EDM MUSIC COMPOSERS

ANDREW BALL

Andrew Ball enjoys a diverse career as a saxophonist, composer and educator. With a uniquely colourful compositional voice, Andrew draws from an eclectic variety of contemporary classical, improvised, and electronic musics. He approaches rhythm kinetically and viscerally, extends the capabilities of performers, exploits and reimagines instrumental idiosyncrasies, and aims to challenge the limits of context and genre.

Andrew currently performs with, and has toured nationally and internationally, with  groups including BULLHORN, Cheap Fakes, Barega Saxophone Quartet, Nomika, and the Queensland Jazz Orchestra. He has been featured in performances alongside artists including Laurie Anderson, Natalie Cole, Anthony Warlow, Ash Grunwald, Dale Barlow, Pub Choir, Kupkas Piano, and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared as a concert soloist with the Queensland Wind Orchestra and Divertimenti Strings.

As a composer, Andrew has completed large-scale commissions for ensembles including The Australia Ensemble @UNSW, Hourglass Ensemble, Queensland Wind Orchestra, Australian Saxophone Orchestra, and Queensland Youth Orchestras. His 2023 saxophone concerto “Exoplanet” premiered at the Sydney Opera House, featuring soloist Nicholas Russoniello and conductor Joanna Drimatis. Andrew’s music has placed as a finalist in Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra’s 2019 international call for scores, Orpheus Music’s recorder composition competition, and the Music Arrangers Guild of Australia’s national arranging competition. Andrew is an advocate of new Australian music, and has premiered his works in a variety of genres and contexts, both as a performer and composer, at events including at the World Saxophone Congress (Strasbourg, France), SaxOpen (Zagreb, Croatia), SuperSounds (Brisbane 2019), Tilde New music festival (Melbourne 2019), and the Melbourne International Saxophone Festival.

Andrew’s dual role as a composer/performer has allowed him to develop and explore an idiosyncratic stylistic niche. In 2017, he launched his ongoing solo project with the release of his album Forbidden Languages; a suite of genre-defying original works pioneering the use of extended and prepared saxophones. In 2020, the Andrew Ball Quartet released Space and Time, an EP of original semi-improvised music inspired by geometric transformation in rhythm. His music can also be found on releases by Barega Sax Quartet, Collusion, Cheap Fakes, Nomika, Valtozash, Enthusiastic Musicians Orchestra, Bullhorn, Laura Mulcahy, Minor Gold, and His Merry Men.

Dr Emma Di Marco

A Churchill Fellowship recipient & Australian D’Addario Woodwinds Artist, Dr Emma Di Marco is a contemporary saxophonist, composer, and music educator. She maintains a portfolio career as a soloist, chamber musician, educator, artistic director, business owner, and researcher. As a champion of Australian music, Emma has toured on multiple occasions with programs of specially commissioned Australian works. Emma is a casual academic in saxophone at the University of Queensland; operates her own business, Emma Di Marco Music, publishing quality woodwind sheet music as well as providing consulting services; and is also Head of Woodwind at a prestigious Brisbane school. Emma is a founding member of the Barega Saxophone Quartet and has performed across Australia and Europe with the group as well as releasing two albums of commissioned Australian repertoire. Emma is a saxophonist with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and has appeared as a soloist with the Queensland Wind Orchestra and the Mueller International Chamber Orchestra. She holds a PhD in Musicology, a Masters of Teaching (Secondary), and is regularly featured in industry events and festivals including four World Saxophone Congresses. She can be heard on her EP, her two albums with Barega Sax, her podcasts Sax Bites and UNMUSICAL, or one of her many popular social media channels.

As a composer, Emma has primarily focussed on the development of educational resources for woodwind students. Her particular focus has been improving the instruction and development of saxophone technique. This has resulted in a significant collection of worksheets, activities, and practice resources for students and teachers all over the world. In 2018, Emma began her journey into composing repertoire for solo saxophone in order to further her artistic practice as a soloist. Since then, Emma has composed a number of pieces for solo saxophone and track which centres storytelling at the heart of her creative works.
As a champion of Australian music, Emma has toured Australia on multiple occasions with programs that consisted of specially commissioned Australian works. These performances featured collaborations with Australian artists including Nexas Quartet and the Hourglass Ensemble. Emma has performed in recital in Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, and Hobart and has performed internationally in the USA, the UK, France, South Korea, Spain, Ukraine, and Croatia. She is a regular on the industry conference scene with performances at four World Saxophone Congresses (Gran Canaria 2023, Zagreb 2018, Strasbourg 2015, St Andrews 2012), the Australasian Saxophone and Clarinet Conference (Sydney 2013), and the Australian Clarinet and Saxophone Festival (Melbourne 2011). Emma has completed two solo tours across Australia - Shimmer in 2016 and East Coast Tour in 2014 - which both featured new compositions for solo saxophone by young Australian composers. 

DR Thomas GreeN

Thomas Green has a reputation in Brisbane (Australia) as a versatile composer whose focus is finding a musical home between many and varied streams, often seamlessly melding classical and contemporary idioms. He is the recipient of various government grants, commissions and is a prize-winner in national composition competitions. He completed his PhD in 2016, and his music has premiered around Australia and internationally, with performances in Italy, France, the US, the UK, Croatia and China in recent years. In 2021 he has been commissioned for the renowned ANAM Set and most recently has been selected by the ABC’s Fresh Start Fund to compose a suite of music for violinist Camille Barry. He has composed and arranged music for The Sydney Symphony (with Josh Pyke on his ARIA-winning album, Josh Pyke Live at the Sydney Opera House), The Australian String Quartet, Katie Noonan, Opera Qld, La Boite Theatre, Plexus (Melbourne), and the Brisbane-based organisations Collusion Music, Trichotomy, Trivium Ensemble, The Black Square Quartet and Argo, with Connor D’Netto. In 2017 he was commissioned by The Queensland Music Festival to write a concerto for Manu Delago and QYO. In 2018 his original dance music for Turbine, a show by Collusion, was toured in Brisbane and Shanghai, and in 2019 his music was featured on Katie Noonan’s AIR and ARIA-nominated album, The Glad Tomorrow, and in 2021-22 he is collaborating with Katie Noonan again, writing music for AVÉ. He has been commissioned by Brisbane’s community ensembles, including a trumpet concerto for MBSO and a large-scale work for QGWO. Thomas is an expert in electronic music production and is a founding member of the acoustic/electronic performance duo, Shugorei, with Nozomi Omote. Shugorei released its self-titled debut album in 2021. Thomas also produces experimental electronic music under the moniker Praxis Axis, which, while it is demonstrative of a considerable stylistic stretch away from contemporary art music, is at the same time simply another facet of his extraordinarily manifold musical language. He lectures in music theory at the Queensland Conservatorium.