Our Staff

Robbie Avenaim 

                                                    

Artistic Director and Founder 

 

                                                    

Robbie Avenaim is an innovative Australian musician, drummer, sound artist , instrument builder and composer with an international reputation for bold, sonic exploration. Over the past 25 years Robbie has developed a unique and personal musical language on the drums, focussed primarily on percussion and instrument building, his practice spans the domains of improvisation and experimental composition. Robbie has been at the forefront of the Australian experimental music scene both as a performer and a curator.

After returning from studies in New York with composer John Zorn and observing the vibrant new music N.Y has to offer, Avenaim was inspired to foster a varied experimental music ecosystem in Australia by co-founding and organising the legendary WHAT IS MUSIC? Festival, Australia’s premier annual touring showcase of local and international experimental music from 1994-2012 and has since organised many significant sound-based exhibitions, performances regionally and overseas, which have been essential for the local growth and international prestige of Australia’s avant-garde musical reputation.

Carolyn Connors
 Carolyn Connors – is a vocalist, composer, and instrumentalist who creates new works in the fields of contemporary music and theatre. Carolyn was awarded the 2015 Age Melbourne Music Award for Avant-garde and Experimental music. Her solo vocal works have been presented by Liquid Architecture, ABC radio’s Sound Proof, Melbourne Recital Centre, Sydney Festival, Dark MOFO, The Ian Potter Museum, and Gertrude Contemporary. As the lead of Still Awake Still Carolyn toured across the US and around Australia. Hammers Lake, her band with Judith Hamann, has performed in the US and at the Adelaide Festival. Carolyn collaborates and performs in new ensemble works, most recently Chamber Made Opera’s Between 8 and 9 in Chengdu, China, Asia TOPA, and at the Castlemaine State Festival. Her work includes regular national and international touring, teaching and mentoring.
Jim Denley
Jim Denley – is among Australia’s foremost improvisers with musical activity spanning four decades. An emphasis on spontaneity, site-specific work and collaboration has been central to his work. Besides producing numerous CDs, Jim has recorded for ABCRadio, BBC Radio 3 and for Germany’s WDR, also composing numerous sound works for radio, most notably Collaborations, his radio feature commissioned by the ABC which won the Prix Italia in 1989. His 2006 and 2008 recordings from the Budawang Mountains for the ABC received an Honorary Prize in the Prix Ars Electronica. Derek Bailey included Jim’s writing in his classic text “Improvisation” published by the British Library. In 2006 and 2007 he received a Music Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts to research and develop his concept of ‘meta instrument.

Alon Ilsa

Alon IlsarAlon Ilsar is an Australian-based drummer, composer, instrument designer and researcher.

He is the co-designer of a new gestural instrument for electronic percussionists, the AirSticks.

Alon is researching the uses of the AirSticks in the field of health and wellbeing, making music creation more accessible to the broader community. Alon holds a PhD in instrument design through the University of Technology Sydney. He has performed with the London Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic and Sydney Symphony Orchestras.

 

Our Staff

Robbie Avenaim

Robbie Avenaim is an innovative Australian musician, drummer, sound artist , instrument builder and composer with an international reputation for bold, sonic exploration. Over the past 25 years Robbie has developed a unique and personal musical language on the drums, focussed primarily on percussion and instrument building, his practice spans the domains of improvisation and experimental composition. Robbie has been at the forefront of the Australian experimental music scene both as a performer and a curator.

After returning from studies in New York with composer John Zorn and observing the vibrant new music N.Y has to offer, Avenaim was inspired to foster a varied experimental music ecosystem in Australia by co-founding and organising the legendary WHAT IS MUSIC? Festival, Australia’s premier annual touring showcase of local and international experimental music from 1994-2012 and has since organised many significant sound-based exhibitions, performances regionally and overseas, which have been essential for the local growth and international prestige of Australia’s avant-garde musical reputation.

Carolyn Connors

Carolyn Connors – is a vocalist, composer, and instrumentalist who creates new works in the fields of contemporary music and theatre. Carolyn was awarded the 2015 Age Melbourne Music Award for Avant-garde and Experimental music. Her solo vocal works have been presented by Liquid Architecture, ABC radio’s Sound Proof, Melbourne Recital Centre, Sydney Festival, Dark MOFO, The Ian Potter Museum, and Gertrude Contemporary. As the lead of Still Awake Still Carolyn toured across the US and around Australia. Hammers Lake, her band with Judith Hamann, has performed in the US and at the Adelaide Festival. Carolyn collaborates and performs in new ensemble works, most recently Chamber Made Opera’s Between 8 and 9 in Chengdu, China, Asia TOPA, and at the Castlemaine State Festival. Her work includes regular national and international touring, teaching and mentoring.

Jim Denley

Jim Denley – is among Australia’s foremost improvisers with musical activity spanning four decades. An emphasis on spontaneity, site-specific work and collaboration has been central to his work. Besides producing numerous CDs, Jim has recorded for ABC Radio, BBC Radio 3 and for Germany’s WDR, also composing numerous sound works for radio, most notably Collaborations, his radio feature commissioned by the ABC which won the Prix Italia in 1989. His 2006 and 2008 recordings from the Budawang Mountains for the ABC received an Honorary Prize in the Prix Ars Electronica. Derek Bailey included Jim’s writing in his classic text “Improvisation” published by the British Library. In 2006 and 2007 he received a Music Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts to research and develop his concept of ‘meta instrument.