ENSEMBLES, friends & colleagues websites

New Zealand Ukulele Trust and Junior and Senior NZ Ukulele Squads - from 2013 until 2016 I played electric bass in the rhythm section that supported the 3,000 or so strong Kiwileles group at the NZ Ukulele Festival.  I also recorded many backing tracks for the support material CDs and advised on typesetting and other musical layout issues for the printed material.  The Kiwileles are children from all over NZ who until the demise of the NZ Ukulele Festival (around the time of COVID-19), came together in late November/early December and played together as a massed group in or near Auckland.  Between 2014 and COVID, I was the Musical Director of both Junior and Senior NZ Ukulele Squads.  See here for the squad playing one of my compositions and here for them playing one of my arrangements.  In 2018 I took the Senior Squad to Hawai'i to perform at the Hawaiian International Ukulele Festival. As of 2020, I’m a teacher mentor for the Kiwilele teachers.

Xenos - Australian Balkan Gypsy Band with lovely friends Rob Bester and Anne Hildyard (and sometimes Anne's twin sister Lee). We toured to festivals in Australia, Scotland, Portugal, England and Austria - and made CDs.

Ssassa - Early incarnations of Xenos were based around Rob and Anne from Tasmania, Christian Fotsch from Switzerland and Marem Aliev from Macedonia. When Rob and Anne stopped spending half the year in Switzerland, Ssassa (which had been Christian's band in between Xenos visits) became a year-round proposition.  I played electric bass on their first two albums (you can hear some on my music page).

Friends and colleagues - MUSIC

Linsey Pollak - composer, instrument maker, multi-instrumentalist, community musician - versatile and inspired collaborator and great friend over many years. Linsey is responsible for many people like myself becoming aware of the musical traditions of the Balkan region. He is the reason I'm playing that music today - luckily for me, often with him.

Kelly Thoma - lyra player extraordinaire, wonderful musician and collaborator on several projects with Ross Daly including Australian tours.

Jude Iddison - violinist, educator, choir director, singer and composer.  I've known Jude since 1984, where we bonded on our first day at what would become the WA Conservatorium of Music.  In about 2016, we took seriously the idea of playing original violin and guitar duets together.  In 2018 and 2019, we supported Frankie Armstrong in concerts in SE Qld, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. We recorded an album together entitled Banksia.  It was released in 2019. You can stream it here.

FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES - ORGANISATIONS

Tutti & Tutti Arts - I lived in Adelaide from 2001-2010 and for much of this time worked in a variety of capacities with Tutti.  I conducted, taught, arranged for and produced CDs for the choirs and solo singers; music-directed several shows; set up and taught a digital media program (animation/film-making/photography); documented performances and helped in whatever way I could.  I first met Pat Rix, the visionary Artistic Director of Tutti through Rosalba Clemente, herself the Artistic Director of State Theatre of South Australia.  The first project I worked on with Tutti was My Life, My Love for the 2002 Adelaide Festival.  You'll see work I did with Tutti through various sections of this website, particularly on the audio and video pages.

Various People - Also in Adelaide I worked on several occasions with Director Cheryl Pickering, sometimes in co-productions with Tutti and sometimes with her company Various People.  I was a founding board member of Various People and have managed to return to Adelaide on a couple of occasions to work with Various People. In November 2017, Nawres Al Freh and I spent a week working on a new production, Conversations.

FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES - LUTHIERS

Peter Biffin - inventor and maker of the mind-bending tarhu series of instruments that Ross Daly, Nawres al Freh (and many other wonderful musicians) play. Peter also makes gorgeous lutes, theorbos, vihuelas and many others.  I own a beautiful vihuela and a stunning Baroque guitar made by Peter.

Scott Wise - I grew up in Fremantle, Western Australia and I met Scott at his legendary guitar workshop around 1980.  He made me a dreadnought steel-string guitar in the style of a Martin D-28 which I still adore and play all the time. He also introduced me to Brian Black, with whom I studied, started playing classical guitar duets and who convinced me that going to the Conservatorium was a good idea.  That totally changed my life!

Jason Petty - The reason I joined Affetto in 2014 was because the other members decided they needed a theorbo in the group, so they ran a crowdfunding campaign to commission one get built by Jason, a wonderful Canadian Luthier who happened to be living in Wellington.  Once it was commissioned, I got to be the person who learned how to play it.  As it turned out, I moved to Brisbane and then a year later Jason did too, so we were neighbours (kind of) for a while, then he moved a few hours north - near Noosa, then he moved back to New Zealand, or is it Canada?
Somehow, in the meantime, I acquired a Renaissance guitar, a small vihuela, a 7-course lute, and a bass lute, all made by his fair hand. Have you heard of IAS? (Instrument Acquisition Disorder)

Dimitris Karaoglanis - Dimitris made three great instruments that I own: my laouto (which I play with East of West and formerly with Xenos and Ross Daly), a small baglama, and a tzura - all traditional Greek instruments.

Richard Howell - The late Brian Black, with whom I played classical guitar duets in the early 1980s, was a champion of the guitars of Richard Howell.  I bought one "off the rack" which I played for several years, then had Richard make one for me, which I still play today.

Ayers Guitars & Ukuleles - I have an endorsement from this company as both a guitar and ukulele player and play two of their beautiful instruments. Anthony Pizzica (see below) has at various times been the Australian distributor of Ayers and was the basis of my connection.

Anthony PIzzica - I don't have any of Anthony's instruments at the moment, but he's a great guy and we've played in two bands together: The Balkanics - a five-piece Balkan funk group, and before that, with 25-piece street band The Unusual Suspects (Anthony playing a rezouki [resonator bouzouki] of his own invention, and I the electric bass).

Pat Megowan - En route to the 2018 Hawaiian Ukulele Festival with NZ Senior Ukulele Squad, I had a couple of weeks looking at birds and attending U-8 Ukulele Festival in Bend, Oregon. What serendipity it was to go there and discover (and hang out with) the amazing Pat (who numbers James Hill, Kimo Hussey, Arden Fujiwara, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer amongst top ukulelists playing his instruments). He made me the most incredible ukulele, mindblowing - and maybe there’s another in the pipeline.
Update: ongoing mindblowing, every day I take it out of its case.

FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES - POETRY

Greg Barron (2 October 1952 - 2 December 2005) - colleague from my days at the Western Australian Museum 1979-1981.  One of my photographic mentors, a travelling companion on many trips (including our capture of the Lake Cronin Snake which resulted in the species being described scientifically), natural sportsman and greatly missed friend.  In his last years he derived much satisfaction from his often subversive poetry.

If and when I can get hold of them, I'll add some of Greg's photos here.

FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES - PHOTOGRAPHY

Craig Greer - I remember Craig turning up at my house in North Adelaide one evening having bought a camera for his work and wanting some help as to how to put it together and take his first photos. Fast-forward a little and Craig’s website and social media presence will quickly show you that in the intervening few years, he has become one of the most accomplished wildlife photographers in the country. He runs tours for nature photographers to various parts of Australia, Sri Lanka, Borneo and many more countries in the planning stages. You can also hear him on the music page playing tin whistle and bodhran.

FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES - DANCE

Laura Shannon - Xenos worked with Laura, who taught dance to our music on many occasions in Scotland (at Findhorn), in Austria, Glastonbury International Dance Festival and at Woodford Festival, Queensland.  It was a joy and a privilege!