Projects

I devise and lead creative music projects and community collaborations in Australia and internationally that invite participants to create, connect, explore and engage through music.

Some examples of my work:

BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH CREATIVITY

Innovative music workshops and massed music-making opportunities for all ages and all abilities, created for international festivals, arts centres, schools, and celebratory community events. These events emphasise inclusion, active participation, and place-based creativity.

CREATIVE SPACES IN POST-WAR SETTINGS

Creative music-making programs in post-conflict and developing countries offer outlets for creative, playful, and emotional expression; facilitate the rebuilding of social connections; and create space for imagining and enacting an alternative reality. Program sites include post-war Timor-Leste, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Republic of Georgia, and Sri Lanka on behalf of development NGOs.

SUPPORTING POSITIVE SETTLEMENT FOR NEW ARRIVALS

Workshop residencies with recently-arrived refugee and immigrant cohorts use music to support feelings of connection, school engagement, literacy and oral language development, self-regulated forms of expression, and a safe medium for exploring and connecting their memories and recent past with the new present and future.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT FOR ORCHESTRAS

Player development programs and collaborative projects that bring orchestral musicians into schools, hospitals, prisons, theatre collaborations, post-conflict communities, and more. I was the founder and first Creative Director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s award-winning Community Outreach Program (2002-2009) and have consulted on similar programs for other orchestras, ensembles and music training institutions.

PRINCIPLES AND APPROACH

Facilitating agentic voice and creativity is a central goal, and outcomes include songs, instrumental works, music theatre, and sound art. I’ve worked in prisons, hospitals, immigration detention, refugee camps, kindergartens, and with recently-arrived young people recovering from wartime experiences. I’ve presented and MCd orchestral concerts for children and led large-scale outdoor music jams for up to 1000 people. I’ve created place-based music installations that soothe and heal, and composed/performed music for theatre and dance. Currently (2017-2020) I am Artist-in-Residence for Tura New Music’s ‘Music in Community’ program, working twice a year in the remote Aboriginal township of Fitzroy Crossing on the edge of Australia’s Great Sandy Desert to develop collaborative music projects in the community towards creative agency and wellbeing.