Soundweavings: Participant Concert, May 9

Nguyễn Thanh Thủy is a leading đàn tranh player/improviser in both traditional and experimental music. She was born into a theatre family and was raised with traditional Vietnamese music from an early age in Hà Nội. She studied at the Hanoi Conservatory of Music where she received her diploma in 1998, followed by a Master of Arts at the Institute of Cultural Studies in 2003. Since 2000 she holds a teaching position at the Vietnam National Academy of Music. She has toured in Asia, Europe and the USA. She has received many distinctions including the First Prize and the Outstanding Traditional Music Performer Prize in the National Competition of Zither Talents in 1998. Nguyễn Thanh Thủy has recorded several CD’s as soloist with orchestra and solo CDs, which were released by Phương Nam Film Vietnam; by dB Productions Sweden; by Setola di Maiale Italia and by Neuma Records & Publications USA. She collaborates with composers such as Richard Karpen (US), Kent Olofsson (SE), Nguyễn Thiện Đạo (FR/VN) and Trần Thị Kim Ngọc (VN). 

Perpetually curious, Peter Knight’s practice exists in the spaces between categories, between genres and between cultures. From 2013-23 Peter was the Artistic Director of the Australian Art Orchestra, for which he commissioned over 100 compositions and collaborations from a diverse range of international and Australian artists including Nicole Lizée, Alvin Lucier, Anthony Braxton, Hyelim Kim, and Senyawa. He also composed for, and performed in the company, presenting his works at international festivals and venues in more than a dozen countries winning awards including four AMC Art Music Awards, the Albert H Maggs Composition Prize, and numerous ARIA nominations. Peter has maintained an active solo career developing an international reputation as an innovator who is extending the possibilities of his instrument with approaches that interweave acoustic and electronics. His latest solo release, Shadow Phase, is out on the ROOM40 label, described by Headphone Commute as, "a carefully curated exercise in reflective restraint, dreamy atmospherics, ebbing dynamics.” He holds a doctorate from Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University and was named its Alumnus of the Year in 2013. 

Photo by Sarah Walker

Sunny Kim is a Korean-born vocalist, improvisor, composer and educator based in Australia. Drawing inspiration from her life journey as a global nomad - Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Denver, Boston, New York and now Melbourne - Sunny is a two-time winner of Jazz People Magazine's Reader's Poll Award in the Best Vocalist category (2012, 2013) and the recipient of the LIG Artist grant (2011), Sunny has released five albums as a leader and has also recorded as a featured vocalist on numerous records such as After Dark (Prana Trio, 2005), White With Foam (MadLove, 2009), and Keep Your Heart Right (Roswell Rudd Quartet, 2007), and founded Hand to Earth with Peter Knight and Daniel Wilfred during an Australian Art Orchestra residency in 2018. As an educator, she has facilitated hundreds of developing musicians from diverse backgrounds to find their creative voice through cultivation of intuition, body awareness and collaborative skills. A former Assistant Professor at Dong-Ah Institute for Media and Arts, Sunny currently lectures at the University of Melbourne in Jazz and Improvisation. Invited by the Australian Music Centre, Sunny delivered the Peggy Glanville-Hicks address in 2020.

Photo by Sarah Walker

Daniel Wilfred is a Wagiläk man from Ngukurr, in remote Northern Australia. He was born in Nhulunbuy, skin name, Wamut. He’s a ceremonial leader for the Wagiläk people, singing Manikay and playing bilma at ceremonies in Ngukurr, Numbulwar, Groote Eylandt and surrounding areas. He co-leads celebrated Australian quintet, Hand to Earth, with Sunny Kim, and Peter Knight, and together with his brother David Wilfred has been collaborating and touring for almost 15 years, sharing his songs and culture with people around the world. Recently he has performed with Hand to Earth at venues and festivals including Lincoln Centre (NYC), Pierre Boulez Seal (Berlin) Jazztopad Festival Poland, Bimhuis (Netherlands), Vancouver Jazz Festival, and Jeonju Sori Festival (Korea). Daniel is also a regular performer with the Australian Art Orchestra and was the recipient of the 2019 Arts Fellowship by the Northern Territory. Together with David, he was also awarded the NT Luminary Award for ‘cultural leadership’ at the 2020 Art Music Awards. 

Photo by Sarah Walker 

Ekaterina is a versatile singer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist skilled in percussion, guitar, zhaleika, and recorder. Her voice ranges from Eastern European ritual singing to Western classical and contemporary alternative genres. A York University BFA Honours graduate, she explored Balkan, East Slavic, and Near Eastern music, which shapes her work with ensembles like Blisk, Polky, and Meden Glas.

She’s performed at major festivals including Winnipeg, Calgary, and Canmore Folk Festivals, APAP in New York, Ireland’s "Your Roots Are Showing," and Folk Alliance.

Ekaterina also composes for theatre, film, and animation. Her work appears in Birdbone Theatre’s Broomdance (2024) and films like Motherly (2021), VRDLK (2022), and In the Heat (2023).

Her latest project, Vedmah, blends dark electronic music with folklore and witchcraft traditions, crafting a dystopian sonic world where ancient rituals meet modern metal, mythology, and immersive storytelling.

Recipient of Michael Davies Scholarship Endowment Fund.

STATHIS//DAVEY//KIM are a Melbourne based collective of three female composers who have an extensive multi-instrumental practice including the use of analogue synthesizers. Their practice spans large scale fully immersive sound installations, to live electronic music performance.

SDK’s site-responsive installations are presented in expansive settings where nature and human-made structures co-exist. They interact with site by using features present (rock faces, bodies of water and architecture) as surfaces from which to bounce sound off, creating delays and rhythms. Furthermore the trio incorporate diegetic sounds as key voices in the work, allowing them to work with, instead of overriding the environment.

Stathis//Davey//Kim’s sound is presented in multi-channel diffusion, sonically mapping a new awareness of the physical space. Audiences are placed directly into the center of their sound worlds, as the work shifts and moves around them. Conceptually Stathis//Davey//Kim explore the paradoxes of site, the beauty and sparseness, the functional and the fantastical, natural and manufactured and in all this question human’s impact on ecologies. Their work allows audiences to experience a unique aspect of site, where sound, nature and architecture interact. For audiences, these types of singular sonic experiences bond the location to memory through the extraordinary experience of immersive sound and music.

Recipient of Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Eun Ji Kim (Stage name_Kklily) is a Korean traditional percussionist, educator, and cultural entrepreneur. She graduated from the Korea National University of Arts with a major in percussion and earned a Business Marketing degree from Centennial College in Canada in 2024.

As the CEO of Eunji Kim Project, she has planned and produced numerous performances that blend traditional Korean music with contemporary styles. She has performed internationally in Denmark, Sweden, Mongolia, France, Germany, China, and Hungary, showcasing the richness of Korean traditional music on global stages. In 2017, she won the Grand Prize at the Gang Gam-chan Festival National High Court Pansori Contest and has been invited to perform at prestigious venues, including the National Theater of Korea.

Beyond traditional performances, she actively collaborates with jazz musicians and other artists, pushing creative boundaries. She released her single album Remain and is currently performing at major venues across Canada, including Dundas Square, Casa Loma, CNE, and TD Korean Employee Network events. Dedicated to promoting Korean traditional music worldwide, she continues to expand her artistic influence while deepening her expertise in business and marketing.

Recipient of Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

STATHIS//DAVEY//KIM are a Melbourne based collective of three female composers who have an extensive multi-instrumental practice including the use of analogue synthesizers. Their practice spans large scale fully immersive sound installations, to live electronic music performance.

SDK’s site-responsive installations are presented in expansive settings where nature and human-made structures co-exist. They interact with site by using features present (rock faces, bodies of water and architecture) as surfaces from which to bounce sound off, creating delays and rhythms. Furthermore the trio incorporate diegetic sounds as key voices in the work, allowing them to work with, instead of overriding the environment.

Stathis//Davey//Kim’s sound is presented in multi-channel diffusion, sonically mapping a new awareness of the physical space. Audiences are placed directly into the center of their sound worlds, as the work shifts and moves around them. Conceptually Stathis//Davey//Kim explore the paradoxes of site, the beauty and sparseness, the functional and the fantastical, natural and manufactured and in all this question human’s impact on ecologies. Their work allows audiences to experience a unique aspect of site, where sound, nature and architecture interact. For audiences, these types of singular sonic experiences bond the location to memory through the extraordinary experience of immersive sound and music.

Recipient of Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Neda Samavati is a composer-guitarist based in London, Ontario. She is currently a PhD candidate in Music Composition at the University of Western Ontario, building on her academic background with an MA in Music Composition from Tehran University of Arts.

In 2024, she was selected as an emerging composer for the Widening the Circle at the Tuckamore Music Festival (2024–2025 season) and received the Future Award from the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, 2024. In 2023, she was commissioned by the Northern Tornadoes Project (NTP) to create a new work inspired by scientific data. In 2020, she reached the semi-finals of the 5th Guitar Composition Competition Fidelio in Spain.

Beyond composition, Neda is an active classical guitarist with a strong interest in ensemble performance and colaborative experimentation. She is always seeking out new artistic experiences that challenge and expand her creative voice.

Her music is shaped by a wide range of interests—including physics, astronomy, literature and painting. She continually finds ways to bring these disciplines into her work, whether through structural inspiration, poetic themes, or visual elements.

Recipient of Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Sumudi Suraweera (born 1982) received his PhD in ethnomusicology from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, in 2010, with research focused on Sri Lankan Low-Country traditional drumming. Prior to that, he completed a Bachelor of Music in jazz, specializing in drums.

Based in Sri Lanka since 2010, Sumudi founded Musicmatters, a performance-oriented music school for children that has grown to be one of Colombo's premier music institutions. In 2023, he took on the role of director for the jazz program at the Musicmatters Institute of Jazz Studies, providing jazz education for Sri Lankan youth musicians looking to hone their skills.

As a performer, Sumudi has been actively involved in a range of local projects through the Musicmatters Collective, which is dedicated to fostering an experimental and improvised music scene in Colombo. His own ensembles include Baliphonics, Serendib Sorcerers, Musicmatters Transcoastal Collective, Koku Samagama, and the Musicmatters Trio. His solo drum set recordings also showcase his ongoing exploration and research into adapting traditional Sri Lankan drumming to the drum set.

Recipient of Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

ረብሻ(Rebsha) is the Ethio-ambient duo created by Feven Kidane and Nebyu Yohannes. Delighted to be invited to Soundweavings at Banff Centre, Kidane and Yohannes fuse their background in ambient and Black American music with their East African heritage, generating a sonic landscape stretching from sub-Saharan Africa to the Pacific Northwest. ረብሻ’s dedication to decolonization while recognizing cultural tradition as members of the Ethiopian diaspora is paramount to their work. With Kidane and Yohannes on a mix of brass, strings, and their recent learnings of traditional Ethiopian instruments, the pair blend acoustic and electronic textures to score the memories of their ancestors (Tizita) and carry these lifetimes into the present, holding them under the light of today’s world.

reb·sha: 
noun
1. noise, riot, disturbance.

Recipient of Michael Davies Scholarship Endowment Fund.

Maniucha Bikont is a singer, musician, performer. She composes songs, creates and performs music for films and theater performances. Participant in field research in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, PhD in humanities. She practices traditional, folk, modern impro and composed music, and plays the tuba.

Her solo album “Porządki”, was released 2024. She co-created the bands: Trio Marzenie, Maniucha i Ksawery, Tęgie Chłopy, Dom, Dziczka, Niewte. She collaborates with artists from the circles of avant-garde, improvised, traditional and film music, such as Mats Gustafsson (Ensamble E), Assaf Talmudi (BOTZ, “Porządki”), Seigo Matsunaga (IMA Songlines), Eyal Talmudi (Malox, JCF), Cezary Duchnowski (Devil's Violin), Bartek Weber (DOM), Jan Duszyński (Trio Marzenie), Anna Smolar (performance “Antigone from Molenbeek”), Małgorzata Kozera (film “Twarze Agaty”), Marcin Wicha (“Porządki”), Bastarda Trio, Prusinowski Kompania, Lautari, or Radical Polish Ansambl.

She performs in Europe, Asia and America. Winner of the True Musicians Tournament (2014), two-time winner of the Nowa Tradycja competition (2016, 2017), nominated for the Koryfeusz Muzyki Polskiej award (2020, 2021). Her album “Oj borom borom” was awarded by Polish Radio and presented at Lincoln Center in New York.

Recipient of Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Trio Marzenie (Januchta/Bikont/Duszynski) explores the realms of improvised music, creating unique soundscapes that bridge minimalism with Eastern European musical traditions. As artists-in residence at Uśpiona Księgarnia bookstore in Warsaw, where they regularly organize concerts and performances, the trio has established themselves as innovative voices in Poland's experimental music scene.

Jan Duszynski's minimalist approach on the synthesizer interweaves seamlessly with Tomasz Januchta's powerful yet lyrical double bass, processed through multiple effects. Maniucha Bikont completes the ensemble with her versatile vocals, clarinet, and various sound objects. Her musical language draws from extensive studies with singers and musicians across Eastern Europe, incorporating their scales, timbres, and musical narratives into her unique expression.

In recent performances, the trio has demonstrated their versatility across various Warsaw venues, including a memorable show at the Open Cultural Center in Jazdów, where they performed alongside archival family footage by Jakub Duszynski. They also marked the opening of Uśpiona Księgarnia on Stalowa 1 and performed at Plac Zabaw by the Vistula River, accompanying the screening of Jerzy Kukuczka's archives.

Recipient of Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Tomasz Januchta is a double bassist of the orchestra of the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera. From 2005 to 2021, he was a musician with the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, performing in numerous concerts and recordings. A laureate of national double bass competitions, he graduated from the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw.

He is an active soloist and chamber musician, having performed at Poland’s most renowned classical music festivals. Passionate about education, he teaches double bass at music schools and chamber music courses. His artistic pursuits also include composing music for films, video art, and theater.

He has made numerous recordings of premiere performances of works by contemporary Polish composers for double bass.

As an improvising musician, he collaborates with avant-garde Warsaw-based ensembles such as STOP, INLY TOUCH, USTA, and TRIO MARZENIE. In 2021, he recorded and published online J.S. Bach’s complete cello suites, arranged for double bass by T. Pelczar, thanks to a Ministry of Culture and National Heritage scholarship.

Recipient of Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

Sangah Lee is a professional pansori artist, specializing in the Korean storytelling vocal tradition, and is currently based in Canada. Beginning her international performance career at the age of 15, she has toured major cities such as Tokyo, New York, Chicago, and Honolulu, passionately promoting Korean traditional music on the global stage. Lee holds a degree in Korean Music from Ewha Womans University and has received the prestigious Minister’s Award at the National Pansori Competition.

After immigrating to Canada in 2017 to pursue a PhD in Ethnomusicology at the University of Toronto, Lee has become a dynamic contributor to intercultural dialogues. Her growing presence in Toronto’s music scene is marked by recent performances at high-profile events such as ROM After Dark, the Aga Khan Museum Pop-Up Series, the Toronto Korea Festival, and the Canadian Opera Company Showcase Series.

Lee is the founder and artistic director of the Canada Pansori Center and serves as a vocalist for Toronto-based fusion ensembles Haneum and Baejjang-e. Her diverse collaborations include performing with Nagata Shachu Taiko, contributing vocals to Robert Lee’s jazz album Forbidden West, and curating interdisciplinary partnerships with dancers and musicians at her debut pansori concert in Canada, Pan:Sori.

Recipient of Banff Centre Artists' Awards.

I am a composer, improviser, vocalist and cellist who grew up in northern China and has studied and worked in the US for seven years. My works span classical, folk, jazz, improvisation, multimedia, poetry, dance, environmental studies, and studies of psychiatry and trauma. I usually found my voice in the ocean of historical gaps, and I aim to create narratives that reveal and reflect on what has been hidden or forgotten by our society.

I have also dedicated myself to environmental activism and education through working with scientists at the White Mountains and NOAA on translating environmental data, sounds from acoustic monitoring devices, and recordings into music and multimedia performances using acoustic and digital instruments. These interdisciplinary collaborations stimulate a more organic musical language that can speak to more diverse audiences and younger generations.

As a performer, I enjoy playing and learning musical traditions such as indigenous and folk music in Southern/Southwestern China, Kabuki Theater, African drum and dance, jazz and improvisation, and more. I have played with musicians from North and South America, West Africa, Asia, and Europe and embraced the energy, rhythms, and history of diverse countries and cultures, which constantly nurtures my intellectual and emotional strength.

Recipient of Walter and Estelle Painter Endowment.

Maryam Rahmani is an Iranian born Santur player who has been living in Adelaide since 2019. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Playing Traditional Music from Tehran University. 

Maryam’s musical journey began with playing Santur when she was 12 years old, and she had the chance to get lessons chest to chest from the masters in Iran. The journey took on a more academic approach when she attended university, which gave her the opportunity to explore various aspects of Iranian classical music.

Passionate to discover her hometowns unique sounds, she started to play Kamancheh which is another bowed string instrument form Iran, and also dutar (Persian word for “two strings”), a traditional lute-like instrument known for its resonant sound from Khorasan(North-East side of Iran), that allowed her to unmask the other side of traditional music.

Enthusiastic about the intricate interplay of rhythm and poetry, Maryam’s love for literature and poetry naturally led her to explore Persian meters and their integration into music. During her university years, she delved into the study of tombak (the Iranian goblet drum), enriching her understanding of rhythm. Fascinated by rhythmic patterns, she also embraced the art of flamenco dance when she came to Adelaide, blending the worlds of Persian and Spanish rhythms in her creative pursuits.

Recipient of Frelyn Memorial Endowment.