Sonic Spaces

Over more than 20 years, Maissa has been a vital presence in the contemporary Arab Australian arts community. She is a founding member of the Western Sydney–based Arab Theatre Studio, and the creative director and lead vocalist of Ensemble Dandana, a collective dedicated to creating Arabic music, delivering workshops, and reimagining traditional sounds through experimental public improvisations. She is currently cultivating Sonic Nafas (breath), an experimental collective space of breath, listening, and improvisation through the CultureLAB Residency at The Warehouse, Arts House, Naarm / Melbourne.

Maissa’s practice moves fluidly between genres and cultures. She has performed with Arabic and Persian jazz ensembles as well as contemporary and classical Western orchestras, including the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Her work has been presented on many of Australia’s most respected stages, from the Sydney Opera House and Carriageworks to the City Recital Hall, Phoenix Central, Performance Space, the Biennale of Sydney and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Internationally, she has been featured in Germany as part of Documenta Fifteen, one of the world’s foremost contemporary art exhibitions.

Alyx Dennison is a singer-songwriter, composer and sound artist living and working on Wangal and Gadigal land. She was one half of beloved experimental pop duo kyü alongside Freya Berkhout, releasing two critically acclaimed albums before disbanding on a high in 2012. In 2015, her debut solo LP was lauded as a marked evolution from her previous work, with music journalist Kate Hennessy writing of her ‘ability to take pain to the loom and spin it into pure light’.

Since then, Alyx has established herself as a highly versatile composer and sound artist, moving across contemporary art, dance, film and theatre. She has written original music for Belvoir St Theatre, Griffin Theatre, Sydney Dance Company, and Australasian Dance Collective, - as well as some of the country’'s most exciting choreographers and performance makers, including Charmene Yap, Cass Eipper, Thomas E .S. Kelly, Taree Sansbury and Sara Black. In 2022, she scored Lauren Brincat’s large-scale performance project Other tempo, for the Sydney Opera House and Vivid Sydney.

In 2022, Alyx released her anticipated sophomore LP, Fine. Good. Great. Super., which previewed at Phoenix Central Park, Chippendale.

Bree van Reyk is a drummer, percussionist, composer, sound artist and occasional maker of unkempt musical instruments.

Her debut album, superclusters, was released in Autumn 2022 through Hobbledehoy Records. Superclusters is a large-scale quasi-improvised massed instrumental ensemble work in five parts which spans from experimental noise through to nostalgic dream-scapes. A wide array of musicians feature on the album, including Jim White and Mick Turner (Dirty Three), Véronique Serret (Gurrumul, Joanna Newsom), Nick Wales (CODA), Jess Green (Pheno), Zoe + Ben Hauptmann, Evan Mannell, Timothy Constable and many more.

Over the past 20 or so years Bree has forged a unique career playing and recording with a diverse range of artists including Gurrumul, Emma Donovan, Paul Kelly, Holly Throsby, the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) and Mike Patton, Ensemble Offspring, Synergy Percussion and many more.

As a composer and sound artist Bree has been commissioned by the SSO, Dark MOFO, Sydney Chamber Opera, Marrageku Dance Theatre, AGNSW, GOMA, NGV and the MCA, who acquired her performance work, Molto Echo, made in collaboration with Lauren Brincat, for their permanent collection. Bree holds an Associate Lecturer role at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she is completing a Doctorate of Musical Arts under supervision of Liza Lim.

Recent commissions include Threaded in Amongst the Infinite Threading for Genevieve Lacey and Marshall McGuire - part of their ARIA Award-winning ‘Bower’ release, which earned Bree a finalist position in the APRA/AMCOS/AMC Art Music Awards 2022; The Invisible Bird for Sydney Chamber Opera, and Fanfare for Solidarity for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Upcoming commissions include a large scale dramatic work for the Sydney Chamber Opera, new work for Ensemble Offspring featuring Jane Sheldon and a collaboration with Darren Hanlon and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra for MONAFOMA 2023.

Bree lives and works on the un-ceded lands of the Gadigal and Bidjigal people.

From the set of Play School to Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Claire Edwardes OAM is Australia's ‘sorceress of percussion’ (City News, Canberra). The only Australian to win the 'APRA Art Music Luminary Award’ four times, Claire leaps between her role as Ensemble Offspring Artistic Director (2019 Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award winners) and concerto performances with all the Australian and New Zealand orchestras plus several European orchestras. Add her genre-spanning solo concerts, a broad spectrum of cross art form collaborations, commissioning and premiering hundreds of new works by Australian and international composers including Harrison Birtwistle, Louis Andriessen, Elena Kats-Chernin and Holly Harrison, teaching at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music to passionately advocating for gender equity and diversity in classical music. As a true trailblazer, perhaps her most significant contribution, beyond her endless quest for excellence in performance, is in breaking down the barriers between art music and audiences. With an on stage and behind the scenes infectious enthusiasm for bringing new music to unexpected places, she wows audiences with her unique performances on marimba, vibraphone, drums, percussion and more unusual instruments such as the waterphone and cajon. As recently described by The Age Claire is a ‘prodigiously talented Australian…an invigorating musical life force.'

Eric Avery, Kabi Marrawuy Mumbulla, is a violinist, vocalist, dancer and composer from the Ngiyampaa, Yuin and Gumbangirr people of NSW. He works with his family’s custodial songs and his haunting compositions often feature him singing while playing violin, predominantly in the Ngiyampaa language.

Quickly gaining an international reputation, Eric has appeared alongside and in association with some of the greatest artists of our time, from Yo-Yo Ma to Tina Arena. He has commissions and performances booked with Camerata Queensland, Ensemble Offspring, the JACK Quartet, Marrugeku and several of Australia’s major orchestras. In 2021 he received a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship.

Best known for his work with the pioneering trio The Necks, Chris Abrahams brings a distinctive sensibility shaped by decades of minimalist and improvisational practice. Clare Cooper’s work expands the vocabulary of both the concert harp and the guzheng, creating textures that dissolve traditional boundaries between Eastern and Western musical lineages. Their acclaimed double album, For Guzheng & DX7 (2009), was described by The Wire as ‘a madly generous’ collision of ‘heartbeat pulses, digital gargling and mutoid disco sci-fakery’, countered at every turn by Cooper’s raw, searching string work.

Jim Moginie is an Australian musician. He is best known for his work with Midnight Oil, of which he is a founding member, guitarist, keyboardist and leading songwriter.

Eight-time ARIA Award-winning artist Joseph Tawadros challenges traditional musical forms by seamlessly blending elements of western classical, jazz, world, folk and even metal and bluegrass. The acclaimed composer and oud virtuoso’s performance will feature work that ranges from thrilling and furiously paced to introspective and tranquil.

Renowned performer Nardi Simpson will take you on a powerful and moving journey through song and storytelling . Accompanied by a keyboardist, Nardi will weave contemporary and traditional song interspersed with personal stories for a truly unforgettable musical experience.

Vazesh is a unique ARIA-nominated collaboration between acclaimed musicians Jeremy Rose (saxophone), Hamed Sadeghi (Persian tar) and Lloyd Swanton (bass). The trio will explore long-form improvisation driven by spontaneous compositions that are inspired by their own varied personal musical inspirations. Join us for an unmissable live performance.

Véronique Serret is a violinist, vocalist and composer who effortlessly bridges the divide between classical and contemporary art forms. Folk, rock, experimental jazz, dance and improvisation all contribute to her musical palette.

Blending loops, delays, reverbs and vocals, Véronique redefines the expression of the violin. An evershifting landscape. A musical language activated by the raw acoustic sounds of the Australian bush, her love of birds, peppered with her colourful Mauritian heritage, a life on the road, rigorous classical training and a love of deep listening combine to generate a contemporary sonic field.

Ziggy Ramo is a singer and songwriter known for his lyricism and story-telling ability. The son of an Aboriginal and Solomon Islander father and a mother of Scottish heritage, Ziggy’s experiences with racism in Australia have led him towards activism, both in his music and in the wider world.

Through his music, Ziggy aims to tell the story of Australia’s true race history, so that we can move forward and find answers that will help us improve.

Ziggy captured the attention of the Australian public with his single ‘Little things’, a heartfelt update of Paul Kelly’s ‘From little things big things grow’ that put forward a First Nations perspective on invasion, intergenerational trauma and deaths in custody.