Percussionist, Composer, Author
The debut of Spankinhide in my time at the Conservatorium! I decided to bring Elliott and Piers, my bandmates from Spankinhide, to play some African drumming in my recital and share a part of my musical background. The great thing about being in my final year at uni was being able to choose what I wanted to play and to play some unconventional things.
It was an out of the ordinary experience as well, because I’d never led any pieces in Spankinhide. I was always playing accompaniment parts
This week I'm going to have the pleasure of joining my best friend Lachlan Hawkins onstage for his debut handpan concert. He'll be premiering his compositions for handpan and collaborating with other instrumentalists on original music. I will be joining in on some handpan and percussion.
'No Enemy Within' is his latest musical project and I think it's about time the world got to hear his music. I've seen his interest for this thing grow since he bought his first handpan in 2014 and I can
I find that the greatest thing about recitals is, the closer I get to the end of my degree the more freedom I have to perform music that I enjoy listening to and that I’m interested in. A great example of this in my Semester 1 Recital 2015 was Marimba Phase by Steve Reich.
It can be hard sometimes to create interest and musicality in studies and etudes, most times because they’re not written as “music” but more as technical exercises that are designed to mess with your brain and challenge a
MARIMBICS by Markus Halt is a four-mallet marimba solo that I have interpreted as the ‘Marimba Olympics’. Each section of the piece challenges the performer to play with different technique and cope with changing ‘tonal worlds’. It is a trip down the rabbit hole involving high technical demand and quirky musical ideas.
This was definitely one of the most challenging marimba solos I had played up until this point in uni, in my recital and just in general. The process of choosing
Suomineito is a four-mallet vibraphone solo written by Nebojša Jovan Živković. Suomineito in Finnish, in the language of the "Suomi" people (as the Finns calls themselves) means "Finnish girl". This quiet and melancholic composition was inspired by an original folk song from Finland, called "Heili Karjalasta". In Suomi, this means "a friend from Karelia", a region that used to be a part of Finland.
This is a heart wrenching piece and I loved playing it because of the music and the challenge.
MEDITATION NO. 1 by Casey Cangelosi is a snare drum solo that was commissioned by Majestic for the U.S. release of the Prophonic snare series. This unique solo employs a variety of contemporary techniques, like the use of hands, different striking places on the rim and gestures. It is a very visual piece that aims to captivate the audience’s eyes as well as their ears.
I worked my but off for this one!
I enjoyed learning and performing this piece because of its attention to detail and the
For their end of year concert in 2015, the Kenmore State High School Percussion Ensemble at their annual event 'Kenmore up Late', performed my paint drumming composition 'Etna'! I was invited by their percussion teacher Tania Savage to come and spend time with the group in a photoshoot for the local paper and later on for one rehearsal before the concert.
We spent the morning of the photoshoot clearing out the percussion store room and setting up all of my paint drumming gear. During the
This was the greatest gig ever! I don’t think I’ve had so much fun performing and improvising on stage in such a long time. I had the opportunity to play with the Band of Frequencies and the Con Artists on percussion for a special concert in the 2015 Conservatorium Theatre series. Standing Waves.
The Con Artists, the conservatorium’s leading jazz ensemble, collaborated with the Band of Frequencies (which is sort of like a surf rock/reggae/roots band but even more incredibly epic) on their
UPCOMING GIG NEWS! SoundStruck Performs at Paint it Red!
This weekend, Saturday the 20th of February at 7pm, SOUNDSTRUCK will be performing our paint drumming performance 'Etna' at the monthly event 'Paint it Red'. Follow the link event for all the details - Event link
Paint it Red is a monthly collaborative music and art event held at Jugglers Art Space in Fortitude Valley and other venues across Brisbane and Melbourne.
The first ever performance of my composition 'The Angels are Coming' for harmonic whirlies!
One of the many benefits of rehearsing in public spaces is that everyone sees you and asks what you're doing. Lucky for me, one such peer was interested enough to involve my chorale for harmonic whirlies in a local fundraiser for the Gondwana voices. I went with Ba Da Boom Percussion to Saint Peter's Lutheran College to perform my chorale for harmonic whirlies and experienced a wonderful event.
