Australian trumpeter/composer/sound artist, Peter Knight, is a multidisciplinary musician who has gained wide acclaim for his distinctive approach, which integrates jazz, experimental, and world music traditions. Peter’s work as both performer and composer is regularly featured in a range of ensemble settings, he also composes for theatre, creates sound installations, and is the Artistic Director of one of Australia’s leading contemporary music ensembles, the Australian Art Orchestra.
Perpetually curious, Peter’s practice defies categorisation; indeed he works in the spaces between categories, between genres, and between cultures: “Hard to categorise… hauntingly memorable” The Wire (UK). “Falling into an utterly genre-less wormhole” Cyclic Defrost. “Honest, inventive and original” Hour Magazine Montreal. “A serious work of stringent originality” BBC Jazz on 3. “If trumpet is an element then Knight is an alchemist” New York City Jazz Record.
Peter’s role with the Australian Art Orchestra sees him touring regularly with the group both in Australia and abroad. He also commissions new work for the ensemble and curates a range of innovative programs for large and small settings. Outside of the AAO Peter performs regularly as a solo artist developing a distinctive modality for trumpet and electronics under the moniker, Allotrope. Other current projects include: a new ensemble, Daughter’s Fever, featuring Melbourne alt folk luminary, Paddy Mann (AKA Grand Salvo); his celebrated cross-cultural sextet, Way Out West, with koto virtuoso Satsuki Odamura, and his long running collaboration with theatre-maker, Tamara Saulwick. In January 2015 the pair’s latest work, Endings, premiered at Sydney Festival and was described as, “an elegant, economical production that delivers on its promise to stay with you long after you leave” The Guardian.
Peter has presented these and other projects at numerous venues and festivals with recent highlights including: Montreal Jazz Festival, Earshot Festival Seattle, Copenhagen Jazzhouse, Vancouver Jazz Festival, Aarhus Festival (Denmark), Café Oto (London), Melbourne Festival, Sydney Festival, MONA FOMA (Hobart), Dotolim (Seoul), Super Deluxe (Tokyo), Urban Guild (Kyoto), Earzoom (Ljubljana), Sonorous Duration Festival (Singapore), Veneto Jazz Festival (Italy), Teatro Municipal de Las Condes (Chile), iBeam (New York), Labor Sonor (Berlin), Cosmopolite (Oslo) and Totally Huge New Music Festival (Perth).
As a composer Peter’s recent commissions include, Vanessa Tomlinson for 8 Hits (percussion solo), the Australian Brass Quintet (extended brass quintet), ABC Radio National (sound work for Sound. Music. Word), Tamara Saulwick (various electro-acoustic scores), Australian Art Orchestra (various), Kate Neal (wind and string quintet), Big West Festival (Siren Call 2015), International Trumpet Guild (extended trumpet quartet), and Arts House Melbourne (digital theatre/sound work 2015).
Peter is the recipient of numerous awards and nominations including an Australia Council Music Fellowship, two Bell Jazz Awards, APRA/AMC Art Music Awards, Green Room Theatre (sound design), Australian Arts In Asia Awards, and AIR Independent Recording. He holds a doctorate from Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University and was awarded 2013 Alumnus of the Year. Residencies include, Banff Centre Fall Residency (2007) with the assistance of a Rolston Music Fellowship (Canada) and 2014 Music Omi (New York). Peter’s work has also been supported by grants from the Ian Potter Trust, Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Victoria, Alan C. Rose Trust, Australia Korea Foundation, Australian International Cultural Council, and The Myer Foundation. In 2005 he was awarded the Keith and Elizabeth Murdoch Travelling Fellowship.
Selected awards, grants and residencies
2014: Music Omi New York
2014: APRA/AMC Art Music Awards. Award for Excellence by an Organisation. Australian Art Orchestra
2013: Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University Alumnus of the Year
2013: Australia Council Music Fellowship (for 2013/14)
2013: Australian Arts in Asia awards. Finalist for Bright Splinters
2012: Australian Jazz Bell Awards. Winner ‘Most Original Australian Jazz Album’ for Fish Boast of Fishing.
2012: AIR Awards. Finalist for Jazz Album of the Year.
2012: APRA/AMC Art Music Awards. Finalist for Jazz Composition of the Year
2011: APRA/AMC Art Music Awards. Finalist for Award for Excellence with Way Out West
2011: Victorian Green Room Awards. Nomination for ‘Best Composition and Sound Design’ for Pin Drop
2009: Bell Award for ‘Australian Jazz Ensemble of the Year’ with Way Out West
2008: APRA Awards nomination, Jazz Composition of the Year
2007: Tom and Isobel Rolston Scholarship Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada)
2007: Griffith University full scholarship for doctoral studies in composition
2006: Myer Foundation grant for new sound installation work with Double Venturi
2004: Keith and Elizabeth Travelling Fellowship
2003: Alan C. Rose Memorial Fund Project Scholarship
Discography as leader
2014: Peter Knight/Dung Nguyen with Joe Talia, Blach Sifilchi, LENA, Tilman Robinson, Dan West. Re: Residual (remixes). Parentheses (Belgium)
2012: Peter Knight (solo), Allotrope, Listen Hear Collective (Aust)
2011: Peter Knight (sextet), Fish Boast of Fishing, Listen Hear Collective (Aust)
2011: Peter Knight/Dung Nguyen, Residual, Parentheses Records (Belgium)
2010: Way Out West, The Effects of Weather, Jazzhead/MGM (Aust)
2007: Way Out West, Old Grooves for New Streets, Jazzhead/MGM (Aust), Effendi Records (Canada)
2006: Peter Knight Quintet, All the Gravitation of Silence, Jazzhead/MGM (Aust)
2006: 5+2 Brass Ensemble, Invisible Cities and Other Works, Rufus Records/Universal (Aust)
2003: Way Out West, Footscray Station, Newmarket Music (Aust)
2001: Peter Knight Quartet, Between Two Moments, Newmarket Music (Aust)
Recent selected festivals and concerts
2013: Allotrope solo tour Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Yokohama, Seoul, New York, Seattle, Vancouver, San Francisco.
2012: Allotrope solo tour Singapore (Sonorous Duration Festival), Denmark (LAK Soundart Festival), UK (Café Oto), Slovenia (Earzoom Festival Ljubljana and International Computer Music Conference), Italy (Venice), Australia (Restrung Festival Brisbane)
2012: Performances with Lindsay Vickery and Stuart James Slovenia (Earzoom Festival Ljubljana), Italy (Naples Conservatorium)
Pin Drop (hybrid theatre work with electroacoustic score. Collaboration with Tamara Saulwick) National tour Sydney (Carriageworks) Hobart (Salamanca Arts Centre) Cairns (Centre of Contemporary Arts)
2012: Fish Boast of Fishing premiere Melbourne Recital Centre for Melbourne Jazz Festival
2012: Bright Splinters (with vocalist/multi media artist, Sunny Kim) World Expo Yeosu Korea
2012: Allotrope solo concerts at Dotolim Seoul and Artspace Don Quixote Suncheon (South Korea)
2011: Bright Splinters. Recording and concert performances in Seoul
2011: Queensland Music Festival with Clocked Out Band Radio Plays
2011: Pin Drop. Malthouse season Melbourne
2011: Australian tour with NY saxophonist Quinsin Nachoff and pianist Matt Mitchell
2011: Melbourne International Jazz Festival Quinsin Nachoff and 5+2 Brass Ensemble
2011: Chendu Spring Festival (Sichuan China) with Wide Alley
2010: Pin Drop. Performances at Arts House North Melbourne
2010 National tour of Australia (12 dates) with Way Out West to launch The Effects of Weather, tour produced by Sound Travellers
2010 Canadian tour with Erik Griswold’s Wide Alley including Vancouver Jazz Festival and Ottawa Jazz Festival. Album recording and release
2009 Solo concert for Labor Sonor at KuLe Berlin
2009 Tour of Japan including Takatsuki Jazz Street Festival Osaka with Way Out West
2009: Tour of Korea with Way Out West
2009: Sydney Opera House with Erik Griswold’s Wide Alley
2009: Auckland Festival with Erik Griswold’s Wide Alley
2009: All Tomorrow’s Parties Australian tour with The Saints
2008: Montreal Jazz Festival, Vancouver Jazz Festival, Victoria Jazz Festival, Toronto World Routes,
Veneto Jazz Festival (Italy) with Way Out West
Selected scores and commissions
2014: Solo percussion. Commissioned by Vanessa Tomlinson
2013: Australian Brass Quintet. Commission for prepared brass quintet premiered at Sydney International Festival of Brass
2012: Pin Drop. Radio version commissioned by ABC Radio
2011: Seddon Archives. Audio walk (with Tamara Saulwick) commissioned by Big West Festival
2011: Pin Drop. Electro acoustic score and sound design, solo theatre/dance by Tamara Saulwick (produced by Malthouse Theatre August 2011)
2010: Dot Dash. Quartet for prepared Bb trumpets. For International Trumpet Guild annual conference Sydney July 2010
2009: Press, score for short film by Mark Hennessy
2007: Spirals. For Dead Horse Wind and String Ensemble as part of Ground Elastic Sound curated by Kate Neal, premiered at The Forum in Melbourne
For just over 24 years I have been a freelance writer, publishing in that time a wide variety of genres: news items, live concert reviews, travel articles, features, personality profiles, and CD and book reviews. I have written for various in-flight magazines, The Adelaide Review, The Republican, The Bulletin, The Australian, The Advertiser, The Melbourne Herald Sun and several regional newspapers. In 1994 I won a national travel-writing prize sponsored by The Australian newspaper, which led to my writing regularly for that paper. Since 2003 I have been jazz critic for The Advertiser and The Australian newspapers, on average contributing weekly to each paper. In 2005 I won a national Jazz Writing Competition sponsored by the Wangaratta Jazz Festival.
In 1985 my then partner and I underwent a total sea change, moving to India to try and implement a business plan involving the acquisition and establishing of a small scale pensione, a scheme which ultimately failed to materialise, due to insurmountable problems with the Indian bureaucracy. At the same time our relationship deteriorated, and eventually in 1990 I returned alone to Australia. These major events in my life form the basis of my book What Westerners Have For Breakfast published in late 2013 by Transit Lounge Publishing.
I spent four years until 1993 managing Community Radio Station 4CCR.FM, Cairns, and then four more years managing another community station 8CCC.FM, Alice Springs where I met my present wife. In 1994 while at 8CCC.FM I was elected to the community radio peak national body, the Community Broadcasting Assn of Australia (CBAA). I had worked in commercial radio previously in the 1960s: announcing, copywriting, programming and scriptwriting for stations 2LT Lithgow, 2NM Muswellbrook and 2NX Newcastle.
Throughout the period from 1990 until 1997 I had numerous freelance articles published by The Cairns Post, Barfly Magazine and The Alice Springs News.
In 1997 we moved to my wife’s home town, Adelaide where we’ve happily lived ever since, and in 2003 I began writing for The Advertiser as a freelance music critic, and continue in that role. I was made Jazz Critic for The Australian in late 2003, a position I presently hold, and in addition I had been writing travel pieces, profiles and book reviews for The Australian since 1995.
John Clare was born at Maroubra Bay in 1940. He has written on diverse topics for most major Australian publications, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian, The National Times and Nation Review, as well as Town and Queen magazines in England. His poetry has appeared in Poetry Australia and New Poetry and has been read on the ABC’s old Quality Street programme. He has published three books: Bodgie Dada: Australian Jazz Since 1945 (UNSW Press), Low Rent (Text) and Why Wangaratta?: Ten Years Of The Wangaratta Festival of Jazz (Victorian Tourist Bureau). John currently reviews books for The Sun-Herald and writes essays and reviews for SIMA.org.au
Aaron Benson is fastly getting major recognition in the U.S, Europe and Japan for his C.D After The Rush distributed through http://www.newmarketmusic.com The C.D has received glowing reviews and acclaim for Aaron’s original tunes and very carefully selected covers. Very much a stylist with many influences including Jazz, Soul, Latin, R’n’B, Blues and Acid Jazz his playing sparkles with a pristine not overly effected guitar sound which is full of tantalizing melodies and expressive grooves. A complete bio and reviews can be found along with soundbites at the official website http://www.aaron-benson.com
You will be impressed at what you will find at the AB Hotel. Fastidious attention to detail combined with award winning service, top shelf products, and a fantastic line-up of some of Australia’s best live entertainment make The AB Hotel an experience you must not miss.
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Pianist and composer Chris Cody has performed and recorded internationally for the last 25 years while based in Paris. He has headlined at many international festivals including Paris Quartiers d’Eté, London, Rome, Brussels Jazz Marathon, Marciac, Nantes, Ascona and Algiers and at a vast array of concert venues throughout the USA, Europe and Africa. He has worked with many outstanding international musicians including Rick Margitza, Roy Hargrove, Glenn Ferris, Carla Bruni, Annie Whitehead, Tina Arena, Michel Jonaz, Rhoda Scott and Herb Geller.
With eleven CDs of his music released on international labels he has received glowing reviews and featured on radio and television around the world, and has collaborated on over thirty other albums.
His compositions have been commissioned for the inauguration of the Australian Music Centre Paris, as well as for the Sydney Theatre Company, American Academy of Dance, Pillow Book Dance Company Pittsburg, and other French and American theatre companies, and he has composed the music for eight films, and several TV and Radio documentaries.
He was a member of the judging panel for the 2014 Freedman Fellowship, Australia.
“Magical!” Piano Magazine, France
“Exhilarating … a feast of melody… an inspiration never at fault” JazzHot, France
“Full of music and future!” Le Monde, France
“A marvellous climate, between subtle arrangements and vast spaces of improvisation…” Jazz Magazine, France
“Very luminous jazz!” Télérama, France
“This is jazz that takes off for the heights” Figaroscope, France
“A European sensibility with a nod to Debussy” Rolling Stone
“Splendidly rich and varied” Jazzwise, U.K
“A performance full of colour, humour and rhythmic movement.” Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
“A fine mix of superior technical talent and youthful inventiveness” Variety USA
AWARDS :
2010 US Department of State Federal Award, Tour of Algeria
1999 Finalist Australian National Jazz Awards
1995 Finalist Tremplin Jazz Val d’Oise
1989 Best Jazz Composition, Australian Jazz Action Society
1989 Jack Chrotowsky Prize for Jazz Piano
1979 Finalist, Roger Woodward Classical Piano Scholarship
SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY :
Chris Cody Octet: Astrolabe, CCM
Chris Cody, Not My Lover, Wave Music
Jon Handelsman, Spirit House
– Bremner Duthrie: Kabarett 33 (pianist, arranger, producer)
– Paddy Sherlock, Electric Chop Shop (pianist, arranger)
– Tuesday Warren Luminescence Quartet: One Drop of Water
– Tuesday Warren Luminescence Quartet: Si Seulement
– Jocelyn Moen, La Rouge Qui Bouge, (pianist, arranger, producer),(Roadsign)
– Wendy Lee Taylor, Compilation, Jewel, (Smoove Records, Japan)
– Chris Cody Coalition, Conscript (CHC001, Nocturne, France)
– Wendy Taylor: Lets Do It , pianist, arranger (Crystal CDM 16)
– Freyja: This Girl (pianist, arranger, producer), FR626
– Chris Cody Coalition with Glenn Ferris: Midnight Tide (Cristal/Harmonia Mundi)
– On The Corner: Four (Amrap)
– Chris Cody Coalition: Music for Don Juan (STC 501)
– Elisabeth Green, Biodiversity, (UWS BD02)
– Chris Cody Coalition: Oasis (Naxos 86018-2)
(APRA nomination for best jazz album 1998)
– The Many Faces of Naxos Jazz (Naxos 86040)
– Chris Cody Coalition (Quoi de Neuf Docteur 032)
– Skander Guetari : Alwan (Bynzart, SG06131928)
– Gervais Koffe: The African Diaspora (Forest)
– Caroline Lynn: The Shaman’s Kiss (Newmarket 3113.2)
– Paddy Sherlock and the Jump Jive Five: The Louis Jordan Show
– Paddy Sherlock and the Swingin Lovers
– Jeff Hoffman: Good Thing (MDM 101)
– Beigel Daisy Toasts (Virgin France)
– Stefan Hugye: Sympathisers (Xopf 020)
Concerts
with Carla Bruni, Michel Jonasz, Tina Arena, Roy Hargrove, Antonio Hart, Rick Margitza, Rhoda Scott, Herb Geller, Glenn Ferris, Stephano di Battista, Yves Robert, Sonny Murray, Jason Marsalis, Marcel Azzola, Enrico Macias, Stéphane Belmondo, James Morrison, Barry Altschul, Frank Lacy, Annie Whitehead, Ari Brown, Graham Haynes, Sarah Lazarus, Steve Lehman, Dave O’Higgins, Joe Lee Wilson, Daniel Yvinec, François Théberge, Paris Jazz Orchestra, Lisa Simone, Caneiro Edmundo, Alfredo Rodriguez, Brice Wassy, Rasul Siddik, Wayne Dockery, George Brown, Fabio Morgera, Sangoma Everett, Peter Gritz, Prakash Sharwal, Amar Sundy, Carl Schlosser, Larry Gillespie, Jean-Loup Lognon, Jean-Jacques Avenel, Vic Pitts, Gordon Brisker, Don Burrows, Sandy Evans, Adrian Mears, Tim Hopkins, Miroslav Bukovsky, James Greening, Phil Slater, Julien Wilson etc.
Selected Festivals
Festivals of London, Paris, Rome, Brussels, Marciac, Derry, Dars Es Salaam, Festival de Francophonie, Stockholm, Europe Youth Festival, Antwerp,, Marseille, Fête de la Fraternité, Les Rendez-Vous de L’Erdre, Ascona, Nantes, Le Havre, Quartiers d’Ete, Musiques à Bagatelle, Jazz Balade, L’Art 2000 Paris, Xopf New Music Basle, St. Tropez, Mégeves, Viasse, Man Ray Festival, Deauville, Martin Luther King, UNESCO Charlie Parker, Marcoussis, St. Cergues, St. Gilles Croix de Vie, Pau, New Music Festival Paris, Arts et Mouvants, France, Sydney Festival, Wangaratta, Newcastle, Manly, South American Music Festival of Sydney, Australian Music Festival, Australian Music Convention, Bach and Beyond, Australian International Music Show, etc.