A dynamic double bill with two of Australia’s most highly regarded jazz pianists. Reflecting both pianists’ parallel interests in skirting the boundaries of jazz and art music, composition and improvisation, expect a night of eclectic contemporary music driven by a broad spectrum of harmonic hues and both intricate and free-wheeling ensemble interplay.

Steve Barry Winner of the Bell Award for Young Australian Jazz Musician of the Year (2013), Steve maintains a busy schedule composing, teaching and performing across Australia, New Zealand and more recently Japan. Recent projects have included a week-long residency and recording project in Osaka with the acclaimed koto player and experimental improviser Michiyo Yagi, and new records released this year for quartet and solo piano - the former, Blueprints & Vignettes, was given 4 stars by the Sydney Morning Herald.

Steve holds a PhD in composition from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where he also lecturers in piano and improvisation. His doctoral thesis and portfolio investigated the uses of pitch class sets, serialism and intervallicism as tools for composition and solo and collective improvisation.

Steve Barry - piano Nish Manjunath - tenor sax Dave Goodman - drums

Following Steve's set, at 10:00 PM will be the Joe O'Connor Trio

Joe O’Connor Winner of the prestigious National Jazz Award (2013), the Bell Award for Young Australian Jazz Musician of the Year (2014), the National Big Band Composition Competition (2011), and the PBS Young Elder of Jazz (2016), Joe holds a PhD in music performance from Monash University, where he researched ways that Ruth Crawford Seeger’s approach to dissonant counterpoint can inform jazz composition and improvisation.

Joe’s recent works include The Past in My Present (2017), a chamber composition for Arts Centre Melbourne’s 5x5x5 initiative, and Partial Disclosure, which was commissioned by the Australian Creative Music Ensemble (ACME) for their inaugural performance at Melbourne Festival 2017. Joe’s String Quartet, Vignettes, will be premiered by Penny Quartet at the Melbourne Recital Centre in September.

Joseph O'Connor - piano Jacques Emery - bass James Waples - drums