100% Effort 0% Achievement - 14th April 2025 at Lazy Thinking.
Elsen Price: This is a new night i am curating, inviting interesting musicians to come and play some music.
Solo playing has been a very big part my creative life for most of my creative life, with the wonderful opportunities to do multiple tours of Australia, New Zealand and Japan, plus performances in Taiwan, Czech Republic, India and the UK.
It started with 5 hour improvisations in Cafes in Marrickville in 2012, to featuring at Sydney Festival, Vivid Festival, Auckland University, BassEurope, St Xaviers College Mumbai, Wells Cathedral UK and Palmerston Place Edinburgh.
Series No.1 featured artists: Keyna Wilkins and Mark Oliveiro.
Keyna Wilkins is a pioneering Australian/British composer-musician. She was one of three finalists for the Australian Art Music Awards for Individual Excellence in 2021 and 2018 (APRA/AMCOS). Her music has been described by The Sydney Morning Herald as "arresting, genre-blurring...disquieting music with massive breadth and high drama", by Limelight Magazine as "Debussy, Miles Davis and flamenco in equal parts...an irresistible mix" and Jazz in Europe as "creating soundtracks for the biggest issues in our time". She has written over 60 art music works that are performed internationally and published by Wirripang, has been featured on ABC, and writes music for film and theatre. Having released 10 albums of original music, she performs regularly as an innovative soloist and improviser and leader of cutting edge ensembles around the world and has been described by Jazz Journal UK as "a powerhouse player".
Stylistically broad, her music embarks on a journey of impressionistic dream-like sequences alongside landscape depictions, existential spiritual quests, and whimsical gestures alongside driving rhythms, characterised by a passion for human rights, a fascination with astronomy, Indigenous First Nations culture, jazz, dance forms and intuitive improvisation. In 2021 and 2022 Wilkins has collaborated with 6 refugees detained for 9 years by the Australian government via zoom from their prison cells, victims of Australia's mandatory detention laws. Wilkins has full representation with the Australian Music Centre and has five tunes in the Australian Jazz Realbook.
Her major works include a triple flute concerto, a flute concerto and a didgeridu concerto, "Celestial Emu", which she wrote in collaboration with leading didgeridu soloist, Gumaroy Newman, and was performed by The Metropolitan Orchestra in 2020. Sydney Arts Guide describes the premiere: "To hear the unmistakable reference to First Nations song so well pitted against TMO’s Western Art Music instruments creating such evocative cells of expression with humility and sincerity in new music devoid of borrowings from tribal repertoire was a touching, inspiring and admirable step forward. it received an extended and hearty standing ovation and will add tremendously to our orchestral music canon." She also presents workshops and lectures on her own method of teaching improvisation for self-expression, performance confidence and orignal composition at conferences and universities in Australia and USA. More info: www.keynawilkins.com
Dr Mark Oliveiro is a graduate and distinguished alumnus of the Sydney Conservatorium, the College of Music, the University of North Texas and the School of Music of Indiana University.
As well as working as an academic lecturer at AIM, Mark is a composer with diverse extra-musical interests including history, mythology and ancient literature.
At present, he has an interest in exploring, by way of conceptual abstract and musical aesthetic, the notion of reconstructing lost or imagined performance traditions. Dance and movement, theatrics and technology, language and social media, are just some of the non-musical solutions most apt for his ever expanding, contemporary composer tool belt.
With a keen and equal interest in acoustic and electronic music as well as interactive media, Mark’s music has been represented at national and international conferences and festivals including the World Saxophone Congress, the International Horn Society, the International Computer Music Association, the Society of Electroacoustic Music, Electronic Music Midwest and Vivid Music.
6pm
380 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill, Sydney NSW Australia
$15 donation
Food and Drinks available.