'Moonlite' tells the true-crime queer love story of the 19th-century Australian bushranger Andrew George Scott, in the form of a 90-minute oratorio for voices, percussion and viola.

Winner of the Albert Maggs composition prize, this is a powerful work that effortlessly transcends musical genres to paint a picture of Victoria's own star-crossed lovers, set uniquely in our Gold-rush-era past.

By Wally Gunn (music) and Maria Zajkowski (words), featuring The Consort of Melbourne
Presented by Homophonic! and the City of Yarra

Enter a genre-defying artwork where you can watch, listen, or fall into moving pictures of thought via live performance, drawing, film and soundscape.

Inspired by physics diagrams, astral photography, and graphic musical scores Diagrammatica is an ever-evolving improvisation. An extended meeting between logic and abstraction. Created by Jason Maling, in collaboration with sound artists Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey, along with filmmaker Rhian Hinkley, it’s an interactive living diagram, accessible from the underground. Sparks of ideas float freely and coalesce. Musicians perform out of view through a hyper-directional audio system. Shifting soundscapes submerge you.

Go deeper into the rift, with an intimate, subterranean experience in Slot 9. Or stay out in the open, above ground to watch the happenings for free in the Atrium.

Speak Percussion, All the Queen’s Men, Contemporary Music for All (CoMA) and local musicians herald the opening of the Norfolk & Norwich Festival with a composition by Thomas Meadowcroft. With bespoke choreography they create an immersive sonic experience that re-imagines the concept of a marching band – celebrating community and peace over military might.

A Book of Hours is a meditation on the mystery of time, combining a world of projected movement and a dynamic live musical score. Created by composer Kate Neal, filmmaker Sal Cooper, choreographer Gerard Van Dyck and performed by new music ensemble Rubiks Collective, A Book of Hours is a sonic and visual feast for the senses.

‘A Book of Hours’ combines stop-motion filmed humans and animation on screen, choreographed musicians and wind-up toys on stage, representing the slippage of time and the embodied vulnerability of the human form.

“Call it dance or art music or just live performance. Whatever it is – A Book of Hours is the best kind of puzzle.” – ★★★★ The Age

A Book of Hours is a meditation on the mystery of time, combining a world of projected movement and a dynamic live musical score. Created by composer Kate Neal, filmmaker Sal Cooper, choreographer Gerard Van Dyck and performed by new music ensemble Rubiks Collective, A Book of Hours is a sonic and visual feast for the senses.

‘A Book of Hours’ combines stop-motion filmed humans and animation on screen, choreographed musicians and wind-up toys on stage, representing the slippage of time and the embodied vulnerability of the human form.

“Call it dance or art music or just live performance. Whatever it is – A Book of Hours is the best kind of puzzle.” – ★★★★ The Age

March Static is an immersive site-specific mobile work for massed musicians, that reframes the marching band phenomenon as a celebration of community gathering around peace, over representations of military might.

Composed by Thomas Meadowcroft (AU/DE) and led by new music luminaries Speak Percussion, March Static brings together a mass of roaming musicians, creating a gentle spectrum of choreographed sound to envelop its listeners. The assembled musicians will move in and around the audience as they perform, reframing the performer-audience relationship while simultaneously challenging the traditional performance format of marching bands.

Presented by Monash University Performing Arts Centres, Speak Percussion and All the Queens Men.

Presented within the oldest continuous Chinese settlement outside of Asia, The Ninth Tone speculates on the legacy of Chinese Music outside of China since the 1800s. First conceived by Leung in 2022, this iterative project uses intonation, materiality, memory, and echo in a hauntological reimagining of Chinese Australian music.   

This project problematizes simplistic dominant cultural understandings of ‘east meets west’ that ignore significant historic lineages. Chinese culture and music has been present in Australia for almost 200 years, and cross-cultural collaboration is almost as old. The Ninth Tone offers an alternative answer to the question of what Chinese Australian music is and can be. 

Concept / Composer / Performer: Jasmin Wing-Yin Leung
Artistic Collaborator / Sound Artist / Performer: Sally Ann McIntyre
Performer: Mindy Meng Wang
Performer: Kaylie Melville
Producer: Chelsea Byrne
Produced by Speak Percussion

Songs about solitude, connection and the world's loneliest whale.

A free all-ages concert and refreshments for City of Yarra residents

Rorqual is an indie-classical concert exploring withdrawal, solitude, resilience, and connection, with new songs inspired by the true story of “the world’s loneliest whale”. Using found and repurposed texts drawn from the deep past to the present, composer Wally Gunn’s songs fuse classical and indie-rock music, featuring the ethereal vocals of jazz singer Gian Slater and the virtuosic musicians of Rubiks. From the ocean’s shimmering surface to its mysterious depths, and back, join us for Rorqual - the story of a modern-day mythological creature that continues to sing its one-of-a-kind song.

Event Details

Saturday 30 November, 2024 
75 Reid St, Fitzroy North 3068

11am concert
12pm refreshments + conversation with the artists

FREE for City of Yarra Residents
$10 for non-residents
Please register for catering numbers here

Experience sonic innovation as Displaced Bodies unites two of Melbourne’s cutting-edge ensembles. Ossicle Duo, an award-winning trombone-percussion ensemble, pushes boundaries with their technically refined and high-energy exploratory art music. Rubiks Collective, a dynamic ensemble of Australia’s most versatile young performers, take audiences on a sonic journey through their ‘incredibly personal, strangely spiritual and ultimately deeply touching’ performances. Together, they fearlessly explore the boundaries of sound in the highly anticipated world premiere of Jakob Bragg’s acclaimed composition, ‘Displaced Bodies, Weapons of Action,’ a recipient of the prestigious Melbourne Recital Centre & Melbourne Conservatorium of Music Composition Award.

Full program and tickets available here.

Music at McClelland is held on the third Sunday of the month, 2–4pm, and features exceptional performers from across Victoria.

In Assemblage, Speak's Assistant Artistic Director Kaylie Melville showcases works at the forefront of post-instrumental practice - a movement revealing the hidden musical potential in everyday objects. Plants, wine glasses, alarm clocks and saw blades sit alongside an array of traditional percussion instruments, creating a universe of endless sonic possibilities.

Full program and tickets available here.

Celebrating world premieres by internationally recognised art music specialists Maria Kaoutzani and Alice Chance, this performance explores the intricacies between love, intergenerational relationships and a modern-day perception of ‘home’. Maria Kaoutzani interrogates her personal experiences of love and belonging regarding intimate relationships and nationalistic identity in Five Love Songs. Alice Chance’s ‘mother-daughter motet’ Heirloom speaks to complex layers of history, the strength of family ties, and the fragility of intergenerational memories, featuring the recorded voices of three generations of women from the same family line.

Full program and tickets available here.

An immersive percussive event that interweaves four new Australian compositions into a seamless exhalation of spatialized sound. Featuring 50+ mobilized drummers and wind players and an ensemble of 12 leading percussionists, this performance bleeds across three floors and into the magnificent acoustics of the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, showcasing the music of acclaimed composers Cathy Milliken, Erkki Veltheim, Damien Ricketson and Thomas Meadowcroft. Sonic Eclipse encourages the audience to listen multi-sensorially: with their eyes, bodies and ears.

Full program and tickets are available here.

Join Rubiks and Pythia Prize winner Dr Felicity Wilcox for the launch of our 'Sound Fields' music video!

The evening will include a Q&A with the ensemble and composer about their experiences creating this new work, the first screening of the Sound Fields video, and a glass of wine to toast to our 2021 Pythia Prize winner.

This event is free but places are limited. Please RSVP here or by emailing hello@rubikscollective.com.

Rubiks takes you on a journey across the Pacific, celebrating our long-standing collaboration with USA new music laboratory Black House Collective. Featuring three world premieres commissioned by BHC, Futures Exchange pays homage to our creative partners in the US and our formative roots as an ensemble. 

Full program and tickets are available here.

Tin is the traditional metal marking a 10-year anniversary. So, too, is it the flashy and proud symbol of a decade of percussion at ANAM. When the percussion program launched in 2013, ANAM achieved their goal of offering training on every orchestral instrument. To celebrate, ANAM’s percussion musicians, faculty, and alumni - led by Head of Percussion, Peter Neville - present a kaleidoscopic concert series.

Full program and tickets are available here.

Rubiks presents two fun-filled workshops for 4-8 year olds as part of the Melbourne Recital Centre's Music Play Families Festival 2023.

In these interactive sessions each participant is invited to create their very own musical score, which will then be performed by Rubiks Collective with their instruments spanning flute, cello, clarinet and percussion.

A wonderful journey of art, music and play, this creative session is fun for everyone. Tickets admit one child and one guardian.

Session times: 10:30am & 11:45am
Duration: 45 minutes

March Static is an immersive site-specific mobile work for massed musicians, that reframes the marching band phenomenon as a celebration of community gathering around peace, over representations of military might.

Composed by Thomas Meadowcroft (AU/DE) and led by new music luminaries Speak Percussion, March Static brings together more than 50 local student and community musicians to collaborate with visiting Festival artists, creating a gentle spectrum of choreographed sound to envelop its listeners. The assembled musicians will move in and around the audience as they perform, reframing the performer-audience relationship while simultaneously challenging the traditional performance format of marching bands. Melding ethereal chords with fragments of marching percussion motifs against the backdrop of tranquil beachside sounds, this morning performance kicks off the Festival weekend with a relaxing experience for the whole family.

A unique, premiere musical performance, The Red Vacuum is a structured improvisation based on a story of the same name written by Gelareh Pour. It focuses on the common lives of Iranian families as they experience war with Iraq in the 1980s.

The story centres around a young boy’s fascination with household items as toys, and how his joy and exploration unwittingly create havoc as his family frantically organise themselves to vacate at the sound of air-raid sirens.

The Red Vacuum features some of Australia’s most renowned experimental musicians: Gelareh Pour – Persian Kamancheh, Qeychak and Voice; Peter Knight – Trumpet and Electronics; Kaylie Melville – Percussion; and Brian O’Dwyer – Drum Kit.

Presented by 3MBS, Music, She Wrote exists to tell women's stories in their own musical voices. Since its inception in 2021, the festival has proudly presented the finest local chamber musicians in diverse programs of classical, jazz, and folk music by female composers.

Curated by Artistic Director, Katie Yap, this year's festival revolves around the theme of cutting loose, and the courage required to speak up in an authentic voice.

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CONCERT 2: BREAKING STEP
Rubiks Collective

The festival’s central concert marks the act of breaking step, of venturing out from the status quo. Melbourne’s beloved contemporary art music ensemble Rubiks Collective has championed female composers since their inception in 2015, through their own concerts and the Pythia Prize, a composition prize specifically for women composers.

Rubiks brings their signature dynamism and vivacity to Chapter House, with the vibrant combination of piano, percussion, cello and flute. With a particular interest in storytelling and cross-art collaboration, Rubiks has quickly established a reputation for excellence, delighting audiences with their unique programming and dazzling virtuosity.

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PROGRAM
Anna Clyne - Fits and Starts
Samantha Wolf - Want Not
Julia Wolfe - East Broadway
Molly Joyce - Less Is More
Leah Blankendaal - Beacon
Gemma Peacocke - Sky-Fields

In-venue and Digital tickets are available at musicshewrote.com.au

They Swim Through Air showcases the exuberance, imagination and artistry of new music creators from Australia and beyond with a program that reflects on the rituals and processes of life.

Inspired by Tolkien’s use of the term ‘sky-fields’ in Lord of the Rings, Gemma Peacocke reflects on the travels of the sun and the power of hope, while Leah Blankendaal’s Beacon explores how memories are retained within the body over a lifetime.

Rubiks’ virtuosic playfulness comes to the fore in Jessie Marino’s The Whale Is a Capital Fish, a celebration of the ritual absurdity and technical mastery exhibited in everyday activities. The program finishes with the premiere of a new work from the winner of Rubiks’ 2021 Pythia Prize.

6pm Wednesday 26 October
Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre

In this exquisite and richly historic venue new to the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival, experience the stunning Federation Handbells in an immersive and intimate performance crafted by Speak Percussion and 12 young performers from Southwest Victoria, brought together in partnership with One Day Studios Warrnambool.

Bell Curve is a work for spatialised bell players, composed by Artistic Director of Speak Percussion, Eugene Ughetti. Through the use of click track technology, the players move seamlessly in and out of sync from stunningly complex rhythms to perfect unisons. A massed sound event unfolds across the beautifully restored St Brigid’s Church, a world revealed between the attacks and beating patterns of tuned bell resonance.

Port Fairy Spring Music Festival
9:30am Saturday 15 October - Brunch with St Brigid
2:15pm Saturday 15 October - Bell Curve 2
3:45pm Saturday 15 October - Bell Curve 3

Cosmic Time is a performance work co-created by visual artist Michaela Gleave, composer Amanda Cole and percussionist Louise Devenish. The work takes concepts of time on a cosmological scale as a point of departure.

Unfolding over 40 minutes, Cosmic Time explores representations of time ranging from the endless circling of planetary forms, to measures of time on Earth such as human breath and the fluttering heartbeats of desert mice, as well as abstractions of dissolving consciousness.

Boom! International Festival of Percussion
7:30pm Thursday 6 October
Everest Theatre, Seymour Centre

Rubiks Collective perform as part of the Melbourne Recital Centre’s Making Waves Workshop Series.

In a three-part series, this Making Waves Workshop features Rubiks Collective, exploring various compositional styles and techniques in a workshop presented in partnership with Virtual School Victoria. These workshops are especially designed for VCE music students, but are open to all budding composers.

This series is supported by the Department of Education’s Strategic Partnership Program and the Hugh Williamson Foundation.

10:30am Tuesday 23 August
Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre
This event is free to attend however tickets are required.