The Substation/​ Artist/​Australian Art Orchestra/

PRESENTED BY MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL

For almost 30 years, the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) has been one of Australia’s premier music ensembles, creating music that has helped to define unique approaches to creative music that are distinctly Australian. Now under the Artistic Direction of the creatively fearless Aaron Choulai, the AAO enters a new and exciting era, with works that will reflect Choulai’s cultural and professional connections, exploring music of the Asia-Pacific, jazz and beyond.

Based on Choulai’s critically acclaimed 2020 release, and reimagined for the Australian Art Orchestra, Raw Denshi explores new pathways of experimentation in hip-hop and improvisation, bringing together two of Tokyo’s most prominent and influential MC’s and the AAO. Featuring pioneers of Japanese hip-hop, Kojoe and Hikaru Tanaka, Raw Denshi combines bilingual rapping and structured and free improvisation, woven together by Choulai’s distinct approach to composition.

The Australian Art Orchestra’s take on Raw Denshi celebrates cultural unity and creative expression through the intersections of Australian and Japanese contemporary languages in rhyming and improvisation.

ACCESS

The Substation is wheelchair accessible and gender neutral accessible toilets are available. Visitors may enter The Substation using the ramp or stairs at the main entrance. There is a lift on the ground floor, to the left of the foyer, providing access to levels 1 and 2.




LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

The Substation is just one of many venues across Melbourne that comes alive during Australia's largest jazz festival from 20 to 29 October.

Visit the Melbourne International Jazz Festival website for more details.


BUY TICKETS

Tickets are available via the Melbourne International Jazz Festival website.

For any ticketing enquiries or general questions please contact Melbourne International Jazz Festival at info@melbournejazz.com or on +61 3 9001 1388.

One ensemble, three composers: The Australian Art Orchestra presents Market St Commissions – a program of three new works composed for Australia’s finest improvisers.

Three prolific, up-and-coming composers—Jess Green (ACT), Joseph O’Connor (VIC) and Carolyn Schofield (VIC)—have developed new compositions for an 11-piece ensemble, breaking new ground for Australian Art Orchestra.

Jess Green seeks to energise the audience, and to “create a space for musicians to connect with each other and find these shimmery moments.” Jess is a guitarist, vocalist and composer. Based in Canberra, her composition and songwriting spans instrumental jazz, rock, indie pop and experimental music.

Joseph O’Connor considers the interaction between restraint and urgency, “exploring a greater emphasis on timbre and orchestration, using those things in a way that focuses in on intimacy and vulnerability.” Joe is a Melbourne based pianist and composer engaging with improvised, notated and experimental practices. His work currently explores a delicate harmonic sensibility that unfolds slowly in asymmetrical cycles.

Carolyn Schofield aka Fia Fiell draws upon a curiosity surrounding synesthesia and how others interpret visual rhythms. Schofield explains, “our whole experience of music is about creating meaning from abstract elements of sound. It makes sense to think about things in a synaesthetic way.” Vietnamese-Australian electronic/synth musician Carolyn Schofield, aka Fia Fiell, combines her profound practical and theoretical knowledge as a pianist/composer with a modern and perceptive ear for stretching out the orbit of millennial electronic music constructs.

Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) explores the meeting points between disciplines and cultures, and imagines new musical forms to reflect the energy and diversity of 21st century Australia. With an emphasis on improvisation, the AAO constantly seeks to stretch genres and break down the barriers between disciplines, forms and cultures.

ENSEMBLE

Peter Knight – Artistic Director (AAO) / Trumpet / Electronics
Stephen Magnusson – Guitar
Tony Hicks – Woodwinds
James Macaulay – Trombone
Joe Talia – Drums
Sunny Kim – Voice
Lizzy Welsh – Violin
Mindy Meng Wang – Guzheng
Helen Svoboda – Bass / Voice
Reuben Lewis – Trumpet / Electronics
Jem Savage – Sound Engineer

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Sound and Tech Producer – Jem Savage

ACCESS

An Auslan interpreted artist talk will commence shortly after the performance from 9:15–9:45pm.

CONTENT WARNING

Please be advised that this performance contains high noise levels.

PRESENTED BY THE SUBSTATION AND AUSTRALIAN ART ORCHESTRA

The Australian Art Orchestra presents 1988 — a new work composed by Dung Nguyen and Peter Knight for the Australian Art Orchestra with visual design by Phuong Ngo.

The fall of Saigon in 1975 triggered a mass exodus of South Vietnamese from their homeland by sea. It is estimated that anywhere between one to two million people would eventually flee the country, of this it is estimated that half perished at sea. One of the lucky ones was Quí Văn Nguyễn.

1988 was a pivotal year for Dung Nguyen as he emigrated from South Vietnam to Australia, to join Quí Văn Nguyễn, his father.

1988 is the point of arrival and the point of departure, the end of one journey and the start of another; yet it is one story, Dung’s story told in fragments. 1988 is misaligned, disjointed and cyclical, it borrows from the memories of the Vietnamese people, but is corrupted by a sense of nostalgia. It intertwines personal narratives, diverse music practices, history, and cultural legacies, in seeking to understand how and why we come to occupy the spaces we find ourselves in.

Consisting of 9 compositions that bleed into one another, the individual musical practices of the players in the ensemble come together to collectively tell this story with Dung. It is a moment of togetherness that is owed to the richness of his experiences and that of the Vietnamese people. Accompanied by a dynamic and experimental visual design using vintage slide projectors to present personal and archival images, 1988's compositions interweave with the whir and click of the technology, creating a unique musical texture that reflects and highlights the stories being told.

1988 is composed by Dung Nguyen and Peter Knight for the Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) with visual design by Phuong Ngo. It proposes a rich context for the cultural and musical practices highlighted in the work, their place in contemporary Australian culture, and their relationship to the Vietnamese diaspora experience.

ARTIST TALK
There will be an Auslan interpreted artist talk following the premiere performance on Friday, 1 April 2022.

FREE NFT ARTWORK
As part of 1988, and for the first time, the AAO is collaborating with the University of Melbourne, School of Computing and Information Systems, to offer audiences a collectable NFT (non-fungible token).

To support artists — and also better understand the potential of NFTs and blockchain technology — 50 NFTs have been minted on the Algorand blockchain and will be offered for free to 50 curious audience members as part of a pre-sale ticket offer.

On the day of the performance, those 50 ticket holders will receive an e-mail notification with details of how to view their NFT, which will consist of a one-off audiovisual piece not available on any other platform.

ACCESS
This event is wheelchair accessible and gender neutral accessible toilets are available.
1988 is designed for a seated audience and contains sonic and visual content.
There will be an Auslan interpreted artist talk following the premiere performance on Friday, 1 April 2022.

CREDITS
Lead composers: Dung Nguyen and Peter Knight
Devised by: Dung Nguyen, Phuong Ngo, Tamara Saulwick, Peter Knight, Minh Ha Patmore, Erik Griswold, Vanessa Tomlinson, Helen Svoboda
Performers: Dung Nguyen, Peter Knight, Minh Ha Patmore, Erik Griswold, Vanessa Tomlinson, Helen Svoboda, Phuong Ngo
Visual Design: Phuong Ngo
Dramaturgy: Tamara Saulwick
Lighting Design: Rob Sowinski
Producer and Technical Director: Jem Savage
Artistic Director: Peter Knight
Executive Producer: Rosemary Willink

Kim Myhr takes to the stage with one of Australia’s most distinctive and adventurous contemporary music ensembles the Australian Art Orchestra, performing the world premiere of a work he created especially for the shape-shifting 10-piece orchestra. Two violinists, two drummers, bass, hammered dulcimer, electronics, bass clarinet, Revox reel-to-reel tape machine and Myhr’s 12-string electric guitar make up the unusual sonic union.

Award-winning young bass clarinet virtuoso, Aviva Endean , incendiary violinist Erikki Veltheim, Tony Buck and Peter Knight are amongst the musician line-up.

Kim Myhr, guitar
Peter Knight, trumpet, electronics
Aviva Endean, bass clarinet
Tony Buck drum kit
Lizzy Welsh, violin
Erkki Veltheim, violin
Jacques Emery, contra bass, hammered dulcimer
Joe Talia, Revox B77 reel-to-reel tape machine, percussion
Jem Savage, sound design, live sound

Presented by The Substation and the Melbourne International Jazz Festival

Sparked off by one of the imaginary lands in Italo Calvino's novella Invisible Cities, Australian Art Orchestra’s Diomira is an expedition forging a path between the observable and the unreal.

Chamber jazz orchestra expands with the additions of turntables, reel-to-reel tape machines and live signal processing, while the sounds of acoustic instruments and voices are interwoven with vinyl-cut field recordings, toying with perceptions of what is heard and what has only been imagined. This layered sound world is further augmented by multiscreen projections as time folds into itself, leaving the residue of moments half-remembered.

Exploring the spaces between the avant-garde and the traditional, art and popular music since 1994, Australian Art Orchestra is fired by the same spirit of restlessness that drove the earliest pioneers of jazz to produce music that defined the twentieth century.

Presented by The Substation and Melbourne Festival.