The Phonetic Orchestra
Winner of the 2021 APRA AMCOS/AMC Art Music Award for jazz/improvised music performance of the year
“Using openness and trust to express new ideas in composition.”
“The Phonetic Orchestra wants to redefine how you listen.”
The Phonetic Orchestra have developed a practice involving durational performances, collaborative approaches to composition and the integration of improvisation within compositional structures.
Photo Credit - Duncographic
The unique ensemble brings together musicians from such diverse backgrounds as Contemporary Classical music, Electro-acoustic music and Experimental improvisation to create work that embraces site-specificity, extreme durational performances and the fluid borders between composition and improvisation, the individual and the collective.
The Phonetic Orchestra has undergone residencies in Melbourne, Norway and Portugal, and has performed 8-hour marathon sleep concerts at the Museu Serralves (Porto, 2017) and Pirelli Hangar Bicocca (Milan, 2018) as well as 24-hour livestream events (Silent Towns, 2020).
The Orchestra has collaborated with some of the most singular voices in Australian and European experimental arts practice. Collaborators include the Kitchen Orchestra (Stavanger), Srosh ensemble (Porto), Peter Knight (Australian Art Orchestra), Jim Denley and Dale Gorfinkel.
The Phonetic Orchestra are:
Jon Heilbron – Double Bass
Callum G’Froerer – Trumpet
Simon Charles – Saxophone, Electronics
Brett Thompson – Guitar
Jenny Barnes – Voice
Andy Butler – Piano, Harmonium
Rebecca Lane – Flutes
Reuben Lewis – Trumpet
Joseph Houston – Piano
Michael McNab – Drums, Percussion
Tower Lake Temple (2022)
Following on from the APRA Art Music award-winning 24-hour concert Silent Towns, Phonetic Orchestra revisit their singular approach to collective sound with their latest collaborative telematic performance work, Tower Lake Temple.
With the help of cutting-edge technology, the performance will feature real-time interaction between Phonetic Orchestra musicians in both Melbourne and Berlin, re-uniting an ensemble separated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Their performance will redefine the possibilities of collective music-making, taking the audience on an audio-visual journey through spaces physical, digital and imagined.
Silent Towns: 24-hour Livestream (2020)
Silent Towns took place across locations in Berlin, Walyalup (Fremantle) and Naarm (Melbourne) over a 24-hour period. A live-streamed event, combining performances across these locations simultaneously, Silent Towns is an extension of the orchestra’s extreme durational practice, which strives to reimagine the concert format in expansive ways and the sense of community with our listeners.
Audiences were invited to attend to the work with as much flexibility as it might attend to them; in states of sleep to wakefulness, of focussed attention to drifting peripheries.
Thank you to Aaron Wyatt, Myles Mumford, Chris and Wayne G’Froerer. This project was supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and the City of Melbourne
Sleep Concerts
In June 2017, the Phonetic Orchestra presented A Single Stunning Gaze in the Place des Vosges at Serralves em Festa in Porto. Beginning in the late evening and ending after sunrise, audience members were provided with mattresses and moved between sleeping and waking states during the 8-hour performance.
Through the sleep concert medium, the listener has the opportunity to interact with the performers and environment in a more personal and singular way, and has the option to come and go (and sleep) as they please. The opportunity to stay for the full 8-hour performance also offers a very unusual and enlightening experience, reinforcing the roles space and time play in the shaping of music and movement.
Releases
