Cadence - End of Music
This work is based on the idea of musicians as theatre protagonists. It is a theatre of music rather than music theatre. Based on text, music, structured improvisation and physical performance principles.
This is a passionate love letter to acoustic music as theatre. Musicians out of time and place make funny animating the history of human performance at a moment where music is everywhere, but like supermarket food often ultra processed and skewed toward mass consumption. Phantom arts workers emerge in a reverie of imagination, rigorous training and intentional play.
This project began in 2022 when Dan Witton was compelled to write oddments of text and music to use as provocations for musicians. Together with ideas and enticements collated from cherished collaborators and fragments of historical research, interpreted and developed by an ensemble of musician performers. The pit explodes with the drama of human relation and an agenda of complicity. Invoking melancholic joy, beauty, intimacy and other intangible visitations.
The work was explored over two weeks in April/May 2025. See the showing here (20 mins)
The development of this project was supported by La Mama Theatre's 2025 Residency Program
This new work will test dramaturgical processes, training and music composition towards performance outcomes viable for touring.
This is a passionate love letter to acoustic music as theatre. Musicians out of time and place make funny animating the history of human performance at a moment where music is everywhere, but like supermarket food often ultra processed and skewed toward mass consumption. Phantom arts workers emerge in a reverie of imagination, rigorous training and intentional play.
This project began in 2022 when Dan Witton was compelled to write oddments of text and music to use as provocations for musicians. Together with ideas and enticements collated from cherished collaborators and fragments of historical research, interpreted and developed by an ensemble of musician performers. The pit explodes with the drama of human relation and an agenda of complicity. Invoking melancholic joy, beauty, intimacy and other intangible visitations.
The work was explored over two weeks in April/May 2025. See the showing here (20 mins)
The development of this project was supported by La Mama Theatre's 2025 Residency Program
This new work will test dramaturgical processes, training and music composition towards performance outcomes viable for touring.
3 Minute Video
Cadence - End of Music - Project Biographies
Dan Witton is a performer and art worker based in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia) with a diverse background in physically based theatre, electronic arts, music, and voice. He has toured with theatre and music projects, including The Sunshine Club (Wesley Enoch/John Rogers), Lady Day at the Emerson Bar and Grill (MTC/State Theatre SA/Belvoir), and performances at Carnegie Hall with Meow Meow Sequins and Satire, Divas and Disruptors: The Wild Women of the Weimar Republic. He has also appeared at the National Celtic Festival with Bush Gothic and the Côr of the Matter, a welsh language art music project .
His training spans circus arts, performance skills (voice, movement, drama, and dance), as well as musical disciplines such as strings, keyboard, brass, voice, and composition.
Work with various companies, producing, and commissioning projects include:
Artplay (Sonic Labyrinth, Baby Whispering), Melbourne Recital Centre (Urchin), Still Awake Still (New Victory Theatre, US and Australian tours) Malthouse Theatre (Cosmonaut, Woyzek, Mary Maclean, Apocalypse Meow, The Red Shoes) Opera Australia (The Rabbits, Boris Godunov) Circus Oz, ABC & SBS Television, Belvoir St Theatre (HATE, Etcetera) Strange Fruit (Sydney Festival, Shizuoka Festival) Not Yet It's Difficult (Hanover World Expo) Blue Grassy Knoll (Galway Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, Capetown SA), Magpie Theatre (Verona, Bogota), The Ennio Morricone Experience (UK, Sydney Opera House, Arts House Melbourne) Chamber Made Opera (Phobia) Bush Gothic (Jodhpur RIFF, Womadelaide, UK, Australia) Desoxy Theatre (Sydney Festival, PICA, Adelaide Festival, Tokyo, Venezuela, UK, Belgium, Austria, Netherlands, Spain) https://www.danwitton.com.au/
His training spans circus arts, performance skills (voice, movement, drama, and dance), as well as musical disciplines such as strings, keyboard, brass, voice, and composition.
Work with various companies, producing, and commissioning projects include:
Artplay (Sonic Labyrinth, Baby Whispering), Melbourne Recital Centre (Urchin), Still Awake Still (New Victory Theatre, US and Australian tours) Malthouse Theatre (Cosmonaut, Woyzek, Mary Maclean, Apocalypse Meow, The Red Shoes) Opera Australia (The Rabbits, Boris Godunov) Circus Oz, ABC & SBS Television, Belvoir St Theatre (HATE, Etcetera) Strange Fruit (Sydney Festival, Shizuoka Festival) Not Yet It's Difficult (Hanover World Expo) Blue Grassy Knoll (Galway Festival, Edinburgh Fringe, Capetown SA), Magpie Theatre (Verona, Bogota), The Ennio Morricone Experience (UK, Sydney Opera House, Arts House Melbourne) Chamber Made Opera (Phobia) Bush Gothic (Jodhpur RIFF, Womadelaide, UK, Australia) Desoxy Theatre (Sydney Festival, PICA, Adelaide Festival, Tokyo, Venezuela, UK, Belgium, Austria, Netherlands, Spain) https://www.danwitton.com.au/
Gemma Horbury is a musician, storyteller and transdisciplinary artist. She uses art to imagine radical futures, working as a Peatland Sonification Researcher in RMIT University’s Soil-Atmosphere-Anthroposphere Lab, in collaboration with international partners including the Borneo Orangutang Survival Foundation. Her groundbreaking spoken word album “The Story of Here” was a national finalist in the 2024 APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards, and she was a co-recipient of the Melbourne International Women’s Jazz Festival Recording Prize (2019). Gem has appeared as a featured performer with groups as diverse as the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, RockWiz, Yana Alana and the Paranas, and the JazzLab Orcheztra. www.gemmahorbury.com/
Justin Marshall is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, sound producer, musician and band leader who has worked for over 25 years in contemporary sound art, theatre, popular, improvised and world music. His work is diverse, from "Sonic Labyrinth" with Aviva Endean to award winning albums with Zulya and The Children of The Underground and The Putbacks and sound designs for work at the intersection of cultural identities and contemporary sound production like "The Maloya Moshpit".
Recent work includes musical director for the 150th Celebration of Her Majesty's Theatre in Ballarat produced by Every Body Now! overseeing the music for over 150 participants Castlemaine Circuses "Playing On The Edge" show, facilitating, mentoring and creating new work in the Prototype and Expanding Fields of Practice programs for Punctum Inc, and the AAO, sound design for Jessica Wilson's "The Wayfinders" as well as touring in the US and Australia with Emma Donovan and The Putbacks.
He was a founding member of Speak Percussion, and has worked closely with The Cumbia Cosmonauts, The Sugarfed Leopards, Emma Donovan and The Putbacks, D.D.Dumbo, Umlaut (Bar McKinnon) and The Wikimen. He has appeared on recordings by Baker Boy, Missy Higgins (Pip Norman) and played on soundtracks by Francois Tetaz and Anthony Pateras.
He performed for over 15 years with Polyglot Theatre, and developed shows including ‘Mungari Wilcha’ with the Tjanpi Weavers (2019), ‘Tangled’ (2012-19) and ‘Sticky Maze’(2015). He has also helped develop a variety of other theatrical and interactive projects and performances including ‘Urchin’ (Dan Witton 2018, Melbourne Recital Centre) ‘Café Scheherezade’(2011) produced by 45 Downstairs, The West Side Circuses Fringe show, ‘The Albatross’ and ‘Exit’ with Tania Bosak and the Barefoot Orchestra
Compositions and sound production includes‘Heart’ from Anatomy 1 by Big and Little Films/ABC, winner of Best Documentary at MIFF 2008, as well as collaborations with Michael den Elzen on ‘Sisters and Pearls’ and ‘Halal Mate’ by Rebel Films/SBS, and animations such as ‘Shhh’ directed by Adam Robb and produced by the VCA, winner of an AFI for best animation 2002. https://www.justinmarshallmusic.com/
Recent work includes musical director for the 150th Celebration of Her Majesty's Theatre in Ballarat produced by Every Body Now! overseeing the music for over 150 participants Castlemaine Circuses "Playing On The Edge" show, facilitating, mentoring and creating new work in the Prototype and Expanding Fields of Practice programs for Punctum Inc, and the AAO, sound design for Jessica Wilson's "The Wayfinders" as well as touring in the US and Australia with Emma Donovan and The Putbacks.
He was a founding member of Speak Percussion, and has worked closely with The Cumbia Cosmonauts, The Sugarfed Leopards, Emma Donovan and The Putbacks, D.D.Dumbo, Umlaut (Bar McKinnon) and The Wikimen. He has appeared on recordings by Baker Boy, Missy Higgins (Pip Norman) and played on soundtracks by Francois Tetaz and Anthony Pateras.
He performed for over 15 years with Polyglot Theatre, and developed shows including ‘Mungari Wilcha’ with the Tjanpi Weavers (2019), ‘Tangled’ (2012-19) and ‘Sticky Maze’(2015). He has also helped develop a variety of other theatrical and interactive projects and performances including ‘Urchin’ (Dan Witton 2018, Melbourne Recital Centre) ‘Café Scheherezade’(2011) produced by 45 Downstairs, The West Side Circuses Fringe show, ‘The Albatross’ and ‘Exit’ with Tania Bosak and the Barefoot Orchestra
Compositions and sound production includes‘Heart’ from Anatomy 1 by Big and Little Films/ABC, winner of Best Documentary at MIFF 2008, as well as collaborations with Michael den Elzen on ‘Sisters and Pearls’ and ‘Halal Mate’ by Rebel Films/SBS, and animations such as ‘Shhh’ directed by Adam Robb and produced by the VCA, winner of an AFI for best animation 2002. https://www.justinmarshallmusic.com/
Jenny M Thomas
Born into a family that played folk music around campfires, Jenny graduated from the Victorian College of The Arts/Melbourne University in 1992 with viola as her principal instrument. Working with the Australian Philharmonic Orchestra until her passion for alternative violin techniques took over, she then studied at the Indian Academy of Music Melbourne, Willy Clancy Summer School Ireland and private tuition in Finland with Aarto Jarvela (Sibelius Folk Academy Helsinki).
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Symphony Symphony have engaged her as a Norwegian Hardanger/Irish fiddle soloist whilst her exploration of Indian, Celtic & Scandinavian violin styles gained her invitations to perform at the Rudolstadt Tanz & Volk Festival Germany, Summer Viva Festival Italy and Sidmouth Folk Festival UK. With worl music ensemble AKIN she produced and composed an albums that earned them an ARIA award nomination. Establishing her own record company, Fydle Records in 2003, she released solo albums which were chosen for Melbourne Herald-Sun's top 10 CD picks of 2006, top five albums for airplay on community stations by AMRAP 2007, a Golden Fiddle Award and inclusion on ABC Classic Drive CD 2011. When Grammy award winning music producer and composer François Tétaz (Gotye, Wolf Creek) wanted an improvising violinist to play on his film score for the feature film Rogue (2007) it was Jenny he called. She has also worked with Lior, Tim Rogers, Bryony Marks, Andrew Ford, Husky, Mark Seymour and many more as a composer/violinist.
Awards: Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award, 2021, Best Band Australian Folk Music Awards 2022 (Bush Gothic),Golden Fiddle Award 2009
Composition credits include:
Film : Add Religion and Stir (1996 SBS/Albert Street), The Business of Making Saints (1998 ABC ) Hazaribag (2005 ABC/Albert Street) No Dramas (2009 Australian War Memorial) Close To The Bone (2022 ABC TV/Reckless Eye).
String composition: The Quilt (2018 Ami Williamson) Rapture (Paul Capsis & Iota 2020 Sydney Festival),
Melbourne Symphony Chamber: A suite of five new song arrangements performed at Deakin Edge, Melbourne 2022,
2022 New work composition for the Musica Viva Future Makers, Partridge String Quartet atMelbourne Recital Centre
Jenny’s theatre career began in 1998 as a composer/musician with Circus Oz and has included the Melbourne Workers Theatre and the Womens Circus. In 2019/20 she toured Melbourne Festival, Sydney Festival and Perth Festival in the cast of Anthem.
Establishing the music ensemble Bush Gothic in 2009, she challenged the traditional Australian folk canon by using folk songs as her source material, then re-arranging these old ballads to reflect Australia’s shifting cultural identity. A post-modern bush band, Bush Gothic have performed at Rajasthan International Folk Festival, MonaFoma, Taurunga Arts Festival (NZ) Festival No. 6 (Wales) and Shambala Festival (UK). The addition of string quartet arrangements for Bush Gothic’s Victorian Heartbreak project took the repertoire into the fine music realm with performances at the Port Fairy Fine Music Festival, Melbourne Recital Centre and Ukaria Cultural Centre. Awards include: fRoots UK Best of 2012 worldwide, BBC Music Magazine’s Best World Music Albums of 2016, fRoots Album of the Year 2016 - Runner Up, Adelaide Fringe Best Music Award 2018/2019 , Australian Folk Music Awards, Best Band Finalist 2021
Invited to represent Australia at the 2020 Welsh National Eisteddfod online, Jenny coordinated a team of ten artists across two hemispheres and four homes who collaboratively composed and recorded new arrangements of old Welsh songs and made accompanying film clips. As the Eisteddfod prohibited the English language Jenny began to learn her ancestral tongue of Welsh. Now a Welsh speaker, in 2022 the Welsh National Eisteddfod presented Jenny performing live with Bush Gothic and Welsh artist Angharad Jenkins, forming part of Bush Gothic’s fourth international tour.
https://www.jennymthomas.au/
Born into a family that played folk music around campfires, Jenny graduated from the Victorian College of The Arts/Melbourne University in 1992 with viola as her principal instrument. Working with the Australian Philharmonic Orchestra until her passion for alternative violin techniques took over, she then studied at the Indian Academy of Music Melbourne, Willy Clancy Summer School Ireland and private tuition in Finland with Aarto Jarvela (Sibelius Folk Academy Helsinki).
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Symphony Symphony have engaged her as a Norwegian Hardanger/Irish fiddle soloist whilst her exploration of Indian, Celtic & Scandinavian violin styles gained her invitations to perform at the Rudolstadt Tanz & Volk Festival Germany, Summer Viva Festival Italy and Sidmouth Folk Festival UK. With worl music ensemble AKIN she produced and composed an albums that earned them an ARIA award nomination. Establishing her own record company, Fydle Records in 2003, she released solo albums which were chosen for Melbourne Herald-Sun's top 10 CD picks of 2006, top five albums for airplay on community stations by AMRAP 2007, a Golden Fiddle Award and inclusion on ABC Classic Drive CD 2011. When Grammy award winning music producer and composer François Tétaz (Gotye, Wolf Creek) wanted an improvising violinist to play on his film score for the feature film Rogue (2007) it was Jenny he called. She has also worked with Lior, Tim Rogers, Bryony Marks, Andrew Ford, Husky, Mark Seymour and many more as a composer/violinist.
Awards: Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award, 2021, Best Band Australian Folk Music Awards 2022 (Bush Gothic),Golden Fiddle Award 2009
Composition credits include:
Film : Add Religion and Stir (1996 SBS/Albert Street), The Business of Making Saints (1998 ABC ) Hazaribag (2005 ABC/Albert Street) No Dramas (2009 Australian War Memorial) Close To The Bone (2022 ABC TV/Reckless Eye).
String composition: The Quilt (2018 Ami Williamson) Rapture (Paul Capsis & Iota 2020 Sydney Festival),
Melbourne Symphony Chamber: A suite of five new song arrangements performed at Deakin Edge, Melbourne 2022,
2022 New work composition for the Musica Viva Future Makers, Partridge String Quartet atMelbourne Recital Centre
Jenny’s theatre career began in 1998 as a composer/musician with Circus Oz and has included the Melbourne Workers Theatre and the Womens Circus. In 2019/20 she toured Melbourne Festival, Sydney Festival and Perth Festival in the cast of Anthem.
Establishing the music ensemble Bush Gothic in 2009, she challenged the traditional Australian folk canon by using folk songs as her source material, then re-arranging these old ballads to reflect Australia’s shifting cultural identity. A post-modern bush band, Bush Gothic have performed at Rajasthan International Folk Festival, MonaFoma, Taurunga Arts Festival (NZ) Festival No. 6 (Wales) and Shambala Festival (UK). The addition of string quartet arrangements for Bush Gothic’s Victorian Heartbreak project took the repertoire into the fine music realm with performances at the Port Fairy Fine Music Festival, Melbourne Recital Centre and Ukaria Cultural Centre. Awards include: fRoots UK Best of 2012 worldwide, BBC Music Magazine’s Best World Music Albums of 2016, fRoots Album of the Year 2016 - Runner Up, Adelaide Fringe Best Music Award 2018/2019 , Australian Folk Music Awards, Best Band Finalist 2021
Invited to represent Australia at the 2020 Welsh National Eisteddfod online, Jenny coordinated a team of ten artists across two hemispheres and four homes who collaboratively composed and recorded new arrangements of old Welsh songs and made accompanying film clips. As the Eisteddfod prohibited the English language Jenny began to learn her ancestral tongue of Welsh. Now a Welsh speaker, in 2022 the Welsh National Eisteddfod presented Jenny performing live with Bush Gothic and Welsh artist Angharad Jenkins, forming part of Bush Gothic’s fourth international tour.
https://www.jennymthomas.au/
Gina Gascoigne
Gina Gascoigne is a lighting designer with over 30 years of experience. She has worked for contemporary dance groups internationally and more locally theatrical productions, circus companies and directors including Kamarra Bell-Wykes, Outer Urban Projects, Archie Roach, Circus Oz, Snuff Puppets, Susie Dee, Melbourne Festival, Adelaide Festival, La Fura dels Baus, Chamber Made Opera, Maude Davey and The Flying Fruit Fly Circus, NICA.
She has a Masters in Research (Fine Art) at RMIT and is a Certified Feldenkrais practitioner.
https://www.ginagascoigne.com/
Gina Gascoigne is a lighting designer with over 30 years of experience. She has worked for contemporary dance groups internationally and more locally theatrical productions, circus companies and directors including Kamarra Bell-Wykes, Outer Urban Projects, Archie Roach, Circus Oz, Snuff Puppets, Susie Dee, Melbourne Festival, Adelaide Festival, La Fura dels Baus, Chamber Made Opera, Maude Davey and The Flying Fruit Fly Circus, NICA.
She has a Masters in Research (Fine Art) at RMIT and is a Certified Feldenkrais practitioner.
https://www.ginagascoigne.com/
Aviva Endean is a clarinettist, composer and sound-artist living between Wurundjeri and Dja Dja Wurrung country. A leader in her field, she creates shared spaces for attentive listening, opening our ears to the world around us as we consider place and space. Whilst deeply steeped in music, Aviva’s vision extends beyond her primary artform to expand ways in which sound can be experienced, and to discover new forms of expression n that reflect the here and now.
Aviva has developed a profile as a significant force in Australian contemporary music, initiating highly regarded recorded and performance works. She collaborates widely with artists across cultures and disciplines, and curates contexts which empower those she collaborates with.
Her current projects include: ‘The Cloud Maker’ an ensemble featuring six women from diverse cultural backgrounds (Winner: Art Music awards 2023); ‘Hand to Earth’ a band interweaving Yolŋu manikay with contemporary improvisation (finalist: ARIAs, Songlines, Music Victoria awards 2022); and her solo wind/electronics set, which has been presented inter/nationally including Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Sound of Stockholm (Sweden), Only Connect (NO) The Substation (VIC) and MONA FOMA (TAS).
Her debut solo album was released on Norwegian label SOFA in 2018 to critical acclaim, with reviews speaking to Aviva’s innovation and virtuosity, describing the work as ‘captivating, sophisticated, miraculous’ & ‘trance-inducing’. Her follow up electro-acoustic album released on Room40 (2022), captured the imagination of listeners with its richly textured sound worlds; reviews stating, ‘Endean has proven time and time again that she is an expert of the aural adventure’.
Aviva has been supported by numerous prestigious opportunities including being the inaugural ‘Pathfinder’ Associate Artist with Australian Art Orchestra (2018-19), resident composer at The Peggy Glanville Hicks home (2021), a recipient of The APRA/AMCOS Art Music Fund (2020/2023), and a Freedman Fellowship (2015). https://www.avivaendean.com/
Aviva has developed a profile as a significant force in Australian contemporary music, initiating highly regarded recorded and performance works. She collaborates widely with artists across cultures and disciplines, and curates contexts which empower those she collaborates with.
Her current projects include: ‘The Cloud Maker’ an ensemble featuring six women from diverse cultural backgrounds (Winner: Art Music awards 2023); ‘Hand to Earth’ a band interweaving Yolŋu manikay with contemporary improvisation (finalist: ARIAs, Songlines, Music Victoria awards 2022); and her solo wind/electronics set, which has been presented inter/nationally including Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), Sound of Stockholm (Sweden), Only Connect (NO) The Substation (VIC) and MONA FOMA (TAS).
Her debut solo album was released on Norwegian label SOFA in 2018 to critical acclaim, with reviews speaking to Aviva’s innovation and virtuosity, describing the work as ‘captivating, sophisticated, miraculous’ & ‘trance-inducing’. Her follow up electro-acoustic album released on Room40 (2022), captured the imagination of listeners with its richly textured sound worlds; reviews stating, ‘Endean has proven time and time again that she is an expert of the aural adventure’.
Aviva has been supported by numerous prestigious opportunities including being the inaugural ‘Pathfinder’ Associate Artist with Australian Art Orchestra (2018-19), resident composer at The Peggy Glanville Hicks home (2021), a recipient of The APRA/AMCOS Art Music Fund (2020/2023), and a Freedman Fellowship (2015). https://www.avivaendean.com/
Flora Carbo is a saxophonist, composer and music leader from Naarm (Melbourne, Australia). Her unique practice creates novel musical environments that connect people through improvisation, composition and conceptual works, led by her explorations into the vocal qualities of the alto saxophone.
Her work traverses settings, methods and scales, with works devised for major festival stages at Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Canberra International Music Festival, Phoenix Central Park’s Strata Festival, Amersfoort Jazz Festival, and alongside luminaries of Australian jazz and improvised music like Barney McAll and Andrea Keller. Her creativity grounded in a constant flow of collaboration amongst a tight-knit generation of leading young Australian artists in Naarm, with regular projects and small gigs for new ideas alongside uncategorizable original musicians like Helen Svoboda, Niran Dasika, Iran Sanadzadeh, Eitan Ritz, her brother Theo Carbo, and many others.
Flora’s recorded projects are acclaimed documents of moments in this scene. Her albums are MAGNIFY (2023); Arthur’s Walks (2022); VOICE (2020); and Erica (2018). Her bands include The Rest Is Silence; Aalto; The Floor Is Well, Thanks; Flora Carbo Trio; and Ecosystem. Her unique saxophone sound has been honed through private study with Julien Wilson, Jim Denley, Melissa Aldana and Scott McConnachie, she completed a Bachelor with Honours degree at the University of Melbourne and the James Morrison Academy in 2019.
Increasingly recognised as a composer, Flora’s significant commissions and premieres include Momentually with Theo Carbo at the 2023 Canberra International Music Festival; the SIMA Emerging Composers Commission 2022; Flora Carbo Percussion Ensemble for quartets of adaptable instrumentation at 2023 Strata Festival; and Ecosystem for three voices and three saxophones at the 2022 Melbourne International Jazz Festival.
Flora was the Melbourne International Jazz Festival’s Take Note Leader for 2022. She was a finalist for the Freedman Jazz Fellowships 2022 and 2021; for the Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year at the 2019 Australian Jazz Bell Awards; and for the 2016 National Jazz Award; and won the James Morrison Scholarship at the Generations in Jazz Festival in 2017.
In 2023 Flora undertook ‘Residency in Motion’, a five-month international program generously supported by the Ian Potter Cultural Fund. Pursuing her long-held interest in situating her musical thought within concepts of embodiment and motion, Flora travelled solo by bicycle through Europe and the UK, alternating creative time with artist residencies, mentorships, network building and collaborative opportunitiesas an intensive development of her emerging solo practice. https://floracarbo.com/
Her work traverses settings, methods and scales, with works devised for major festival stages at Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Canberra International Music Festival, Phoenix Central Park’s Strata Festival, Amersfoort Jazz Festival, and alongside luminaries of Australian jazz and improvised music like Barney McAll and Andrea Keller. Her creativity grounded in a constant flow of collaboration amongst a tight-knit generation of leading young Australian artists in Naarm, with regular projects and small gigs for new ideas alongside uncategorizable original musicians like Helen Svoboda, Niran Dasika, Iran Sanadzadeh, Eitan Ritz, her brother Theo Carbo, and many others.
Flora’s recorded projects are acclaimed documents of moments in this scene. Her albums are MAGNIFY (2023); Arthur’s Walks (2022); VOICE (2020); and Erica (2018). Her bands include The Rest Is Silence; Aalto; The Floor Is Well, Thanks; Flora Carbo Trio; and Ecosystem. Her unique saxophone sound has been honed through private study with Julien Wilson, Jim Denley, Melissa Aldana and Scott McConnachie, she completed a Bachelor with Honours degree at the University of Melbourne and the James Morrison Academy in 2019.
Increasingly recognised as a composer, Flora’s significant commissions and premieres include Momentually with Theo Carbo at the 2023 Canberra International Music Festival; the SIMA Emerging Composers Commission 2022; Flora Carbo Percussion Ensemble for quartets of adaptable instrumentation at 2023 Strata Festival; and Ecosystem for three voices and three saxophones at the 2022 Melbourne International Jazz Festival.
Flora was the Melbourne International Jazz Festival’s Take Note Leader for 2022. She was a finalist for the Freedman Jazz Fellowships 2022 and 2021; for the Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year at the 2019 Australian Jazz Bell Awards; and for the 2016 National Jazz Award; and won the James Morrison Scholarship at the Generations in Jazz Festival in 2017.
In 2023 Flora undertook ‘Residency in Motion’, a five-month international program generously supported by the Ian Potter Cultural Fund. Pursuing her long-held interest in situating her musical thought within concepts of embodiment and motion, Flora travelled solo by bicycle through Europe and the UK, alternating creative time with artist residencies, mentorships, network building and collaborative opportunitiesas an intensive development of her emerging solo practice. https://floracarbo.com/