Of Deities and Demons grew directly out of AAO Artistic Director Peter Knight’s meeting with drummer and Baliphonics leader Samudi Suraweera during a visit Knight made to Sri Lanka. The conversations and the friendship that grew between these two musicians led to the idea of meshing the experimental inclinations of the AAO with the yak bera (demon drum), and other traditional instruments of Sri Lanka.
“There is something musical about the way Gerald Murnane writes about Australian landscape, it’s an interesting place to compose music from,” Peter Knight says.
Kim Myhr: “For me, when I approach the piece and the composition it is important that the audience doesn’t have a feeling that the musicians are just reading through a big score, but they are actually really present and making music. The score is just a score but the music happens in the room and in the space.”
The Creative Music Intensive residency, established in 2014, is a groundbreaking cross-cultural residency created by the Australian Art Orchestra, aiming to provide a unique professional development program for musicians from across Australia and Asia, fostering collaboration and dialogue in a meeting of cultures and practice
From the media release The Australian Art Music Awards finalists have been announced. Among them (of course) are a number of Australian jazz musicians and […] Read More
APRA (Australasian Performing Right Association) and the AMC (Australian Music Centre) are proud to announce the finalists for the 2013 Art Music Awards, an event which celebrates the outstanding achievements of composers, performers and educators in the dynamic fields of contemporary classical, jazz and experimental music.
‘…we might fall on our arses once or twice, but it’s often when you’re searching that the best things happen…’
Archie Roach joins the Australian Art Orchestra for Passion at the Melbourne Recital Centre, March 2009. Soloists: Piano – Paul Grabowsky, Voice – Archie Roach
Brian Ormsby was one of the lucky extempore subscribers who won a double pass to hear The Australian Art Orchestra’s Crossing Roper Bar. Here’s what he had to say…
“…I had some reservations as to whether the project of interspersing jazz with traditional Australian music and dance would work. However any such doubts were very quickly dispelled…”
