THE ARTISTS

Alexander Cigana recently graduated from a PhD in Art History at the University of Sydney. His thesis “The Concert of Parts: Origins and Revolutions of the Trophy” traced the trophy motif from the tropaia of Archaic Greece through to the trophées of eighteenth-century France. His work as a visual artist, principally in sculpture, ceramics and drawing, emerges from a preoccupation with many of the same themes: violence and the decorative, and the body and the ways it comes together and apart.

Christine Pan is a Sydney-based composer who often develops her works from social-cultural and philosophical frameworks that she takes great pride in meticulously researching. Her music has been played by the Goldner Quartet, Ensemble Offspring and members of WASO.In 2022, Christine will be premiering an audio-visual work at Konzertprojekt’s Sound Stories Concert supported by the City of Sydney and a new chamber work to be premiered by Corvus at the Fairbanks Summer Festival Alaska.

Natalia Zdorovtsova is a neuroscience PhD student at the University of Cambridge. She was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, but has spent much of her life between the United States and United Kingdom. As a neuroscientist, Natalia is interested in how the brain coordinates attention in our day-to-day lives. Lately, Natalia has been interested in the processes by which we can engage with the concept of the Sacred. In her abstract art series, Symbiosis, she merges her love of art and neuroscience.

James Hazel is a composer, artist, editor and educator based on the unceded Gadigal land of the Eora Nation (so-called Sydney). James works across score practices, sound, video, archive, text, language, research and performance. As someone who lived in an underclass (social-housing) community for most of his life, James employs sound, utterance, and (re)performance to interrogate what it means to live, love & labour under & through precarity.
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Sonya Holowell is a vocalist, composer, writer and educator of Dharawal/Inuit descent. Her work spans many contexts and takes multiple forms, with improvisation as a primary MO. Sonya was co-founder and editor of online arts publication ADSR Zine 2018-2020. Recent projects include the duos Sumn Conduit with Ben Carey, holowell with Jonathan Holowell and Danger/Dancer with James Hazel. She is on a new threshold of personal, expository work.
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Sonja Schebeck was born in Sydney, Australia and her violin teachers have included Barbara Hayward (Suzuki), Christopher Kimber (Sydney Conservatorium) and Florian Zwiauer (MUK Vienna). She founded ‘The Freestyle Orchestra’ in 2006 and is a founding member of Nigel Kennedy’s ‘Orchestra of Life’. Her masters thesis is in “Innovations in Classical Music Presentation” (MUK Vienna). Sonja is currently touring Europe with Australian circus company ‘Gravity & Other Myths’ as violinist/multi-instrument

Award winning violinist Dr. Xenia Deviatkina-Loh has performed as soloist and recitalist in various venues across Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US, and China. She also frequently performs with major ensembles and concert series around LA. As of 2021, she is a member of ECHOI — MEC’s ensemble-in-residence. In 2019, Dr. Deviatkina-Loh released her debut album under SHEVA Contemporary. Most recently, she was invited to serve as an Artist and Adjudicator for the International Grand Festival.

James Nguyen is an Australian artist and filmmaker based in Melbourne. He has been commissioned by institutions such as the Australian War Memorial, the Museum of Contemporary Art for the National 2019, and others. A past recipient of the Maddocks Art prize and the Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, James has had the opportunity to develop projects and work collaboratively on experimental documentary, research and curatorial exchanges in NYC, Europe and the Asia Pacific

Praised by The Guardian for her “irrepressible sense of drama and unmissable, urgent musicality”, Lotte Betts-Dean is a mezzo soprano with a wide ranging repertoire, predominantly performing chamber music, art song and contemporary music. She is a Young Artist with Oxford Lieder, City Music Foundation, Musicians Company, Associate Artist with Southbank Sinfonia and Ensemble x.y, and graduate of the RAM. She won both the Overseas Prize and the Audrey Strange Prize.

Australian saxophonist Mary Osborn is currently based in Paris. Having completed a bachelors of music performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, a performance diploma and Masters of music at the Versailles Conservatoire and Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin, Mary is forming her career as a classical and contemporary performer, creator and teacher. Mary has won numerous awards at international music competitions, she has worked closely with many composers.