8:45PM WED 29 MAR

STRATA is proud to present the debut Australian performance by acclaimed UK pianist, BBC Jazz Award winner, Mercury Prize-nominated ECM recording artist, Kit Downes.

Kit has toured the world playing piano, church organ and harmonium with his own bands ENEMY, Troyka, and Elt, as well as with artists such as Squarepusher, Bill Frisell, ‘Empirical‘,  Andrew Cyrille, Sofia Jernberg, Benny Greb, Mica Levi and Sam Amidon.

His performance will premiere a duo with renowned Sydney artist and STRATA curator Laurence Pike, whose electro-acoustic solo albums and work with such groups as Szun Waves, Triosk, Liars and PVT have earned him an international reputation for innovation in creative music. The pair first struck up a friendship in 2018 on one of Pike’s regular visits to London, and have been remotely conspiring to collaborate since, finally coming to fruition for STRATA II.

7:15PM WED 29 MAR

Led by outstanding young trumpeter & composer Tom Avgenicos, and featuring close collaborators Roshan Kumarage on piano, Dave Quinn on bass and Ashley Stoneham on drums, Delay 45 have built a reputation as one of the most outstanding modern jazz ensembles to emerge in recent years, with the Sydney Morning Herald declaring them “A bold new chapter in Australian jazz.”

Their fluid approach between composition and improvisation places musical conversation and connection at the forefront of the music. Delay 45’s collective approach truly makes them a band, and one worth watching.

6:00PM WED 29 MAR

Vietnamese-Australian electronic and synth musician Fia Fiell (aka Carolyn Schofield) returns to Sydney for STRATA II. Fia Fiell combines her profound practical and theoretical chops as a pianist and composer with a modern and perceptive ear: stretching out of the orbit of millennial electronic music constructs. Her improvisatory live performances involve multiple synths played and processed in real time to create hauntingly ethereal, unsettling and subtly-shifting meditative soundscapes, built on nebulous chords and melodic cycles.

8:45PM THU 30 MAR

Vancouver-based composer, musician (and forester) Scott Gailey makes his Australian debut as part of STRATA II.

Gailey attempts to create sensational tools for crossing thresholds of perception. His work explores pop, post-musique concrète, ambient composition, and psychoacoustics.

His superb 2019 album Polysensuality draws inspiration from the sublime environment that surrounds his home on the West Coast of British Columbia. Gailey explores the musicality of field recordings through various synthetic approaches as a way to access the ambiguous emotional content latent in the natural world, his work optimistically suggesting a repositioning of mankind as within the natural order; rather than superior to it.

For STRATA II, Gailey will be premiering brand new music from a forthcoming album release.

7:15PM THU 30 MAR

Melbourne-based saxophonist Flora Carbo is quickly becoming one of the most exciting young artists in Australian creative music. Flora’s practice explores the vocal quality of the alto saxophone and the improvisatory and compositional boundaries between genres via a number of borderless ensembles including The Rest Is Silence, and Ecosystem.

Her performance at STRATA sees the Sydney debut of a new project - FCPE (Flora Carbo Percussion Ensemble). A band inspired by restraint, pulse, glitch and disintegration, utilising percussionists to frame her unique instrumental voice and ever-expanding compositional vision.

6:00PM THU 30 MAR

Emerging pianist & composer Lauren Tsamouras presents Another Green World, a duo with double bass player Harry Birch that explores her pulsatile, ostinato-based compositions in a drum-free setting, resulting in compelling improvisations. Upon hearing their beautiful debut album (due for release on People Sound in 2023), we had to have them as part of this year’s STRATA II.

8:45PM FRI 31 MAR

Experimental composer and double bass player Jacques Emery leads a large ensemble of pre-eminent young improvisers in The Wellspring, a new ensemble suite born out of music heard in dreams and the ecstasy of group rituals.

Jacques’ three separate appearances at STRATA last year with Mike Nock, Barney McAll and rising trio Hekka respectively were the highlights of the festival. The debut of this project brings together a cohort of musicians, many who are credied with driving the current renaissance in Sydney creative music-making and beyond.

Commissioned exclusively for STRATA II, The Wellspring will be a fitting way to close out the festival.

7:15PM FRI 31 MAR

This first-time meeting between multi-disciplinary artist Mara Schwerdtfeger (Alaska Orchestra) and legendary improviser Chris Abrahams (The Necks), will fuse live piano, viola and electronic processing.

Abrahams is a master collaborator, having previously played alongside Clayton Thomas and Miles Thomas for the inaugural STRATA, as well as in 3 Pianos, an hour-long improvised piano work performed at Phoenix.

Schwertfeger meanwhile is often found wielding a viola and a laptop, bridging her classical training with experimental electronics and sound design. Her practice investigates the relationship between individuals and spaces they inhabit.

This unique collaboration should prove to be a fascinating cross-generational dialogue between improvisors exclusively for STRATA.

6:00PM FRI 31 MAR

Double-bassist, vocalist, composer and nature-enthusiast Helen Svoboda is an artist that defies easy categorisation. Her work explores the melodic potential of the contemporary double bass, intricately weaving extended techniques and overtones amidst abstract song-writing and performance.

Helen has quickly emerged as one of the most singular voices in Australian creative music, being awarded the Freedman Jazz Fellowship in 2020, and the 2020/21 Australian Art Orchestra Pathfinders Music Leadership Program.

This unique solo performance for STRATA marks her return to Australia from a three-month residency as part of the Helsinki International Artist Programme in the arctic surrounds of Suomenlinna — an 18th-century sea fortress and nature area.