Thank you so much to the amazingly talented @quartedquartet for playing my new composition, 'Three Estuaries for String Quartet' and to @waverleycouncil for letting us give back to our community! And congratulations to the composers @ezrahersch@vanessa_perica@sbcaitlin@tashhgreen on their lovely pieces. 👏🎻
Photography by @enzoamatophoto
#bondibeach #classical #newclassical #stringquartet #composer #newmusic #emergingartist #waverley #bondipavilion #nigelwestlake #australiancomposer #australianmusiccentre
Thank you for coming out last week to witness some incredible fresh-off-the-press Aus music! We had an absolute blast playing for you all. Thank you to our dear composers @sbcaitlin@tashhgreen@jueliahh@ezrahersch@vanessa_perica and Nigel Westlake for lending your voices to our program. Without @waverleycouncil ’s Local Collaborations program, this residency and concert would not have been possible. Thank you for having us!
Fantastic photos by @photoenz@enzoamatophoto 📸
Really enjoyed getting to reimagine my piece, Something About the Ocean, for a special performance at Bondi Pavilion with @quartedquartet ! This time, sampling sounds from Bondi Beach and audience members with the @ableton Move 🌊
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Thanks Quart-Ed for trying something new with me, and breathing new life into this piece ☺️ shoutout to @karentriesinsta for diving into waves for samples 🙏
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📷: @photoenz
And that’s a wrap!
Here’s a glimpse into our two weeks at the Bondi Pavilion music studio, thanks to their Local Creative Collaboration program.
We’ve been preparing two brand new works by Julia Magri and Ezra Hersch - commissioned especially for this residency! Hours of playing Australian contemporary music with swims in between - it has been absolutely delightful rehearsing new music together. Thank you @waverleycouncil and @chris.bendall for giving us this opportunity to create and collaborate!
We are so excited to be performing a free, all-Australian program here this Sunday! Bring a picnic blanket and dry off after your afternoon swim to the sound of strings 🌊
We’ve been preparing two brand new works commissioned especially for our residency with @waverleycouncil , and we are so excited for their world premieres today. Get keen for string music drawing on jazz, folk, electronic and classical influences in a brand new, all-Australian program!
Don’t miss this concert:
26.04.26 | 3PM | BONDI PAVILION
During our residency Quart-Ed recorded the sounds of Bondi for a new exciting version of Caitlin Sandiford’s “Something About the Ocean”.
This classic Quart-Ed piece will be performed for the first time with electroacoustic elements created just for this event! Come and be a part of it FOR FREE this Sunday!
26.04.26 | 3PM | BONDI PAVILION
New music announcement! 📣
On Sunday at 3pm, the incredible @quartedquartet will be playing a brand new composition of mine at the Bondi Pavilion! Admission is free, and if you’d like to spend a day at the beach and feel like popping in to the pavilion to show some support, I’d love to see you there!
‘Three Estuaries’ are three miniatures for string quartet which represent expectations and uncertainty vs. reality and healing. They represent what Bondi means to me, as a place where I spent my early 20s, learnt to be free, and smell the seaspray. I hope it’s a piece which can help to heal the Bondi community after a rough end to 2025.
QuartEd is a quartet formed for the primary purpose of assisting young and emerging composers with ongoing, meaningful musical idea exchange. Also on their program will be a new commission by Ezra Hersch, Caitlin Sandiford, Vanessa Perica, and a piece by Nigel Westlake.
#classical #newclassical #waverleycouncil #bondibeach #bondipavilion
Introducing icons Vanessa Perica and Nigel Westlake:
Vanessa Perica is a multi award-winning Australian composer and conductor, celebrated for her bold and emotionally charged writing. Based in Melbourne, she has emerged as one of the country’s most distinctive voices in contemporary jazz and classical composition.
Perica’s string quartet ‘No Feeling is Final’ is was written about a tumultuous period of her life. Whilst writing the first movement, Perica was contemplating the state of the world. She found inspiration in Leonard Bernstein’s response to the assassination of John. F Kennedy: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” Given the complexity of Bondi’s recent history - we thought it would be highly relevant to this concert to include this movement of her string quartet.
Nigel Westlake’s career in music spans over 5 decades. He began composing in 1980, working across radio, theatre, circus, television and film. His fantastic film credits include Babe, Blueback, Paper Planes, Miss Potter, Children of the Revolution. His compositions have earned numerous accolades including two ARIA Awards, 15 APRA awards, the 2022 APRA Distinguished Services to the Australian Screen Award, the Gold Medal for Best Original Music at the New York International Radio Festival.
Sacred Sky is dedicated to the memory of Westlake’s sister Kate, an actress, singer and visual artist who lost her battle with cancer early in 2018. Westlake invokes Kate’s beautifully artistic and soulful spirit - grief and sadness mingle with an overarching sense of joy and optimism. The movement title is taken from Kate’s seascape paintings, which are studies in the reflection, scattering and radiance of light and shadow, and they inhabit a rich and evocative emotional terrain of Australia’s Eastern Seaboard.
26.04.26 | 3PM | BONDI PAVILION
Bringing you TWO world premieres hot off the press by local voices Julia Magri and Ezra Hersch!
“Three Estuaries” for String Quartet are three miniature pieces which Magri has named after the three main estuaries in the Sydney area. To Magri, Bondi, much like the rest of Sydney, is a big melting pot - and meeting point - of very different communities, much like saltwater and freshwater mixing in an estuary (a bay or river where inland freshwater mixes with salt water from the ocean) . Magri has also included the first nations names of these three Estuaries as a personal acknowledgement of country.
Julia Magri is an emerging double bassist based in Sydney, as well as an emerging young composer. Awarded Highly Commended in the Artology Fanfare Composition Competition in 2018, she also recently wrote an arrangement of Dance Monkey by Tones and I. Julia will soon be moving to London to study a Professional Diploma at the Royal Academy of Music where she hopes to continue her composing alongside her double bass playing.
“Moving Forward, Looking Back”
Ezra fondly reminisces on his many school holidays spent by Bondi beach and around the Pavilion - exploring rock pools, making music with friends and spending time with family. The recent attack on the Jewish community has cast a powerful shadow over these places. As a Jewish person, he finds himself having to hold these experiences at the same time – the warmth of memory and the weight of the present. “Moving Forward, Looking Back” explores a space where these memories and emotions can co-exist.
Ezra Hersch is a Sydney based composer, conductor, and pianist in his final year of compositional studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, studying with Paul Stanhope. His works have been performed and recorded by the Australian Youth Orchestra, the Sydney Conservatorium New Music Ensemble, The Macquarie Singers, and The Solis Ensemble. He is an up-and-coming choral conductor and heavily involved in the Sydney choral and musical theatre scene.
26.04.26 | 3PM | BONDI PAVILION
Introducing Caitlin Sandiford and Natasha Green! This is a full-circle moment of HSC-style compositions between mentor and mentee.
Caitlin Sandiford’s “Something About the Ocean” was originally created to be a model composition for HSC Music students, beautifully evoking the atmosphere of being close to the ocean. A new exciting version of this classic Quart-Ed piece will be performed for the first time with electroacoustic elements created just for this event!
Caitlin is our OG second violinist currently undertaking a PhD in Music Education Research. Her research focuses on technology in music education, which informs her teaching practice. While a classically trained violinist, she performs, produces and composes electroacoustic and electronic music.
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Quart-Ed has had the privilege of working with Reddam House’s Year 12 music students for the last few years, often using “Something About the Ocean” as a quality sample composition. Last year we workshopped Natasha’s beautiful composition “Shades of Indigo” - a synesthetic exploration of the perception of various shades of indigo that sit between blue and violet in the light spectrum. The piece moves through contrasting timbres, representing the shifting “shades”.
Natasha is a recent graduate of Reddam House Sydney, where she completed Music 2 and Music Extension with a focus on vocal performance. She is set to continue her training at the Urdang Academy in London, undertaking a BA (Hons) in Musical Theatre.
26.04.26 | 3PM | BONDI PAVILION
Introducing Joseph O’ Reilly - playing second violin for our Bondi Pavilion program, Joseph is an emerging violist/violinist, pianist, and conductor. He is currently in his fourth year of his Bachelor of Music (Performance) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, studying Viola under Associate Professor Roger Benedict. Joseph brings a plethora of skills (and jokes!) to the rehearsal room with his diverse experience as an orchestral player, repetiteur and music director/conductor.
26.04.26 | 3PM | BONDI PAVILION
