3 Shades Black

Sally Whitwell

Award winning pianist Sally Whitwell maintains a busy freelance career as performer, conductor, composer and educator from her base in Sydney.

Sally’s most recent solo release All Imperfect Things; solo piano music of Michael Nyman won the 2013 ARIA Award for Best Classical Album as well as Best Engineer for ABC Classics very own tonmeister Virginia Read, the first time that a woman has ever won this award. Additionally, her debut album Mad Rush: solo piano music of Philip Glass won her the 2011 ARIA for Best Classical Album. Her sophomore album The Good, the Bad and the Awkward is a truly unique compilation of film music where she played not only piano but toy piano, harpsichord, recorder and melodica. Sally plans to record a fourth album in 2014 featuring her own compositions in the art song, choral and chamber music genres.

Recent solo concert appearances for Sally have included the world premiere of the Philip Glass Complete Piano Etudes for Perth International Arts Festival and Ten Tiny Dancers, an all-singing-all-playing-all-dancing cabaret piano recital for the Famous Spiegeltent season at Arts Centre Melbourne. In 2014, Sally will travel to Los Angeles and New York City to perform again with Philip Glass. She will also be touring extensively within Australia, including shows for Adelaide Fringe Festival, concerts at Riversdale for the Bundanon Trust and various trips to regional centres on the NSW South Coast and Byron Bay. As a vocal advocate for classical music by women composers, Sally is currently curating a chamber music concert series in her home town Canberra. In Her Shoes features music by women creatives across the centuries, which she’ll be performing with Acacia Quartet, cellist Sally Maer and soprano Nadia Piave.

Sally other great love is choral music. Currently she is a staff conductor and pianist for Gondwana Choirs and Sydney Children’s Choir with whom she has performed throughout Australia and in Europe, Asia and the Americas. She has devised semi-theatrical choral shows for Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, Bel A Cappella and Door in the Wall, composed new works for (and with) Sydney Children’s Choir, Leichhardt Espresso Chorus, Woden Valley Youth Choir (ACT), St Ursula’s College Toowoomba (QLD) and had her choral works performed by Gondwana Choirs, Canberra Choral Society, Brisbane Birralee Voices, Moorambilla Voices, various ensembles from the Arts Unit of the NSW Department of Education and Kompactus – Canberra’s Compact Chorus. She’s looking forward to presenting workshops on collaborative composition at the 2014 Queensland Choral Conference presented by Australian National Choral Association.

You can find Sally’s more personal bio here, follow her on facebook here, tweet her on twitter here, and tumble over her on tumblr here.

Wally Gunn

Wally spent his early years in Melbourne, Australia, playing in rock bands, then completing an Honours degree in Composition at the Victorian College of the Arts. After graduating, he worked with fellow composers Kate Neal and Biddy Connor in Dead Horse Productions to stage concerts of new music in unusual venues. He also provided original music for several Melbourne theatre companies, including The Eleventh Hour, The Shrimp Company and ITCH Productions (Catalpa, Green Room nomination for Best Composition); co-wrote a musical with Wes Snelling for Platform Youth Theatre; and contributed songs to Snelling’s cabaret (Kiosk, Green Room nomination for Best Original Songs). He moved to New York in 2008 to undertake a Masters in Composition at the Manhattan School of Music. Since relocating, he has created original music for three productions by New York’s The Actors Company Theatre, and recently provided the soundtrack for a video installation by artist Matthew Sleeth. Wally is currently a Graduate Fellow at Princeton University.

3 Shades Black is excited to premiere Wallys new work: “There might have been a time”.