Past Festival Archive

“His encyclopaedic understanding of performing and visual arts and his theatrical instinct place him in constant demand as a musician of flair and imagination.” – Antony Jeffrey, Many Faces of Inspiration.

Born in Belgium, Roland Peelman has been active in Australia over 30 years as a conductor, pianist, artistic director and mentor to composers, singers and musicians alike. He has established a reputation as one of Australia’s most innovative musical directors, awarded with numerous accolades. On the sidelines, Roland remained active as a pianist, putting his fingers in the service of social activism, in particular Human Rights.

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The Australian Haydn Ensemble, (AHE) was founded in 2012 by Artistic Director and Principal Violinist Skye McIntosh and is now in its twelfth year. AHE has quickly established itself as one of Australia’s leading period-instrument groups, specialising in the repertoire of the late Baroque and early Classical eras. It takes its name from the great Joseph Haydn, a leading composer of the late 18th century.

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Oliver began learning piano when he was four and in year 3 joined the school percussion ensemble, playing in it for 2 years. After being selected for the year 5 band program on percussion he started private lessons with Veronica Bailey the following year.  He was awarded the Year 6 Music Award in 2020. Oliver currently plays in the ANU Open School Percussion Ensemble as well as the Mount Stromlo High School Band.  He is currently in year 9 and as well as percussion and piano, which he now studies with Sally Greenaway, he also enjoys Scouts, competitive swimming and, perhaps unsurprisingly for a percussionist, maths competitions.

Kevin Hunt is a jazz pianist-composer active in the Sydney jazz scene since 1979. Kevin Hunt currently performs regularly with vocalist Emma Pask, pianist Simon Tedeschi and vocal duo Stiff Gins.

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“His encyclopaedic understanding of performing and visual arts and his theatrical instinct place him in constant demand as a musician of flair and imagination.” – Antony Jeffrey, Many Faces of Inspiration.

Born in Belgium, Roland Peelman has been active in Australia over 30 years as a conductor, pianist, artistic director and mentor to composers, singers and musicians alike. He has established a reputation as one of Australia’s most innovative musical directors, awarded with numerous accolades. On the sidelines, Roland remained active as a pianist, putting his fingers in the service of social activism, in particular Human Rights.

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William Barton is Australia’s leading didgeridoo player as well as composer, instrumentalist and vocalist. William started learning the instrument from his first learnt the uncle, Arthur Peterson, an elder of the Wannyi, Lardil and Kalkadunga people and was working from an early age with traditional dance groups and fusion/rock jazz bands, orchestras, string quartets, and mixed ensembles. Throughout his diverse career he has forged a path in the classical musical world, from the London and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras to historic events at Westminster Abbey for Commonwealth Day 2019, at Anzac Cove in Gallipoli and for the Beijing Olympics. His awards include Winner of Best Original Score for a Mainstage Production at the 2018 Sydney Theatre Awards and Winner of Best Classical Album with an ARIA for Birdsong At Dusk in 2012. In 2021 he was the recipient of the prestigious Don Banks Music Award from the Australia Council and in 2022 he was announced as Australian of the Year for Queensland for 2023. With his prodigious musicality and building on his Kalkadunga heritage, William has vastly expanded the horizons of the didgeridoo.

Dudok Quartet Amsterdam is forging a reputation as one of the most creative and versatile quartets of its generation. With its ethos of “sharing the heart of music”, the quartet is committed to crafting unique and eclectic programmes in order to engage with its audiences in new and imaginative ways. In repertoire ranging from Ligeti, Shostakovich and Bacewicz through to Mendelssohn, Mozart and Beethoven, the Dudok Quartet constantly strives to forge new pathways and connections in music. Their intelligent approach and flair for programming also sees them regularly perform their own arrangements of pieces and they have so far produced arrangements of composers including Gesualdo, Desprez, Shostakovich, Brahms and Messiaen. The Quartet is also committed to commissioning new works and have collaborated with composers including Joey Roukens, Peter Vigh and Theo Loevendie . Future commissioning projects include a new piece from British-Lebanese composer Bushra El-Turk.

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Belgian pianist Bram De Looze is one of those musicians who is always on the lookout for new options, detours and possibilities to expand his art. His solo career began in a surprising way with ‘Piano e forte‘ (2016), a project for which he approached historical instruments from a contemporary perspective. The switch to Chris Maene’s Straight Strung Grand Piano (created by Daniel Barenboim) for ‘Switch The Stream‘ (2018) indicated a renewed search for movement, evolution and introspection. With ‘Colour Talk‘ (2020), he continued this solo trajectory on an already revolutionary piano model, again seeking innovation from within.

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Florian has played the violin since the age of five, and after absorbing the sound of gamelan in Indonesia, started formal training in Helsinki. At the age of 14 he continued his studies at Chethams School of Music in Manchester. Returning to his Belgian roots at the age of 18, he enrolled at the Antwerp Conservatorium and switched to the viola. He completed his Masters under Walter Küssner at the world leading ‘Hans Eisler’ Hochschule für Musik Berlin achieving the highest distinction and has since continued to work there as Assistant Professor.

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Véronique Serret is a highly versatile violinist, vocalist and composer, effortlessly bridging the divide between classical and contemporary art forms. In demand as a leader, chamber musician, mentor and collaborative artist, Véronique is known for her inclusive sound world, willingness to experiment across genres and her work on the six string violin. She is dedicated to the creation of new music and the exploration of sound through diverse collaborations.

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The unbound expressive potential of our original instrument: the human voice

Comprised of six professional singers, Luminescence Chamber Singers is a virtuosic vocal ensemble based on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country (Canberra, Australia). Performing music that spans Medieval chant and Renaissance polyphony as well as folk song, pop, and contemporary art music, Luminescence has rapidly emerged as one of Australia’s leading ensembles.

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The Ellery String Quartet is a dynamic group of musicians, formed at the end of 2021 and based on Ngunnawal/Ngambri land (Canberra). With their “youthful exuberance and fearless approach” (Canberra CityNews), they aim to push the boundaries of the classical string quartet through programs of contemporary classical and folk music across diverse performance spaces. The quartet have a particular fondness for Scandinavian folk music, and modern works from composers such as Caroline Shaw, Ella Macens and Holly Harrison.

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Andrew Ford OAM is a composer, writer and broadcaster who has won awards in each of those capacities, including the Paul Lowin Prize for his song cycle Learning to Howl, a Green Room Award for his opera Rembrandt’s Wife and the Albert H. Maggs Prize for his large ensemble piece, Rauha. He has been composer-in-residence for the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. In 2014 he was Poynter Fellow and visiting composer at Yale University, in 2015 visiting lecturer at the Shanghai Conservatory, and in 2018 HC Coombs Creative Arts Fellow at the Australian National University. Ford has written widely on all manner of music and published ten books, most recently The Song Remains the Same with Anni Heino (La Trobe University Press, 2019). He has written, presented and co-produced five radio series for the ABC and, since 1995, presented The Music Show each weekend on Radio National. He was awarded an OAM in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Photo: Jim Rolon

In 2022 Claire Edwardes was awarded the 2022 Medal of the Order of Australia for her commitment to Australian music. She is Australia’s ‘sorceress of percussion’ (City News, Canberra) and the only Australian to win the ‘APRA Art Music Luminary Award’ four times, Claire leaps between her role as Ensemble Offspring’s Artistic Director (Australia’s new music ensemble and winners of the 2022 Classical Next Innovation Award with Ngarra-Burria) and concerto performances with Sydney Symphony at the Sydney Opera House and Radio Chamber Orchestra at the Concertgebouw.

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Holly Harrison is an Australian composer from Western Sydney. Holly’s music is driven by the nonsense literature of Lewis Carroll, embracing stylistic juxtapositions, the visceral energy of rock, and whimsical humour. She was the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s composer in residence across 2020-2022, and in 2023 was composer in residence for the ASME National Young Composer Project. Her music has been described as “exploding off the page”, full of “riotous energy, eclectic rhythmic complexity” and “inventive, witty and invested with thrilling dynamism and momentum”.

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Niki Johnson is a percussionist and composer-performer whose musical practice incorporates contemporary classical repertoire, improvisation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and performance art. She is a current PhD Candidate at Monash University, where her research explores percussionists’ collaborations with sculptors and designers, and the process of co-creating, and composing for new sculptural instruments. Her main research project is Shock Lines, a collaboration involving Niki as percussionist-composer, glass artist Caitlin Dubler, and sound designer Natasha Dubler. Niki also works with clarinettist and composer Solomon Frank in the experimental music and theatre duo Throat Pleats. This collaboration explores shifting animalistic power dynamics, balloons, hoses, and vacuum cleaners.

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My teaching philosophy is closely connected with my life experience as a musician. it predicates the notion of a ‘complete’ musician rather than a specialist. To that end, I have constantly cultivated excellence in a number of spheres of activity.

As a composer, I am possibly the most commissioned Australian composer and have consciously tried to work in as many genres as possible, including opera, theatre, orchestral music, chamber music, solo music, vocal music, transcriptions.

As a pianist I have constantly explored the repertoire through various byways, some quite a long way off the beaten mainstream track and certainly have deliberately concentrated on performing our own Australian music.

As a researcher, my books have honed in on primary research and my various books have become standard texts in areas such as Ferruccio Busoni, Anton Rubinstein, Alkan, Classical Reproducing Piano Rolls, Music of the twentieth century avant-garde, Music of the repressed Russian avant-garde, 20th century Australian piano music.

As a teacher, I have endeavoured to act as a role model and engender in my pupils a similar outlook towards the profession; I feel that a good teacher should aim to make himself redundant; our role should also be that of a facilitator and problem solver, whether it is the fingering of a difficult piano passage, or the structure of a new composition.

Further reading at https://music.cass.anu.edu.au/people/emprof-larry-sitsky

Jason Noble is one of Australia’s most versatile clarinettists – experimental to classical – a soloist and core member of Ensemble Offspring. Jason has performed at festivals locally and internationally, from Warsaw to London, Shanghai to Kabul, and all major cities across Australia. “His expertise and virtuosic playing give new insights into the versatility of the bass clarinet” (Sounds Like Sydney)

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Ben Ward is a musician, working predominantly on the lands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal, whose practice has recently focussed on altered tunings, texture and improvisation. Outside his work on the double bass with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra he is inspired by the wonderful community of musicians in Sydney. Place and history are currently important foundations of his artistic thought. A recent highlight is an ongoing collaboration with cellist Freya Schack-Arnott which has produced an album “in landscape” (2020) and which has a set of upcoming releases for nyckleharpe, synthesised sounds, double bass and cello.

Jonathan Zwartz is an Aria Award winning bassist, composer, producer, songwriter, music curator and live music advocate.

As double bassist, Jonathan has played with Pharoah Sanders, Branford Marsalis, Lionel Loueke, Kurt Elling, Nigel Kennedy, Mark Murphy, Annie Ross, Larry Goldings, Johnny Griffin, Terri-Lynn Carrington, Genesis Owusu, and Katie Noonan.

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Svetlana was born in Belgrade, Serbia, into a family of prominent Yugoslavian musicians. She studied at the prestigious Special High School of the Tchaikovsky Conservatorium of Music, Moscow, the Peabody Conservatorium, Baltimore, and the Cologne Hochschule of Music. In her student years she worked with legendary cellists, Daniil Shafran, Boris Pergamenshikov and Antonio Janigro. Even before she could perform, she was on stage at age six turning pages for her mother in performance with cellist André Navarra.

In her professional years she has toured Europe, Japan, China, Australia and New Zealand as a soloist and chamber musician including recent performances at the Belgrade International Cello Festival and the KotorArt festival in Montenegro.

As an orchestral musician she held the position of Associate Principal Cello with the Rheinische Philharmonie and has worked with the North German Radio Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, Cologne Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, Melbourne Symphony and Singapore Symphony Orchestras.

Svetlana is a founding member of Ensemble Liaison and as part of this trio, performs on the stages of Australia’s most prestigious concert halls including the Melbourne Recital Centre along with regular performances for Musica Viva, ABC Classic FM, and appearances at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Port Fairy and Woodend festivals.

She has collaborated with many wonderful Australian and international artists including Nemanja Radulovic, Kathryn Stott, Dale Baltrop, Ray Chen, Henning Kraggerud, Konstantin Shamray, Yura Lee, Jennifer Stumm, Emma Matthews, Cheryl Barker, Peter Coleman-Wright, Wilma Smith, Paul Grabowsky, David Jones and Tony Gould.

Svetlana is a leading cello teacher far and wide and teaches cello and chamber music at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne.

Shock Lines is composed of glass artist Caitlin Dubler, sound artist & cellist Natasha Dubler and percussionist Niki Johnson.

Shock Lines brings three distinctive understandings of material, transformation and gesture into dialogue through each artist’s respective craft. By mutually challenging the strict conventions of each individual practice the collaboration opens new avenues for play across disciplinary forms.

Cairns-born pianist Reuben Tsang is guided by Natasha Vlassenko OAM at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University and performs in recitals, chamber ensembles and competitions. He is a 2024 award recipient from Theme and Variations Foundation.

Reuben won First Prize, Best Recital and People’s Choice Award at the 2024 Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition. He has performed Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Northey and with the Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Johannes Fritzsch. Reuben was also a semi-finalist and recipient of several prizes including the Nancy Weir Best Australian Pianist Award at the 2023 Sydney International Piano Competition.

Photo credit – Sam Salvador

Sal Cooper is an interdisciplinary artist who has been practicing for 20 years with a focus on screen-based works. Her wide ranging cross-platform practice covers independent film-making, hand drawn and stop motion animation, installation and performance events. Her work utilises an observational language that gives expression to deliberate misunderstandings, absurd irregularities and comic abstractions. She employs complex and refined production techniques to project a lyrical depth and meaning onto objects and landscapes – fully exploring the imaginative possibilities of the ordinary world around us. The integration of music within the context of moving image is a central part of her practice as can be seen in her ongoing collaboration with composer Kate Neal under the title Flight Risk. This collaboration has given rise to a body of commissioned material that includes major theatrical/performance works, concert pieces and music videos as well as work for cinematic settings.Sal’s artistic practice also includes works on paper, which she exhibits in regular solo and group shows. In the course of Sal’s practice she has undertaken several public art projects and attended residencies in Australia and overseas. Her short films and experimental videos continue to be screened around the world.

Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey are Australian artists who create unexpected situations for listening. They have a long-term highly awarded collaborative practice. Their work is driven by a curiosity about listening in human and non-human ecologies and seeks to evolve and engage with new processes and audiences through public and participative interventions. They work with emerging technologies, cultural groups, sites, and experts across practice and ensemble-made processes. Their current creative obsessions include acoustics of the dark, the sound of existential risk, and ecological and cultural impacts of practice. Maddie and Tim are based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia.

Maddie and Tim’s works have been presented by major festivals and contemporary art spaces, including Setouchi Triennale and Kinosaki Arts Centre (Japan); Busan Sea Art Biennale, Ansan Arts Festival, and Seoul Street Arts Festival (Republic of Korea); Brighton Festival and Science Gallery London (UK); Sonica Festival ; Edinburgh Festival and Counterflows Festival (Scotland); ANTI Festival and Oulu Capital of Culture (Finland); Prague Quadrennial (Czech Republic); Theatre der Welt (Germany); Ars Electronica (Austria); Melbourne Festival, Perth Festival, Sydney Festival, MONA FOMA, ACCA, ArtsHouse, Melbourne Recital Centre, Substation, Sydney Opera House, Bundanon, and Science Gallery Melbourne (Australia). Their awards include the national Australia Council Experimental Arts Award, APRA-AMCOS awards for Experimental Music, GreenRoom Awards for Sound and Hybrid Arts, Melbourne Festival award and an Honourable Mention Ars Electronica.

Photo credit – Jody Haines

http://madeleineandtim.net

Timo-Veikko Valve, affectionately known by audiences far and wide as “Tipi”, grew up in Finland, surrounded by a family who are “musically oriented normal people”. Music lessons were a natural part of his upbringing, and at six years old, Tipi was encouraged to pick up the cello after a teacher at the local music school declared with considerable conviction that “he looks just like a cellist!”. To this day, Tipi remains somewhat puzzled about what that statement actually meant. Whatever the subtext, the teacher seems to have been correct.

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Helen Svoboda is a Finnish/Australian award-winning double bassist, vocalist and composer. “A musician who absolutely defies categorisation” (Andrew Ford – The Music Show, ABC), her work explores the melodic potential of the double bass, weaving extended techniques and overtones with vocal tessitura to explore themes of sonic unity amidst abstract song-writing forms.

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Described as an exhilarating performer with faultless technique and fearless command of the piano, Australian-based pianist Konstantin Shamray enjoys performing on an international level with the world’s leading orchestras and concert presenters.

In 2008, Konstantin burst onto the concert scene when he won First Prize at the Sydney International Piano Competition. He is the first and only competitor to date in the 40 years of the competition to win both First and People’s Choice Prizes, in addition to six other prizes. He then went on to win First Prize at the 2011 Klavier Olympiade in Bad Kissingen, Germany, and he was awarded the festival’s coveted Luitpold Prize for “outstanding musical achievements”.

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Jane Sheldon is a soprano and composer who has established an international reputation for highly specialised, groundbreaking art music for voice. Jane’s compositional output includes electronic music, chamber music, opera installations, works for dance companies and large-scale sound installations for museums. Described as “riveting” (New York Times) and “gripping” (Limelight Magazine), Jane’s compositions focus on the experience of altered or transformative states. Her latest album is I am a tree, I am a mouth (“conceptually brilliant… a vocal and compositional triumph, beautifully realised with splendid restraint” – Limelight Magazine). The release was listed in the New Yorker’s Notable Recordings of 2022. Her next album, Flowermuscle, is due out late 2024. 

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The Australian Haydn Ensemble, (AHE) was founded in 2012 by Artistic Director and Principal Violinist Skye McIntosh and is now in its twelfth year. AHE has quickly established itself as one of Australia’s leading period-instrument groups, specialising in the repertoire of the late Baroque and early Classical eras. It takes its name from the great Joseph Haydn, a leading composer of the late 18th century.

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Acknowledged as one of Australia’s finest yidaki (didgeridoo) players, Mark Atkins is also recognised internationally for his collaborative projects with some of the world’s leading composers and musicians. A descendant of Western Australia’s Yamitji people, as well as of Irish/Australian heritage, Mark is known not only for his masterly playing, but also as a storyteller, composer, percussionist, visual artist and instrument maker. Mark has performed alongside and composed with artists such as Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Sinead O’Connor, Philip Glass, Donald Lunney, Ornette Coleman, Peter Sculthorpe, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Gondwana, Jenny Morris, John Williamson, James Morrison, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO). He is a founding member of Black Arm Band.

Photo by Kristian Gehradte

Niki Johnson is a percussionist and composer-performer whose musical practice incorporates contemporary classical repertoire, improvisation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and performance art. She is a current PhD Candidate at Monash University, where her research explores percussionists’ collaborations with sculptors and designers, and the process of co-creating, and composing for new sculptural instruments. Her main research project is Shock Lines, a collaboration involving Niki as percussionist-composer, glass artist Caitlin Dubler, and sound designer Natasha Dubler. Niki also works with clarinettist and composer Solomon Frank in the experimental music and theatre duo Throat Pleats. This collaboration explores shifting animalistic power dynamics, balloons, hoses, and vacuum cleaners.

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