“When you have audiences that are ready to come for new experiences, it creates this sort-of unspoken bond between performers and listeners where it’s like, ‘We're here taking a chance.’”
The Australian Art Orchestra’s (AAO) artistic director Aaron Choulai is leading the curation of four adventurous nights of music in the NGV’s Great Hall, as part of the NGV Friday Nights series.
Every Friday from July 5 – 26, the AAO will present a plethora of musicians who range in genre, form, sound and style. Playing alongside the NGV’s latest exhibition, Pharaoh, these performances will surpass national borders and transport you to another world.
Australian Art Orchestra at NGV Friday Nights
- July 5, July 12, July 19 and July 26
- NGV
- Tickets here
Keep up with the latest music news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
Choulai says the AAO will celebrate artistic diversity in the Great Hall, with different musicians performing over each of the four weeks. “Within our ensemble, we create new works and very specific works that put improvisation as a musical element on display,” he explains. “But in situations like this, where we’re curating over a month, it’s a chance for the ensemble members to step outside of our works and to present their own works.”
The artists range from Brisbane/Meanjin rapper and freestyler Roman MC on July 5, to experimental duo MEATSHELL on July 12, artistic jazz trio Koi Kingdom on July 19 and Ball/Hanlon/Schulz’s unconventional take on classical, jazz and folk (featuring Vahideh Eisaei) on July 26.
“Across the four weeks, it’s going to be quite a varied program,” Choulai says. “People are coming to the NGV ready for new things and ready for artworks that’ll push the boundaries of what they’re used to. People are coming primed for a cultural experience and that context is really conducive to the type of music that we make.”
Roman MC at NGV Friday Nights
First in the AAO’s NGV residency is Roman MC, who Choulai says is an emerging force. “It will be a fully improvised set of hip hop,” he explains. “Improvisers from [the AAO] that you’d normally see in free jazz venues or improv nights around Australia will be completely improvising with [this] incredible freestyle rapper, who is a recent collaborator of ours.
“It’ll be completely improvised, from lyrics to music,” Choulai says. “These musicians who are performing together, it’s quite an unlikely combination in some ways. It’s a chance for audiences to think about freestyle rapping as a true art form, in the way that you would hear a jazz saxophone player approach improvising.”
The AAO’s remaining NGV Friday Nights residencies feature artists who challenge traditional boundaries and invent entirely new genres. It’s hard to think of a more apt venue than the NGV, where artistic experimentation is celebrated. Still, you need to know the rules to know how to break them. Choulai insists the AAO only presents the best of the best, in a way you’ve never heard before.
“Across the other weeks there’ll be iterations of tango and folk music and people that are representing new movements for a new generation in Australian jazz,” he continues.
“But the through line, through all of the ensembles, is that fundamentally everybody is coming from a place of experimentation and instrumental virtuosity.”
Find out more about the Australian Art Orchestra’s NGV Friday Nights residencies series here.
This article was made in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria.
