Australian Art Orchestra

Australian Art Orchestra Music made of many influences, exploring the meeting points between cultures and disciplines

04/09/2026

Smoke Between Mountains is now available online✨ 

You can now watch an excerpt of our most recent new work, Smoke Between Mountains online. Composed by Artistic Director Aaron Choulai, with stunning visuals from Michael Carmody, this work is built on a storybook like narrative, touching on Australian First Nations and Shinto Japanese themes related to environment, and is wildly E pwrinebtal while set in a Ghibli like sound world. 

Recorded on its Australian premiere at the Melbourne Immigration Museum last July, the second movement from 'Smoke', Something Is Coming, can now be viewd on our YouTube channel, via the link in our bio. ✨ 

Aaron Choulai - conductor, composer 
Miyama McQueen- Tokita - bass kotto, voice 
Adam Manning - percussion, sampler
Adrian Sherriff - percussion 
Ryan Williams - recorders 
Eugene Ball - trumpet 
Lizzy Welsh - violin 
Sooji Kim - violin 
Biddy Connor - viola 
Zoe Barry - cello 
Chris Hale - electric bass 
Michael Carmody - animation, design

Cam Matheson - video 
Jem Savage - audio 
Jo Redfearn - producer 

Beginning tonight, three representatives from AAO perform together across three concerts in Chengdu, C**a ✨ As part of t...
28/08/2026

Beginning tonight, three representatives from AAO perform together across three concerts in Chengdu, C**a ✨

As part of the Chengdu Sister Cities International Music Festival, our performances will include arranged Chinese folk songs and Australian Jazz standards.

Look forward to more photos and updates from the festival.

Aaron Choulai
Mindy Meng Wang
Holly Moore

✨ WORLD PREMIERE ✨The Australian Art Orchestra and Bunjil Place come together for the first time to present Saltwater, S...
20/08/2026

✨ WORLD PREMIERE ✨
The Australian Art Orchestra and Bunjil Place come together for the first time to present Saltwater, Sugar, an epic new work by Papuan-Australian composer and AAO Artistic Director Aaron Choulai, commissioned by Bunjil Place in partnership with the Melbourne International Jazz Festival.

Saltwater, Sugar is a story that touches on the interconnectedness of Chinese, Papua New Guinean and Indigenous people during the time of the Gold Rush in Victoria and Blackbirding in North Queensland.

Composed for the Australian Art Orchestra as a 17-piece ensemble alongside Australian music luminaries Ngaiire and Joelistics, this hour-long musical work is built around themes of racial injustice, survival, friendship and often overlooked pockets of resistance during Australia’s colonial past.

An ambitious musical composition of scale, Saltwater, Sugar traces the friendships and resistance that formed across the very divisions colonial Australia depended on.

📍Bunjil Place Theatre, 2 Patrick Northeast Drive Narre Warren, Victoria
📆 Wednesday 21 October 2026
🕗 7:30pm
🎫 For tickets please visit link in bio

ENSEMBLE

Aaron Choulai - Conductor and Musical Director
Ngaiire - Voice
Joelistics - Voice
Scott Tinkler - Trumpet
Eugene Ball - Trumpet
Cinzia Posega - French Horn
Aryo Hall - Trombone
Adrian Sherriff - Bass Trombone
Holly Moore - Soprano Saxophone
Ralema Fairhead - Flute
Julien Wilson - Tenor Saxophone
Andrew Saragossi - Clarinets
Lizzie Welsh - Violin
Meg Cohen - Violin
Biddy Connor - Viola
Zoe Barry - Cello
Paul Grabowsky - Piano
Tamara Murphy - Bass
Dave Beck - Drums

PRODUCTION
Jem Savage - Sound
Jo Redfearn - Producer

Hero Image Design - Michael Carmody

📸 2. Supplied by Artist, 3. Supplied by Artist, 4. John Lloyd Fillingham

12/08/2026

Excerpts from the Australian premiere of Smoke Between Mountains, Melbourne Immigration Museum, July 8, 2026.

A huge thank you to everyone who made the Australian premiere of Smoke Between Mountains such a joyous night. Performing this work to a sold out room filled with such an enthusiastic audience made bringing this work to life, an even more rewarding experience.

We will perform 'Smoke' again across our 2027 program, and look forward to sharing more of this incredible work by Artistic Director Aaron Choulai, that brings out the inner child for both listeners and performers.

Aaron Choulai - conductor, composer
Miyama McQueen- Tokita - bass kotto, voice
Adam Manning - percussion, sampler
Adrian Sherriff - percussion
Ryan Williams - recorders
Eugene Ball - trumpet
Lizzy Welsh - violin
Sooji Kim - violin
Biddy Connor - viola
Zoe Barry - cello
Chris Hale - electric bass
Michael Carmody - animation, design

Cam Matheson - video
Jem Savage - audio
Jo Redfearn - producer

Some BTS moments caught on film from the premiere of To Kill A Magic We Got Used To in November last year. The full conc...
11/08/2026

Some BTS moments caught on film from the premiere of To Kill A Magic We Got Used To in November last year.

The full concert of the premiere of this work is available to watch on YouTube through the link in our bio!

Photos by Jo Redfearn

On October 3rd our close friend and collaborator Kutcha Edwards premieres his new work Gugu Dindi Gunyah, to reopen Melb...
09/08/2026

On October 3rd our close friend and collaborator Kutcha Edwards premieres his new work Gugu Dindi Gunyah, to reopen Melbourne's iconic State Theatre.

AAO Artistic Director Aaron Choulai joins Kutcha in work of scale as Musical Director, bringing them both together again, continuing their 20-year musical and cultural relationship that began with The Black Arm Band.

Gugu Dindi Gunyah. Many Rivers. One Home. is a powerful celebration of culture, resilience and collective belonging, shaped by rivers, songline, ancestral stories and shared memory. This multi-disciplinary performance of contemporary ceremony is grounded in ancient knowledge and culminates on the banks of the Birrarung, marking the first performance on the refurbished Ian Potter State Theatre stage, on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.

This is an occasion not to be missed! For tickets and more information, please visit the Arts Centre Melbourne website.

Announcing the faculty for this year's Australian Improvisation Practicum.Australian Improvisation Practicum 2: Tools fo...
05/08/2026

Announcing the faculty for this year's Australian Improvisation Practicum.

Australian Improvisation Practicum 2: Tools for Collective Expression builds outward from the foundation established in the inaugural practicum, with a focus on collaborative practices that enable adventurous ensemble music-making.

Leading this year's program is a team of AAO collaborators who each possess a unique and individual artistic voice and represent diverse practices across improvised and composed forms.

This year's AIP faculty are:

Trumpeter and composer Scott Tinkler
Violist, composer and AAO Composer in Residence Biddy Connor
Freestyle MC and composer Roman MC
Composer, conductor and AAO Artistic Director Aaron Choulai

To learn more about this year's program and faculty, please visit our website via the link in our bio.

Dates: 28–30 September 2026
Location: Brunswick, Victoria
Applications close: 25 August 2026, midnight

Some BTS moments caught on film during our performance of Raw Denshi earlier this year at WOMAD and Jazz Lab ✨ Thank you...
31/07/2026

Some BTS moments caught on film during our performance of Raw Denshi earlier this year at WOMAD and Jazz Lab ✨

Thank you again to everyone who came to these performances! It was such a rawkus and fun way to begin the year!

Photo by Jo Redfearn

We are happy to announce that applications for this year's Australian Improvisation Practicum, are now open! The Austra...
28/07/2026

We are happy to announce that applications for this year's Australian Improvisation Practicum, are now open! 

The Australian Improvisation Practicum is a three-day residency that delves into musical language unique to Australian improvised music, with a specific focus on exploring potential intersections with compositional frameworks.

Australian Improvisation Practicum 2: Tools for Collective Expression builds outward from the foundation established in the inaugural practicum, with a focus on collaborative practices that enable adventurous ensemble music-making

Led by faculty from the Australian Art Orchestra, participants engage with systems of music creation that empower performers to contribute meaningfully to collaborative creative processes while preserving their distinct artistic voice. Through practical sessions and workshop-masterclasses, the practicum offers direct insight into the methods and philosophies that have shaped AAO practice for three decades

To learn more about this year's program and faculty, please visit our website via the link in our bio.

Dates: 28-30 September 2026
Location: Brunswick, Victoria
Applications close: 25 August 2026, midnight

Photo Ruby Song and Cam Matheson

Smoke Between Mountains, Melbourne Immigration Museum July 8, 2026. Thank you for helping us sell out the Australian pre...
22/07/2026

Smoke Between Mountains, Melbourne Immigration Museum July 8, 2026.

Thank you for helping us sell out the Australian premiere of our new work Smoke Between Mountains earlier this month at the Immigration Museum!

It was a joy to bring together this work that brings out that calls out to the inner child in us, through its storybook like narration, animation and playful score, and wonderful to share it with such a warm, attentive and enthusiastic audience ✨

Aaron Choulai - Conductor, Composer
Miyama McQueen-Tokita - Bass Koto, Voice
Adam Manning - Percussion
Adrian Sherriff - Percussion
Lizzy Welsh - Violin
Sooji Kim - Violin
Biddy Connor - Viola
Zoe Barry - Cello
Chris Hale- Bass
Eugene Ball - Trumpet
Ryan Williams - Recorders
Michael Carmody - Video

Photos by Ruby Song

A special thanks to Museums Victoria, the Immigration Museum and the City of Melbourne for supporting this performance.

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