA.
Performers of his works include the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Duo Contemporain, Elision, Libra, Speak Percussion, Topology, Ensemble Traiect, Altrove 1.3, the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, re-sound, Barrie Webb, Pedro Carneiro, Norio Sato, Stefano Cardi, Linda Wetherill, Michael Kieran Harvey, Marshall McGuire, Peter Neville, and Carl Rosman.
A number of works are available on CD with several others due out in coming months. Scores are available from the Australian Music Centre, or from the composer.
Works for Percussion
• Agité II: for vibraphone. [transcription of mandolin original] (1995: 5 mins. 10 secs.)
• Akkord III: for vibraphone. (1998: 2 mins.)
• Pro Tempore: for 5 octave marimba. (2004: 7 mins. 45 secs.)
• PNEUma: for 2 players: [vibes, marimba]. (2004: 5 mins)
• Cogs: for 4 players: [glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, marimba]
(2000: 3 mins. 15 secs.)
• DisTanz: for 4 players: [assorted instruments]. (2002: 9 mins. 20 secs.)
Congas / Temple Blocks / Trash Cymbals / Bamboo Chimes/Bongos / Metal Blocks / Metal Pipes / Metal Chimes/Wood Blocks / Glass Bottles / Saw Blades / Glass Chimes/Wood Pieces / Steel Bowls / Bell Plates / Shell Chimes.
• Melt: for 8 players: [2 glock/crotales, 2 xylophones, 2 vibes, 2 marimbas]. (2005: 10 mins. 30 secs.)
http://www.amcoz.com.au/composers/composer.asp?id=208
Composers
Chris Dench
C h r i s D e n c h was born in London in 1953; he is self-taught. After periods living in Tuscany and West Berlin, the latter as a guest of the DAAD Berliner Kunstlerprogramm, he finally arrived to settle in Australia –he became an Australian citizen in 1992 and currently lives in Newcastle, NSW.
He has had works commissioned by ensembles and individuals on three continents and is particularly recognized as a composer for solo woodwind instruments, having composed fourteen pieces for the genre at last count. He has enjoyed a close relationship with Australia’s ELISION ensemble for over fifteen years; he has also had fruitful collaborations with other musicians, including, in the last few years, Kathleen Gallagher, Mark Knoop, Geoffrey Morris, Peter Neville, Marilyn Nonken, Michael Norsworthy, Carl Rosman, and the Libra ensemble.
His works have enjoyed extensive performances, recordings, and broadcasts in Europe, Australia, North America, and Asia, including the Huddersfield Festival, the Darmstadt Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik, Music of Changes in Los Angeles, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at Maryland, the Hong Kong ISCM/ACL World Music Days, ForumMusic Taipei, and the Gobi Desert. He has been the subject of "composer portrait" concerts at a number of festivals over the past 20 years.
In May 2002 Peter Neville, Guy DeBlét, Elizabeth Davis, Eugene Ughetti, Mark Knoop, and conductor Carl Rosman gave the long-delayed first performances of his 1994 percussion quartet beyond status geometry. More recently, ELISION performed his ik(s)land[s] at the Philharmonie, and the blinding access of the grace of flesh, at the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt for the LiteraturWERKstatt Festival, both in Berlin in 2003.
His works have been widely discussed in print. He is currently engaged on a percussion duo, a solo organ work, two new works for the 2005 Huddersfield Festival, and a sizeable ensemble sequence for ELISION.
Composers
Dalmazio Babare
Composers
David Young
composer / artistic director of Aphids
David's music is performed in Australia, Europe and Asia in contexts ranging from concerts to music theatre and installation. As a composer he is preoccupied with exploring relationships between sound and image, employing intricate and often miniature formats in unconventional settings. The music has been variously described as 'musical origami', 'satisfyingly abstract' and 'quietly determined to be itself, an aural equivalent of seeing a world in a grain of sand'.
As artistic director of Aphids, David curates and composes for collaborative cross-artform projects. These have included Ricefields, an electro-acoustic installation/performance which toured Australia, France and Japan; Radio 1, a percussion/theatre event featuring the world premiere live performance of Samuel Beckett's radio play of the same name; and more recently Maps, a music theatre film text collaboration between Aphids and Kokon (Denmark), with performances in Melbourne (November 2000) and Copenhagen (October 2002).
In 2000 David curated music for Ice Carving as part of the Melbourne Festival, and the following year he created the miniature opera and sound installation Overheard at Inveresk for Tasmania's Ten Days on the Island festival. In 2002 he was festival director of Next Wave, Melbourne's multi-contemporary arts festival which showcased new work by over 600 young artists.
In June 2003, Antwerp's Champ d'Action presented a retrospective concert of his music at the Logos Foundation in Ghent. In the same year Robyn Archer and the 2003 Melbourne International Arts Festival commissioned Skin Quartet, a collaboration with visual artist Louisa Bufardeci for digital imaging and acoustic string quartet.
In March 2004 David undertook a three-month Asialink residency with Bengkel Teater Rendra in Indonesia.
Composers
Erik Griswold
Eclectic Australian-American musician Erik Griswold fuses experimental, jazz and world music traditions to create works of striking originality. Specializing in prepared piano, percussion and toy instruments, he has created a musical universe all his own that is "sincere" (neural.it), "playful" (igloo magazine), "colourful and refreshingly unpretentious" (Paris Transatlantic). Griswold performs as a soloist, in Clocked Out Duo (with percussionist Vanessa Tomlinson), and collaborates with musicians from diverse backgrounds as well as visual artists, writers, dancers and circus performers.
Ongoing interests in Minimalism, Jazz, Op Art, Free Improvisation, Dada, Latin percussion and Chinese traditional music have all influenced his work. Since 2000 he has pursued studies of Sichuan Opera percussion and folk music traditions during artistic residencies at Sichuan Conservatory and Sichuan University. Most recently he has created a number of new works for diverse instruments including percussion ensemble, pipe organ, and miniature music boxes.
http://www.clockedout.org/index.html
Composers
James Hullick
Dark and disturbing landscapes. Penetrating bright light. Black humour. Challenging issues. Hullick's work is characterised by an unusual ability to use sound to engage in social issues.
Hullick has found firm artistic footing as a composer, pianist, vocalist and sound artist. His sonic works have been presented in Asia, North America and Europe for a variety of ensembles and electronic formats. His willingness to engage with the relevant issues of the community is continuously exemplified though his works. "Shelf Life" ? a 24 hour piano improvisation set in a shop in Vietnamese Footscray addressed issues of immigration and colonisation at the coalface. His string quartet, "Dunera", commissioned by Julian Burnside QC presented similar issues before a more affluent and potentially culpable audience at the Malthouse. His recent CD, performed by BOLT and titled BOLT, examines the face of Death in a materialist society in denial.
Hullick has, in recent years, imposed his clearly defined voice on the world of gallery based art installations, digitally driven visual art works and text art. The most recent of Hullick?s installations ? "is there a spirit in those bones?" presented at Westspace ? featured interactive robotic sound machines in an abattoir-like setting. This work addresses issues surrounding systems of control and the community's willingness to comply without satisfactory debate.
There is a clear contradiction in the work of Hullick; an aggressive resistance to conform to any set ideology that constantly wrestles with an almost zealous desire to live compassionately. If you are seeking an easy listening art experience, with no debate required and with everything spelt out for you, then stay away from the works of Hullick ? Barry Mannilow might be a more palatable option for you.
Hullick has completed a Masters in composition at Melbourne University and is currently researching the phenomenon of "Recursion" for his PhD in the School of Art at RMIT University.
James Hullick is represented by Sonic Nobody.
Composers
James Rushford
James Rushford is a composer/performer interested in a diverse range of contemporary music. The spirit to explore and expand stylistic and sonic boundaries is a trademark of his music, as is a commitment to projects that challenge aesthetic categorization. Alongside concert music, a focus lies in cross-media/inter-media, installation and recorded mediums. As a composer, James was a recipient of the 2007 Eric and Margot Cooper Scholarship, the 2007 Dowd Foundation Travel Scholarship, the 2004 Frank Bosch Birdsong Scholarship, and has had music commissioned by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Team of Pianists, CUSP gallery (collaboration with Danceworks and Chunky Move), Melbourne City Council, the Victorian College of the Arts (a collaboration with choreographer Anna Smith), the Melbourne Fringe Festival (2005), the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (2006) and the Melbourne International Arts Festival (2006). A multi-instrumentalist, James performs mostly with piano and electronics, and has studied with teachers such as Anthony Pateras, Kate Neal, Martin Bresnick, Michael Kieren Harvey, Donna Coleman and Mark Pollard. He is one half of an alt-rock duo Johnny Saw Horses and an experimental noise duo Reindeer and Parchment. James completed his Bachelor of Music at the VCA earlier this year.
Composers
Kate Neal
Kate studied Early Music (Recorder) and Composition at the Victorian College of the Arts with Mary Finsterer, Mark Pollard and Brenton Broadstock, graduating in 1996. Kate received a NUFFIC scholarship from the Dutch Government in 1998 and moved to The Netherlands to study composition with Martijn Padding, Louis Andrieson and Gilius van Bergeijk at the Koninklijk Conservatory, and Carnatic (Sth Indian) music studies with Rafael Rainer at the Sweelink Conservatory, Amsterdam. In 2000 Kate was awarded equal first prize in the International Young Composers meeting and a special mention in the Henriette Bosmans prize.
She returned to Melbourne, Australia, in 2003, establishing her events company ‘Dead Horse Productions’. She recently (August 2005) received a scholarship from the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, Siena, Italty and studied under Maestro Corghi and Ensemble. In 2006 Kate is the recipient of the Hephzibah Tintner Fellowship, working with the Australian Ballet, Sydney Dance Compnay, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Opera.
Composers
Kristian Ireland
Composers
Mark Pollard
Australian composer Mark Clement Pollard has an eclectic compositional style utilising such diverse materials as Improvisation, Jazz, Pop and the indigenous musics of South East Asia.
Pollard has received over sixty commissions, including commissions from the majority of Australia's acclaimed ensembles and soloists. His work has been released on nine compact discs including a collection of his ambient works titled A Handful of Rain. His music is broadcast and performed widely in Australia, and major performances include interludes 1, performed at the opening of the 1992 EVOS Festival in Perth, performances by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and the premiere of his Double Guitar Concerto "The Distance to the Sun" at the 1999 Darwin International Guitar Festival. This performance involved the conductor arriving by speedboat to conduct an orchestra performing on a floating stage on Lake Bennet.
Pollard has had several feature concerts and programs of his music broadcast on ABC FM. His work has been included in many major international festivals including the Warsaw Festival, the Tokyo Nova Festival, the Liverpool Festival and the Under Capricorn Festival (USA). In 2003 he completed a bass Clarinet Concerto for the brilliant Dutch performer Harry Sparnaay and in 2006 a piano sonata for the virtuoso pianist Michael Kieran Harvey.
Site specific elements feature in many of Pollard's collaborative works. These have included sounding out the earth for the Melbourne Museum, all fired up for the Pumping Station at Scienceworks, sounding out Andy for the National Gallery of Victoria, the drumming dunnies for The Port Fairy Spring Festival, with every step for the Royal Melbourne Hospital and sculpture interactions as part of the John Davis exhibition at the Robert Lindsay Gallery.
In 1983 Pollard received one of the inaugural Jacobena Angliss Music Awards. In 1984, his orchestral work Chamber Symphony received first place in the National-Canberra Orchestral Competition and in the same year he received a fellowship for the National Orchestral Composers' School. In 1992 he received the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award and in 1993 The Spivokofsky Composition Prize. In 2002 he was a semifinalist in the prestigious Raymond and Beverly Sackler Composition Prize at the University of Connecticut and has been a finalist in many major competitions including the Tokyo Music Today Competition.
Mark is a passionate supporter of the Western Bulldogs, an Australian Football League team. He is currently Program Leader and Head of Composition at the School of Music, Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne.
http://www.amcoz.com.au/composers/
Composers
Peter Head
Peter Head has known Eugene Ughetti from Speak Percussion since they were studying at the VCA together. They have made music together in various forms and capacities over the years. In 2000 Eugene performed in a VCA percussion ensemble piece that Peter wrote called "Decrescendo". In 2001Speak Percussion played Peter’s piece "Rubik’s Cube: You Are Here". In 2002 Eugene played Peter’s solo percussion piece "Ryan Riley’s Relaxation Piece No 2" in a concert at the Kyoto City University of the Arts in Japan, where Peter studied musicology between 2002 and 2005. Eugene also played at Peter’s wedding in 2006.
Since 2003 Peter has teamed up with several different musicians to play under the name of Humansixbillion.
http://www.humansixbillion.com
Composers
Scott McIntyre
Scott McIntyre began reading music from about the age of 4, playing trumpet, piano, violin, viola, clarinet and french horn. He studied at the Victorian College of the Arts in orchestral performance and composition from 1988-90 before he studied with Brenton Broadstock, graduating in 1993 with a Bachelor of Music in music composition at the University of Melbourne.
During his time at Melbourne University he was acknowledged in 1991 with a Highest Commendation in the Paul Lowin Orchestral Award for his Symphony No.1. Also in that year saw the performance of his Even the Sea for Narrator and Chamber Orchestra and his Symphony No.2 for Chamber Orchestra.
He attended the National Orchestral Composers School in 1993; the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra performing Infinity Has No God under the direction of David Porcelijn.
He has worked as a writer/producer for the Melbourne electronic outfit PSX which employed both dance music and orchestral influences and in 1998 performed an electro/acoustic work, Hybrid Intelligence for 11 improvised performers and live electronics at the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
He has also worked for many local composers both as an orchestrator/arranger and copyist, such as Chong Lim (Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics and Special Olympic Games) and for Allan Zavod as assistant orchestrator on his Concerto for Jazz Trombone and Orchestra written for James Morrison. In 2003/4 he orchestrated the new Australian musical, Rebecca, the music written by Kevin Purcell.
He has also worked in film; in 2004 he scored the short film Atomic Spitballs, which has received numerous awards including Best International Short Film at the 2005 Tromafling in Edinburgh.
With much experience in orchestral performance, he shows confident orchestration while adhering to strict architecture in his music. He is interested in the planned detail and development of melody and harmonies to create a modern polyphony that fuses his interest in medieval music through to orchestral music of the 20th and 21st centuries.
In 2006 he completed his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra and is currently working on a score for a feature film Damned By Dawn, and his Symphony No.3.
http://www.headphoneorchestra.com.au
Composers
Simon Charles
Simon Charles (1984) is a composer and saxophonist living in Melbourne. A recently graduated student of Brenton Broadstock and Stuart Greenbaum at Melbourne University, he is now active as an improviser and in performing his own works. He is also involved in composing and working as a sound designer for dance, television, as well as musical ensembles.
In 2005, Simon was invited as Artist in Residence to Bundanon, a property donated by Arthur Boyd located on the Shoalhaven River in New South Wales. There he wrote River Walk for Speak Percussion, a piece inspired by the surrounding landscape and dedicated to the memory of Arthur Boyd.
Other highlights for Simon include being the young composer representative for Australia at the 2005 Asian Composer's League Festival for New Music and winning the Zavod Jazz/Classical Fusion Award in 2003.
Upcoming projects include a new work for recorder, guitar and electro-acoustic tape commisioned by the Bosgraaf and Elias (Netherlands) and a new work commisioned by Zheng (Chinese Zither) virtuoso, Huang, Hao-Yin (Taiwan).
Composers
Stuart Greenbaum
Stuart Greenbaum’s music presents a crossover between classical and popular styles – particularly jazz and minimalism. His music invokes an atmosphere apart from the routine of modern life. Since 1985, he has worked closely with Australian poet, Ross Baglin. Most notably on the opera, Nelson.
He was born in 1966 in Melbourne and studied with Brenton Broadstock and Barry Conyngham. He was the first candidate to graduate with a PhD in composition from the University of Melbourne, where he also teaches composition. He grew up with popular music (rock, blues and jazz) as well as the Western classical tradition, and is interested in the "cross-over" and points of commonality between these apparently different musical worlds.
"When I compose, I write music that I want to hear. I seek sounds in time which reflect who I am and how I feel about the world I live in. I like to write music which has an attractive surface on a first hearing, but has some level of mystery which does not reveal all of itself so quickly."
Recent major works include an orchestral cycle (premiered in Russia by the Krasnoyarsk Philharmonic), a major choral work, The Foundling (Cantori New York, NY) and an opera based on the life of Nelson (Spitalfields Market Opera, London). Songs from the opera were performed by Simone Young, Jeffrey Black and Aubrey Murphy as part of Opera Australia's 2002 recital series at the NSW Art Gallery. He has won a number of awards, including the Heinz Harant Prize for Best New Australian Composition, and the Albert H. Maggs Award. The commission for the latter (a saxophone sonata) was premiered in May 2003 as part of a recent "Greenbaum Retrospective" in Melbourne.
His orchestral work, 90 Minutes Circling the Earth, can be downloaded as a video clip from the Melbourne Symphony's interactive website. He is published by Promethean Editions (NZ), Red House, Keys press, Allans and Reed Music. His music has been recorded on CD labels including Vox Australis, Tall Poppies, Move, ABC Classics, Red House and The Classical Recording Company (UK).
http://www.stuartgreenbaum.com
Composers
Taran Carter
Born in 1980 Taran Carter has been writing music since he realised that to be a pop star you either had to look good, sound good or write nice tunes. He chose the latter.
Taran's musical interests are diverse; they include Paul Simon, Toru Takemitsu, Augie March, Arvo Pärt, the Beatles, Iannis Xenakis and Radiohead. Perhaps due to these varied influences Taran’s music often explores the common aspects between the pop and contemporary classical worlds. This approach has attracted performances by groups such as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Opera Australia, the Song Company, Speak Percussion and EnsembleBash.
Taran has also written music for film, television, theatre and in 1999 was asked to write two songs which the Australian Synchronised Swimming Team swam to at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. He has won many awards including the A.S.M.E. Victorian Young Composer’s Competition in 1998, the Art of Percussion Composition Competition in 2000, the Quip Quip Composition Competition in 2001, the Percy Grainger Composition Competition in 2002 and the Magpie Research Dance Collaboration Award in 2004.
Other highlights in Taran's career include the sold-out premiere season of his first opera, Busking Hugs, (commissioned by Opera Australia) in October 2001 and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra commission and premiere of Moondani Music in March 2004.
At the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne Taran studied under the tuition of Mark Pollard, Julian Yu and Johanna Selleck but also found time to grab lessons from other influential composition teachers such as Michael Smetanin, Stuart Greenbaum and Laurie Whiffen. He completed his Bachelor of music in 2001, returning in 2004 to complete his Honours year. It was at the VCA that Taran formed the contemporary classical/pop group Tehai which is now an active part of the festival circuit in Australia.
Composers
Wally Gunn
After leaving high school in 1989, Wally entered the independent rock scene in Melbourne as a singer, songwriter and self-taught guitarist. Over the next twelve years he worked primarily in the rock idiom; forming bands, writing and co-writing material, recording and releasing albums, and touring nationally and internationally. During this time he was involved in the release of some 16 recordings.
Since commencing a Composition degree at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in Melbourne in 2002, Wally has composed over 30 pieces. As well as instrumental works and some orchestral works, Wally frequently composes for voice. He has collaborated with filmmakers, theatre companies and visual artists. In 2002, Wally won the VCA’s Quip Quip Competition for best composition. In 2004 he received the John Gaitskell Memorial Mensa Award for academic excellence from the VCA. And in 2005, he was the recipient of the Alan C. Rose Me morial Project Grant, which afforded him the opportunity of travelling to the United States for two months to research American composer collectives and new music ensembles. Wally is currently undertaking his final year of a Bachelor of Music Performance (Honours) in Composition at the Victorian College of the Arts.
Composers
Warren Burt
Warren Burt attended the State University of New York, Albany (BA, 1971) and the University of California, San Diego (MA, 1975) before moving to Australia in 1975.
In Australia he has worked in academia (La Trobe University, NSW Conservatorium, Victorian College of the Arts, Australian National University, Victoria University of Technology), education, and radio (freelance and commissioned productions for ABC and PBAA), and as a composer, film maker, video artist, and community arts organizer. His works have been performed and shown in the USA, Australia, Europe and Japan and he has had grants from the Australia Council, the Victorian Ministry for the Arts and the McKnight Foundation (USA), and has been artist in residence with a number of organizations, such as the Australian Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization, the Los Angeles based art-science think-tank International Synergy, the Broadcast Music Department of ABC Radio, the Monash University Music Department, the RMIT Department of Fine Arts, the American Composers Forum, and Art-Science Laboratory, Santa Fe, and the Djerassi Artists Program. Since the 1970s, he has toured and performed his electronic and computer music internationally, and has been especially active in the fields of interactive technology (especially with dancers and actors) and microtonality. Two books are currently available: 'Writings from a Scarlet Aardvark: 15 Articles on Music and Art, 1981-93' (Frog Peak Music, 1993) and 'Critical Vices: The Myths of Post-Modern Theory' (in collaboration with Nicholas Zurbrugg) (Gordon and Breach, 1999). Recent CDs include 'A Book of Symmetries' on 'Zygotones: Loretta Goldberg' (Centaur, USA, 2000), 'Five Tango Permutations' on 'Homo Sonorus - International Anthology of Sound Poetry' (NCCA, Russia, 2001), 'The Animation of Lists, and the Archytan Transpositions' (2006, XI Records, New York) and 'Poems of Rewi Alley' (2006, AAF, Melbourne). From 1992 until 2003, he was involved with Al Wunder’s 'Theatre of the Ordinary' in Melbourne, working improvisationally with dancers, actors and musicians. From 1998-2000, he held an Australia Council Composers’ Fellowship. In 2001 & 2002, he was Visiting Professor of Composition at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA. In 2003 he was involved in the reconstruction of Percy Grainger's 1961 Electric Eye Tone Tool, one of the first light-controlled synthesizers. Currently, he is a research fellow at the University of Wollongong, writing a book on Microtonality. Most recently, he performed "17 Pieces for Adelaide" - a 6 hour long performance of live computer graphics and sound for Project 3, at the 2006 Adelaide Festival.
waburt@melbourne.dialix.com.au
