What is Sounds Unheard?
Sounds Unheard is a free music education program for gifted and talented Victorian secondary music students. Hosted by the internationally acclaimed Speak Percussion, this program offers unique opportunities for young musicians and composers from all areas of music making to expand their knowledge and creativity. Sounds Unheard will run throughout each year from 2015-2017, offering a range of music education opportunities that will develop students’ talents and inspire through innovative approaches to music making. Students may apply to become either a Sounds Unheard Member or Artist.
Sounds Unheard Member
- Backstage Passes. Students will go behind-the-scenes and gain an insight into professional life by attending Speak Percussion rehearsals and performances, meeting professional musicians and visiting some of Victoria’s premier performance venues.
- Online masterclasses tailored to Sounds Unheard members on diverse topics
- e-newsletter keeping you up to date with all the Sounds Unheard news and opportunities
- Interactive blog used to connect with professional musicians and other Sounds Unheard participants to discuss, question and collaborate
- Certificate of participation. Participants will receive a signed certificate from Speak Percussion recognising their participation in each year of the Sounds Unheard
Sounds Unheard Artist
Victorian Residents only in 2015
Are eligible for all Member privileges, plus:
- School Holiday Intensive (28 September – 2 October)
Explore aspects of music making beyond the Victorian curriculum in this tailor-made program designed to extend students’ understanding of music
- Pisaro Performance (3 – 17 October 2015)
Perform alongside local and international professional musicians in the world premiere of a major work by American composer Michael Pisaro.
About Speak Percussion
virtuosic and adventurous
The New York Times
Speak Percussion is a flexible line-up of Australia’s finest creative percussionists that has a 15-year history of commissioning, performing and creating innovative new work. Ranging from solo concerts to massed sound events, Speak Percussion’s award winning work is presented throughout the world in concert halls, bars, galleries and site-specific locations. Speak Percussion regularly collaborates with a diverse range of artists in creating unique hybrid projects, and has explored the intersection between percussion and architecture, gastronomy, installation, instrument building, astronomy and dance.
Meet the 2015 Sounds Unheard Experts
EUGENE UGHETTI
Off on another challenging acoustic adventure, Ughetti is currently showing why he is one of this country’s most talented artists in the field of advanced contemporary music. The Age
Eugene Ughetti is a percussionist, composer, conductor and artistic director of Speak Percussion. Eugene is recognized worldwide for his daring and innovative performance projects and has toured all over the globe with everything from Orchestras to as a soloist.
Eugene has worked with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria as well as most of Australia’s leading new music ensembles. He has also worked with some of the world’s finest composers including Steve Reich, Sofia Gubaidulina and Pierre Boulez and with conductors Valery Gergiev, James Levine and Charles Dutoit.
Eugene has composed music for The Australian Ballet, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, ABC and Bionic Ear Institute, with works presented and broadcast internationally. He has conducted in major international music Festivals as well as professional Australian Symphony Orchestras.
Eugene is the winner of multiple national awards and fellowships including the inaugural Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, MCA/Freedman Fellowship for Classical Music (2011) and the OZCO Creative Fellowship – early career as well as being twice a finalist for the Melbourne Prize for Music.
MATTHIAS SCHACK-ARNOTT
Matthias Schack-Arnott is a Melbourne based percussive artist working in the areas of performance, composition and improvisation.
At the age of 21 Matthias was invited to be the Artistic Associate of Australia’s leading percussive arts organisation, Speak Percussion. Matthias is a key artist in the creative team and a performer in almost all of Speak’s projects. Matthias is also the founding member & co-director of two leading new music ensembles in Melbourne, Quiver Ensemble (2009-2014) and CATHEXIS (2013-present).
As a guest artist Matthias appears with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Malaysia Philharmonic Orchestra, ELISION Ensemble, Australian Art Orchestra, Synergy Percussion, Chamber Made Opera, Victoria Opera and Nick Tsiavos Ensemble. Performance highlights include Berliner Festspiele (Germany), GAIDA Festival (Lithuania), ARENA Festival (Latvia), SPOR Festival (Denmark), Spot Festival (Denmark), Roullette (New York), CONNECT Festival (Sweden), Batteries IV Festival (Geneva), Taiwan National Concert Hall, Salihara Festival (Indonesia), Adelaide Festival, Perth International Arts Festival, Melbourne Festival & MONA FOMA.
Matthias has co-composed multiple works with Speak’s Artistic Director Eugene Ughetti, including an album length release in 2015. He also recently composed and recorded a 20 minute soundtrack for Mapping the Interior by Drew Pettifer.
Matthias’ solo practice explores expanded notions of percussive performance. His debut solo, Chrysalis was performed at the 2012 Next Wave Festival (Australia) and the 2013 SPOR Festival (Denmark), where it was hailed as ‘beautiful’ by The Wire. His recent large-scale performance installation, Fluvial, won the Green Room Award for ‘Outstanding Work by an Emerging Artist’ and will be remounted by Arts House in May.
MARK APPLEBAUM
Mark Applebaum, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Composition at Stanford University. His solo, chamber, choral, orchestral, operatic, and electroacoustic work has been performed throughout the North and South America, Europe, Australia, Africa, and Asia, including notable commissions from the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, the Fromm Foundation, the Kronos Quartet, and the Vienna Modern Festival.
Many of his pieces are characterized by challenges to the conventional boundaries of musical ontology: works for three conductors and no players, a concerto for florist and orchestra, pieces for instruments made of junk, notational specifications that appear on the faces of custom wristwatches, works for an invented sign language choreographed to sound, amplified Dadaist rituals, a chamber work comprised of obsessive page turns, and a 72-foot long graphic score displayed in a museum and accompanied by no instructions for its interpretation. His TED talk has been seen by more than one million viewers.
Applebaum is also an accomplished jazz pianist and builds electroacoustic sound-sculptures out of junk, hardware, and found objects. He serves on the board of Other Minds, and at Stanford he is the founding director of [sic]—the Stanford Improvisation Collective.
MICHAEL PISARO
Michael Pisaro (born 1961 in Buffalo, New York) is a guitarist and composer. A member of the Wandelweiser Composers Ensemble, he has composed a large number of works for a great variety of instrumental combinations. Since 2010 portrait concerts of his music have been given in London, Paris, New York, Santiago, Tel Aviv, St. Petersburg, Tokyo, Oxford, Glasgow, Moscow, Chicago, Munich, Huddersfield, Madrid, Brussels, Montpelier, Boston, Berlin, Houston, Düsseldorf, Trondheim, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Nantes, Mexico City, Seattle, Linz, San Diego and elsewhere. Recordings of his work (solo and collaborative) have been released by Edition Wandelweiser Records, erstwhile records, New World Records, another timbre, slubmusic, Cathnor, Senufo Editions, winds measure, HEM Berlin and on Pisaro’s own imprint, Gravity Wave.
Before joining the composition faculty at the California Institute of the Arts (where he is located presently), he taught music composition and theory at
GREG STUART
Greg Stuart is a percussionist whose work draws upon a mixture of music from the experimental tradition, Wandelweiser, improvisation, and electronics. His performances have been described as “a ghostly, gorgeous lesson in how close, concentrated listening can alter and enhance perception” (The New York Times).
An active performer, he has appeared at numerous festivals and notable venues presenting experimental music including MaerzMusik (Berlin), Café Oto (London), Cha’ak’ab Paaxil (Mérida), Issue Project Room (New York), The Wulf (Los Angeles), and Non-Event (Boston) among many others. He has recorded for Edition Wandelweiser, Gravity Wave, Erstwhile, New World, Cathnor, Accidie, L’innomable and Senufo Editions. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina School of Music in Columbia, SC where he teaches experimental music.
LOUISE DEVENISH
Louise Devenish is a percussionist whose practice incorporates performance, commissioning, research and education.
Co-director of contemporary duo The Sound Collectors and member of electro-acoustic sextet Decibel, Louise also performs regularly with various contemporary, world and classical ensembles. Louise has commissioned 30 percussion works from composers around Australia and abroad and has performed throughout regional and metropolitan Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Japan, China, and numerous cities in South-East Asia. Highlights have included performances with Steve Reich, Speak Percussion, Fritz Hauser, Lee Ranaldo and Synergy Percussion at festivals including the Nagoya and Shanghai World Expos, Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Ojai Music Festival, BBC Proms, Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival and Tongyeong International Music Festival.
Passionate about engaging others in music, Louise is Associate Lecturer in percussion, world music and musicology at the University of Western Australia School of Music, where she also directs Pinata Percussion. She lectures for the acting department at the WA Academy of Performing Arts and curates the annual Day of Percussion, a full-day event that brings together percussion specialists, students and enthusiasts. Louise is an advocate of Australian music making and has recently completed a Doctor of Musical Arts focussing on the development of Australian contemporary percussion music. In 2012 she studied in San Diego with Steven Schick. Her research has been published by Musicology Australia, Percussive Notes and PERCUSscene.
