Sophia Brous, David Coulter, Leo Abrahams

In Residence:
January 4, 2016 - January 17, 2016
Discipline:
Performance, Music, Theatre
Country:
Australia, United Kingdom

Australian interdisciplinary performer Sophia Brous will join with British multi-instrumentalists David Coulter and Leo Abrahams to develop Lullaby Movement, a contemporary performance work exploring lullaby ritual from around the world.

Originally commissioned by Urbantheatre Projects for the Sydney Festival 2015, the project explores ancient and contemporary lullaby repertoire in a part-song-cycle, part-inter-disciplinary theatre work, and explores their unique qualities as artefacts of creative and social expression.

Sophia Brous is an interdisciplinary performer, chanteuse, composer, curator, and festival director. She undertook scholarship study in jazz and improvisation at the New England Conservatory, Boston and Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne. A performer with diverse interests, she works and collaborates with a vast range of companies and festivals internationally, including The Barbican, Southbank Centre, MONA, and Sydney and Melbourne Festivals. She also works with artists such as Julia Holter, David Coulter, Mick Harvey, Kimbra, Kirin J Callinan, Belle and Sebastian, HTRK, Mira Calix, Richard Lowenstein and Paul Grabowsky.

David Coulter has worked throughout the world as a musician, artist, teacher/ lecturer and curator, and as Musical and Artistic director of large-scale musical and theatrical events. He has composed for dance, theatre, cinema, television and radio. A specialist in unusual instruments, including Jew’s harp, didgeridoo and Stroh violin he is also widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost musical saw players. He served as associate music director and multi-instrumentalist in the opera The Black Rider, with Tom Waits and Robert Wilson, and also alongside Damon Albarn (Gorillaz) for two years on the opera Monkey: Journey to the West. He toured for several years in the mid-to-late-80s as a member of Test Dept and The Band Of Holy Joy; spent early-to-mid-90s playing violin, mandolin and guitar with The Pogues and since 2003 has been recording and touring internationally with artists as diverse as Jarvis Cocker; Damon Albarn; Yoko Ono; Marianne Faithfull; The Handsome Family; Richard Hawley; Marc Ribot; Steve Nieve; Tim Robbins; The Good, The Bad and The Queen, Patrick Wolf and Radiohead’s drummer, Philip Selway. He played the didgeridoo at the invitation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on a number of official occasions and also in concert with the Kronos Quartet.

Leo Abrahams is an English musician, composer, and producer. He has collaborated with a multitude of professional musicians, including Brian Eno, Imogen Heap, Jarvis Cocker, Carl Barât, and Paul Simon. After attending the Royal Academy of Music in England, he started his musical career by touring as lead guitarist with Imogen Heap. Starting in 2005 he has released five solo albums, largely in an ambient style involving complex arrangements and a use of guitar-generated textures. He has also co-written or arranged a variety of film soundtracks, including Peter Jackson’s 2009 release The Lovely Bones and Steve McQueen’s Hunger.

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