Category: Artists


Meet the musicians – Laura Tanata

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January 19, 2017

28244-Web.jpgLaura Tanata completed her Masters of Music Performance at the Australian National University School of Music in 2007, under the tuition of harpist Alice Giles. Laura has been a member of the Seven Harp Ensemble (SHE) since the early 2000s when it was previously known as the Kioloa Harp Ensemble.

Laura has also been involved with the Griffyn Ensemble since 2006; an active Canberra based chamber ensemble with a passion of presenting rarely performed works and new music, often with a unique theatrical flair.

In 2011, Laura founded her own business, Vermilion Music, with the ambition to cater music for all occasions. For further information visit her Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/VermilionMusic

The harp has given Laura plenty of opportunities to travel Australia and the world, visiting cities such as San Francisco, Beijing and Aberdeen. She has released an album with SHE and is currently planning to record with the Griffyn Ensemble in 2017.

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Meet the musicians – Ed Ferris

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Ed Ferris Headshot 2016.JPGClarinet maverick, Ed Ferris is rapidly creating a name for himself as an exciting performer, teacher and conductor of young ensembles in Australia.

Ed graduated from the University of Melbourne in 2011 with a double degree in Music and Creative Arts, studying clarinet with David Thomas. In 2013 he returned for postgraduate studies with Paul Dean.

As a performer, Ed is versatility personified. He has given sold out performance with the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra, junk-yard-gypsy folk band, Eyal & the Skeleton Crew, and the avant-garde Forest Collective.

Ed is also a sought after teacher and clinician. He holds teaching and conducting positions at Genazzano FCJ College and Siena College. He has conducted ensembles at Border Music Camp (NSW) and Melbourne Youth Orchestra’s Summer School. In 2016 Ed toured regional Victoria with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s education team, delivering workshops and performances to primary and high school students.

Ed is thrilled to return to 3 Shades Black after playing in their very first performance in 2012.

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Meet the musicians/composers – Allison Wright

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January 15, 2017

allisonheadshot2016-1.jpgAllison Wright is a Melbourne based freelance trumpet player, composer, sound artist, producer, collaborator and educator. Since finishing her performance studies with David Elton (SSO) & Tristram Williams (soloist) at the Australian National Academy of Music, Allison has enjoyed a versatile career as a sought after orchestral and studio trumpet player, regularly performing with prominent arts organisations and initiative including the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria & Opera Australia.

 

In addition to her performing career, Allison’s arrangements and original compositions have been performed nationally and internationally, including the Bang on a Can Summer Festival 2016, Cortona Sessions 2017 (Italy) and by prominent ensembles including All of The Above (USA), Solstice Trio (AU), Melbourne Metropolitan Sinfionetta, Yarra Brass Quintet (AU), Ensemble Kammervolk (AU). As a producer, Allison has been releasing original electronic dance music under the pseudonyms ‘Cosmic Latte’ and ‘Mixed Emotions’ since 2012, in addition to freelance work as a foley artist (SFX), composer and sound designer for independent film & television/web shorts.

 

Allison is the creative director of Kammervolk Collective; a Melbourne based group of visual artists of various disciplines, composers and performers who are dedicated to presenting multi-disciplinary concert experiences.

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Meet the musicians – Stephanie Arnold

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Stephanie Arnold is an Australian cellist working as a freelance performer and instrumental teacher. Since studying both in Australia and in Germany Stephanie now performs in a variety of orchestral and chamber groups in Melbourne.

In Europe she worked with Christina Vantzou and performed throughout Belgium and Germany, supporting artists such as Nils Frahm and Max Richter, taking part in several contemporary music festivals. Stephanie has a broad interest in experimental and contemporary music, and a particular interest in performance works with a focus on storytelling and community engagement.

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Meet the musicians – Justine Anderson

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January 8, 2017
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Justine Anderson completed her Masters degree in voice at the Victorian College of the Arts in 2008 and completed a fellowship at A.N.A.M. in 2015.
She has had wide performance experience as both a soloist and ensemble singer and has a particular passion for contemporary music, having performed works by masters such as Boulez, Berio, Grisey, Feldman, Furrer, Gifford, Salonen and Ligeti. Her work with new music groups include concerts with Bang on a Can, Arcko Symphonic Ensemble, Icon Trio, Hutes, Astra, Melbourne University’s New Music Studio, Forrest Collective and as a guest artist at A.N.A.M.
Justine is principal soprano with the Melbourne based opera company Emotionworks opera and her roles include Pamina in The Magic Flute, Michaela in Carmen, The Witch in Hansel and Gretel, Tosca in Tosca and Violetta in La Traviata. In 2013 she played Brunhilda as part of a collaboration between Emotionworks and Opera Australia’s Melbourne Ring Festival.

Other highlights include a performance as a nightclub singer in the short film ‘The Black Pine Road’, a role in the play Orphanage of Animals (Awarded the Medal of Ulm, Germany 2012) and Matthew Hindson’s opera Love Death Music Plants. Justine has also worked with Inventi Chamber Ensemble and as a soloist in various Oratorio performances. Festival performances include B.I.F.E.M, Canberra Festival, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Port Fairy Spring Festival, Darebin Music Feast and Melbourne Fringe Festival.

In 2008 Justine recorded for the ABC the Australian premiere of the Alberto Ginastera work Cantata for Magic America as part of the Simplot International Masterclass Series. In 2016 Justine recorded Jonathan Mills Ethereal Eye and performed this work as part of the Melbourne Festival. In 2017 Justine’s group Icon Trio, will accept an invitation to tour Scotland with their Scot’s Haiku project.
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Meet the composers – Nirmali Fenn

Filed under: Artists, Composers, Homophonic! — 1 Comment
January 6, 2017

nirmali-fennNirmali Fenn is a Sri Lankan-born Australian composer. She received her initial music education in Australia from the universities of New South Wales and Melbourne, graduating with high distinction. With the support of a prestigious Clarendon Fund Scholarship, she later read music at Oxford University, U.K. She has worked on the faculties of the University of Hong Kong, New York University, University of New South Wales and currently works at Yale-NUS College, Singapore.

Nirmali’s music often involves a lot of theatre and she has collaborated with some of Asia’s most respected choreographers, such as Pun Siu Fai and Daniel Leung. Her collaboration with the Guangdong Modern Dance Company opened the 9th Guangdong Dance Festival in Guangzhou, China.

Nirmali has served as composer-in-residence at a number of major European festivals, most notably the Lakes District Summer Music Festival in the U.K. and the Saxophone Habanera Festival in Poitiers, France. Of the first performance of her song cycle Over Exposed at Abbaye Royaumont in Paris, Le Monde praised it as “standing out in the genre of ‘songs’ of today” and La Croix described it as “deeply moving”. Her compositions have been performed by the Arditti String Quartet, Ensemble Cairn, Ensemble Linea, the Kuss Quartet, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Tin Alley String Quartet, Sounds Underground, the Endymion Ensemble, the Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Ensemble Concorde, the S.E.M Ensemble, Prague Modern and the Eastman Broadband Ensemble.

Through her music, Nirmali often challenges performers to ‘see’ with their ears and construct spatial ‘views’ of their surroundings. She believes that sound is one tool to give audiences the chance to experience the volume of the space in which they exist.

“Your music is like a work by a great artist. From every perspective, the proportions are perfect”
Wolfgang Rihm

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Meet the Homophonic 2017 composers – Marc Yeats

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Marc Yeats

Composer and visual artist Marc Yeats has gained international renown over the last 20 years, through his works being commissioned and performed by world famous orchestras such as The Halle, London Sinfonietta, BBC and Tokyo City Philharmonic’s, New York Miniaturists Ensemble and many more. His work has often been featured in BBC broadcast commissions, as well as in Germany, US, New Zealand and elsewhere.

The chance to be one of just 10 participants at the famous Hoy Summer School introduced him to the legendary Sir Peter Maxwell Davis, who maintained a keen interest in Marc’s career up to his recent sad passing. Indeed, it was he who conducted Marc’s first commission for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the St Magnus Festival almost two decades ago.

Among his many compositions are: ‘I See Blue’ (his first orchestral work), ‘the round and square art of memory for piano and orchestra [BBC Philharmonic commission] and ‘My Blood Is As Red As Yours’ commissioned by The Halle to celebrate World Aids Day 2008.

Today, positioned as a leading contemporary composer, Marc is managed by Noel Music Management. He continues to expand his musical horizons in work with mobile technologies and in developing a range of asynchronous structures in his compositions.

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Meet the musicians – Jennifer Mills

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January 31, 2016
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Jennifer Mills is an ex-violinist who plays cello. She has performed in many creative spheres including as a classical soloist, orchestral and chamber musician, and as an improviser, on stages or in studios, galleries, warehouses and tents.

Based in Melbourne, Jennifer completed her Bachelor of Music Performance (Honours) and Master of Music Performance at the Victorian College of the Arts under Josephine Vains, Rohan DeKorte and Timothy Walden. Since then, she has undertaken a second Masters degree at Monash University with Svetlana Bogosavljevic, focusing on orchestral studies, and is currently posted as a live Music Producer with ABC Classic.

In addition to her freelance work in Melbourne, Jennifer has toured nationally and internationally with Co*Opera, and given performances in France, Russia, New Zealand and Malaysia.

 
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Meet the musicians – Andrew Collyer

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Andrew began singing in church choirs at age 7 and delighted many with his boy soprano stylings (and blonde undercut) as a chorister with the the National Boys Choir in the early ’90s. Andrew completed his Bachelor of Music at ACU, majoring in vocal performance and choral conducting.

In 2011 Andrew toured Europe with the Australian Chamber Choir, his boyish looks and enthusiasm for potato salad winning the hearts and minds of Hausfrauen from Cologne to Leipzig.

In his spare time he volunteers coordinating string and vocal ensembles at St Paul’s church, Box Hill, and assists as a tenor soloist in the church’s Bach Cantata project.

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Meet the musicians – Gemma Horbury

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January 29, 2016

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Photo by Bryony Jackson

Gemma Horbury is a performer, artist and educator with a passion for music that defies genre: her work shifts between technological innovation and tradition, yet is underpinned by deep connections to sustainability and developing individual and community capacity through the arts. Gemma is musical director of world music ensemble Orkeztra Glasso Bashalde and regularly performs with groups including Lo-res and Tek Tek Ensemble.

Her diverse portfolio includes performing as soloist with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, co-ordinating a TV channel for adolescent hospital patients, producing a skateboarding DVD, and studying musical instrument making and historic performance practice in the United Kingdom.

Her irrepressible enthusiasm for all things creative has seen her awarded for her visual art (Northern Exposure), music teaching (Yamaha Jazz Spirit Award) and performance –  in 2015 she was crowned Australia’s “Queen of Improvisation” – our very own Improv Idol.

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