MOSSO: music in motion

  • Saturday, 3 May 2025

    10:00 am

  • National Film and Sound Archive

    McCoy Cct, Acton ACT 2601

  • General Admission $various,

    Concession $various

  • In Association with

Buy Tickets Now Get Festival Pass

Presented in association with the National Film and Sound Archive

MOSSO: music in motion is a dynamic, all-day celebration of contemporary music, moving images, and spatial sound, showcasing Australia’s top composers, sound artists, new media artists, and performers in a stunning array of multimedia experiences. 

Join us at the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia’s premier audiovisual cultural institution, as MOSSO transforms its spaces into a multi-venue festival experience. From 10am to 6pm, immerse yourself in an expansive program of events, with access to the on-site café, courtyard, the Mediatheque lounge, and NFSA permanent exhibitions. 

The primary venue, the ARC Cinema, will be rendered in its full cinematic glory with live spatial sound operated by acclaimed sound designer Bob Scott. Experience his spatialisation of the live performances, as sound moves dynamically in three-dimensional space. 

Enjoy both free and ticketed events across four different spaces. Discounts for concert tickets are available—check below for event start times! 

PROGRAM – PERFORMANCES FROM 10AM-6PM

The Magnetic Quiet Zone (free)
Philip Samartzis, Sean Williams and Martin Walch
Video and multichannel sound
Click here for a detailed description

Duet for One
Sonia Lifshitz and Damian Barbeler

Live cinematic concert for live piano, film, projections, ritual theatre, sculpture and sound design
Click here for a detailed description and ticket info.

Urban Pipes
A performance intervention by world renowned French piper Erwan Keravec.

Australia Fair?
Flinders Quartet, Bryony Marks, Claire Higgins
String quartet, film and images
Click here for a detailed description and ticket info.

Living Poems of the Sea
Sally Walker – solo flute and narrator
Lyle Chan – writer and composer
with audio-visual contributions from Murray Farrell and Grant Stevens
A meditation on the enthralling world of dolphins and whales in music, sound, words and images.
Click here for a detailed description and ticket info.

Flowermuscle and the River Styx
Jane Sheldon – composer, soprano and piano
For solo soprano, piano, electronics and live spatialisation
Click here for a detailed description and ticket info.

A Book of Hours
Kate Neal, Sal Cooper,
Gerard Van Dyck and Rubiks Collective
Multimedia live performance for four piece instrumental ensemble, live electronics and film
Click here for a detailed description and ticket info.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

An automatic discount of 15 per cent applies when purchasing three or more MOSSO tickets in a single transaction.

Note for Pass Holders – Festival passes automatically include entry to the 2pm-6pm ticketed events.

Click here to BECOME A MEMBER
NFSA visitor information at nfsa.gov.au/visit-us

  • Saturday, 3 May 2025

    10:00 am

  • National Film and Sound Archive

    McCoy Cct, Acton ACT 2601

  • General Admission $various,

    Concession $various

Buy Tickets Now

ARTIST Learn more about the artist

Artist Erwan Keravec - highland bagpiper, composer and improviser

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Erwan Keravec is a highland bagpiper, composer and improviser. In seeking out the more unusual sounds, and ways of playing and listening to his instrument, far from its original cultural setting, he is exploring improvised music, free and ‘noise’ jazz, and establishing a repertoire of contemporary music for solo pipes, trio with solo voice and with choir. With an interest in movement and in settings associated with reinvention, he also writes, plays and improvises for dance.
Since 2007, he has pursued his quest for a style of piping that’s removed from its original setting, with the projects Urban Pipes I (2007) and Urban Pipes II (2011). To make his intentions clear, he commissioned composers to write solo pieces for the instrument as part of the Nu Piping series (since 2011). So far, he has been behind 19 works by 17 composers. For the quartet SONNEURS, he commissioned 12 pieces. This research will lead to IN C // 20 PIPERS (2022) and 8 PIPERS FOR PHILIP GLASS (2024).

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Artist Andrew Ford, composer - writer - broadcaster

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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

Artist Sonya Lifschitz - piano

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Ukrainian-born/Australian-based Sonya Lifschitz is a pianist working across many contexts, with repertoire spanning from 15th century Faenza Codex to works written for her today. She is known for her fiercely imaginative, daring collaborations across film, animation, spoken word, visual and performance art. Described as “a life force of extraordinary density and capacity”, Sonya’s artistry combines bold adventurousness with exceptional musicianship. She is active as a soloist, creative collaborator, artistic director, educator, radio presenter and a passionate arts advocate for which tireless efforts she recently won the 2024 QPAC Excellence in Classical Music Award.

Artist Rubiks Collective

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“Rubiks Collective achieves the impossible. The vocal quartet is living, breathing proof that new compositions can be invigorating and inspiring, not merely intellectually niche.” – Sydney Morning Herald

Rubiks is one of Melbourne’s most dynamic contemporary art music ensembles, reimagining classical music for the modern era. Directed by Tamara Kohler (flutes) and Kaylie Melville (percussion), Rubiks showcases bold cross-art collaborations, shares untold stories and champions gender equity in the arts . Since debuting in 2015, Rubiks has been hailed as “a formidable contribution to Australia’s growing community of contemporary music makers” (Partial Durations) and commended for their “incredibly personal, strangely spiritual and ultimately deeply touching” performances (Limelight).

Rubiks’ appearance at the 2025 Festival is supported by Peter Wise.

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Artist Jane Sheldon - soprano and composer

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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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Artist Sally Walker - flute

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With a repertoire ranging from Early Music to works composed especially for her, most notably Elena Kats-Chernin’s “Night and Now” Concerto, performer, academic and music educator Dr Sally Walker has toured internationally with the Berlin Philharmonic and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestras, was Principal Flute of the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss and the Omega Ensemble, and has performed as Guest Principal Flute with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Kammerakademie Potsdam. She has performed on historical instruments with Salut! Baroque and the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra and has a long-standing association as Guest Principal Flautist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, with whom she has played modern, baroque and classical flutes, recorders and piccolo.

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Artist Flinders Quartet

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Flinders Quartet (FQ) is instantly recognisable as one of Australia’s most loved chamber music ensembles. A quartet for the 21st century and a highly respected force in Australian chamber music, FQ marks their twenty-fifth anniversary with acknowledged musical skill and maturity.

FQ lives up to their motto of “caring for tradition, daring to be different” through a busy schedule encompassing live and online performances, commissioning, recording, education and mentorship programs including the successful composer development programs ‘Ascend’ and ‘Emerge’, and outreach activities through their artistic patronage of John Noble’s Itet regional quartet program, Resonance String Orchestra, and Musica Viva’s Strike a Chord championship.

Photo credit – Pia Johnson