This is the fourth concert in The Undiscovered Country series. The series promotes avant-garde artists with a focus on artists emerging through the NDIS system. The series combines NDIS artists with their mentors and other artists and adheres to JOLT Arts’ inclusive agenda.
Artists –
This project has been supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
For this concert, Kathryn Sutherland will perform alongside her mentor legendary Australian percussionist Peter Neville and other guest artists.
Brophy’s Womb To Tomb is an ongoing exploration of how drums can be made to drone. Normally, drumming is perceived as an event, made up of micro events each time a skin is struck of a cymbal tapped. It’s history is one of rhythm and patterns, expertise and explosiveness, physicality and even violence. But if one were to nanoscopically exist in another dimension, where a single drum strike last forever, the drum would be a drone. To simulate such a possibility, Womb To Tomb applies a range of motorized beaters to a variety of drums and cymbals. This project is sometimes exhibited as an installation, evoking a choral noise of ‘drumness’. For the Jolted performance, Philip will attempt to perform with/against/for/upon an array of motorized drum parts, and hopefully become mechanized in the process.
Alongside her work as a founding member of The Amplified Elephants, Kathryn has developed a solo body of work centred on the drum kit and electronic music. Kathryn’s sound is an abstracted physical world that is instinctive, playful and often quite arresting in its beauty and power.
Photo: Tim McNeilage.
Kathryn Sutherland
A founding member of The Amplified Elephants (founded 2006), Kathryn explores the physicality of making creative sound. Kathryn is also a founding member of Sonic Adventurers Collective where she explores the intersections between sound, moving image and digital 2D works.
Recently Kathryn and The Amplified Elephants released the album DEEP CREATURES (2021 Heavy Machinery Records) which will be premiered as a live show as society comes out of COVID-19. Along with the Elephants, Kathryn will also premiere the work HAGOROMO with Japanese Noh singer Ryoko Aoki after presenting an early 15 minute version of the project online with Slow Label from Tokyo (2021-2022).
Career highlights for Sutherland have included touring UK performing THE NIS (2014) and performing on the Punchathon Machine in a range of shows. Punchathon emphasises Sutherland’s love of physical performance and rock ’n’ roll theatricality. 2015 saw Sutherland tour to Bendigo for the show SELECT NATURALIS (BIFEM) and perform at Federation Square’s Lights in Winter Festival. In 2019, Kathryn performed in SELF SEEKERS (Footscray Community Arts Centre).
Kathryn is mentored by percussionists Peter Neville and James Hullick.
Peter Neville
Peter Neville is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts and was appointed Head Of Percussion there in 2000. Whilst he works across the range of musical styles, he has a particular commitment to new music. As the percussionist of the ELISION Ensemble for twenty-three years, Peter has been involved with practically all their concerts, compact discs and international tours. Works including Chris Dench’s Driftglass, for percussion and ensemble, and Richard Barrett’s abglanzbeladen- auseinandergeschreiben, have been written for and premiered by him. Peter is also a member of groups including Jouissance, the David Chesworth Ensemble, The Raga Dolls Salon Orchestra and SPEAK Percussion, and he has recorded and toured internationally with each of them.
His orchestral work has included tours to Europe with the Australian Youth Orchestra, and Japan with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. With that orchestra he was also part of the Australian premiere of Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony, in the presence of the composer, and he took part in their Australian tour with Elton John. He has performed in numerous musicals, including West Side Story, Cats and Company, and in three Australian tours of the Broadway version of The Pirates of Penzance. He toured Australia as musical director of Tap Dogs. Other theatrical tours have included the Australia/China tour of Playbox Theatre’s Cho-Cho-San and Richard the Third with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Within dance orchestras he has supported performances of the Bolshoi Ballet, the Russian State Ballet, the Nureyev Farewell Tour and the Netherlands Dance Theatre. With HumanVeins Dance Theatre he took part in the Australian premieres of Iannis Xenakis’ Oresteia, and was guest drummer with the Balanescu Quartet in their three Australian seasons of Possessed with the Meryl Tankard Australian Dance Theatre. Peter Neville appears on CD recordings ranging from pop albums by Peter Andre and Deborah Conway to the experimental industrial album ‘New Maps of Hell’ by sound artist Paul Schutze.
In March 2006, Peter was Creative Director for the Commonwealth Games International Youth Masterclass In Percussion.
Kathryn Sutherland is an emerging sound artist and percussionist who has been mentored through Hullick Studios‘ and JOLT Arts’ A.M.P. program. A.M.P. provides one-on-one mentoring, career pathways and sizeable commissions for artists in the NDIS sector.
All audiences are encouraged to enter via the back of the building: There is a disability ramp and disability parking at the back of the building. The front of the building is not easily accessed by people with ambulation needs and wheel chairs. This is because the building is a heritage site. Within the building, the access is in place so that patrons can reach the stage and audience by wheelchair or if they have ambulation requirements.
Sound Artist – Kathryn Sutherland
Percussionist – Peter Neville