Creative Team

Composer/Project Lead

Felicity Wilcox is an award-winning Australian composer, whose compositions are performed and broadcast in Australia and internationally. She has been described as ‘one of Australia’s most versatile and prolific composers’ (Limelight 2023) and ‘an important voice in contemporary classical music’ (Daily Telegraph 2021). She has received commissions for many leading artists and ensembles, was composer and Assistant Music Director for the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, and has composed the soundtracks for over 60 screen productions (as Felicity Fox). Felicity holds a Doctorate in Composition from Sydney Conservatorium of Music (2013) and is a Senior Lecturer in Music and Sound Design at the University of Technology Sydney. Her scholarly publications focus on composition: specifically, on music for multimedia and the music of women and gender diverse composers. She lives on unceded Darug Country in the Blue Mountains, NSW, Australia.

Librettist

Alana Valentine was awarded the Best Musical Helpmann Award (2019) for Barbara and the Camp Dogs, co-written with Ursula Yovich, it won both Green Room and Helpmann Awards for Best Original Score. In March 2022 the oratorio WATERSHED: The Death of Dr Duncan, co-written with Christos Tsiolkas, was at the Adelaide Festival 2022 and is part of the Opera Australia season 2024. Alana won the AWGIE award for best musical script for Notre Dame, which she will direct in 2024 for Brandenburg Orchestra. Her other acclaimed works as a librettist are Flight Memory, Bennelong, Wudjang: Not the Past, co-written with Stephen Page and Baleen Moondjan, also with Stephen Page for the 2024 Adelaide Festival. www.alanavalentine.com

Soloists

Jess Aszodi is a shape-shifter. An artist, researcher, educator, and performer, crossing between classical, experimental music, and improvisation where she creates bespoke techniques and concepts from project to project. Jess holds a Doctorate of Music at Griffith University, and a Masters in Fine Arts at University of California. Her thesis and subsequent publications have focused ways of embodying knowledge with and through the voice. Jess has twice been nominated for the Australian Greenroom Awards as ‘best female operatic performer’ - in both the leading and supporting categories. And was awarded the 2019 Performance of the Year by the Australian Art Music Awards. She has performed as a soloist with opera houses and ensembles around the world including the London Sinfonietta, Wiener Volksoper, Ensemble Moderne, Nederlands Reisoper, Hamburg Staatsoper, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, Pinchgut Opera, Victorian Opera, Sydney Chamber Opera, and the San Diego and Chicago Symphony Orchestras. 

Sonya Holowell is a vocalist, composer, writer and educator of Dharawal and Inuit descent. Her practice spans many contexts and forms, with improvisation as a primary mode towards emancipatory aims. Sonya’s work as a vocalist and composer has been shown at Sydney Festival, Adelaide Festival, Resonant Bodies Festival, Sydney Biennale, Vivid, VOLUME, soundSCAPE Italy, Soft Centre, Liveworks, the Now Now, Sydney Fringe, Moorambilla, The Banff Centre, Canberra International Music Festival, Chamber Made Hi-Viz Practice Exchange, and others. She has collaborated with the Song Company, JACK Quartet, Ensemble Offspring, International Contemporary Ensemble, Decibel, Tura and the Australian Art Orchestra, and has presented her work at the Sydney Opera House, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Museum of Contemporary Art, Carriageworks, Institute of Modern Art, The Powerhouse Museum, MUMA and the National Gallery of Australia.

Jayden Selvakumaraswamy (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist and soprano vocalist. She worked as Artistic Associate at The House that Dan Built in former years and has creatively performed with the organisation for 10 years. Jayden has 11 years of classical ballet training, has been vocally trained since she was eight, and she studied at the Australian Institute of Music (musical theatre) in 2017. She was a vocalist in Sydney Chamber Opera’s world premiere of The Howling Girls in 2018 and 2019 for Tokyo Festival. She performed in the chorus of Angelica Mesiti’s work ASSEMBLY for the Venice Biennale 2019. Jayden was a lead vocalist for Jessica O’Donoghue’s The Mother Project opera.

Nicole Smede is a multi-disciplinary artist of Warrimay Birrbay, English, and Irish descent who works with language to reconnect to ancestry and culture through song, sound and poetry. Nicole has performed at Parliament House, City Recital Hall, Mona Foma Festival, and galleries and venues across Australia and her voice has been heard globally on award-winning film scores, and her compositions, in meditations, songs, soundscapes and music for podcasts and plays. A recipient of the inaugural Space to Create residency in 2022, in 2023 Nicole is a participant in Ngarra-Burria First Peoples Composers program and a mentee through both the APRA AMCOS Women in Music program and South Coast Writers Centre Emerging Writers program.

Quin (formerly Helen) Thomson (they/them) is a multidisciplinary performer, composer and musical director. Their international career as a vocalist encompasses appearances with Amsterdam Baroque, Netherlands Bach Society, Egidius College, the Song Company, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Van Diemen’s Band, and many others. Their compositions have featured in the Festival of Voices, QTas Choir’s Queer Narratives: Story to Song, Sequenza Ensemble’s Birdsong cycle, several pieces performed by the Tasmanian Youth Orchestra, Percussion Ensemble and Chorale, and Oriana Chorale’s Text/ure project; their concert-length oratorio A Tasmanian Requiem premiered in 2018 to extraordinary critical acclaim. Musical Direction credits include the UTas Conservatorium Vocal Ensemble, Loose Canon Chamber Singers, and Tasmanian Youth Orchestra ensembles.

Vocal Ensemble: The House that Dan Built

Danielle O’Keefe (she/her) is a creative entrepreneur. Founder and CEO of The House that Dan Built, Danielle is an interdisciplinary contemporary artist whose site-responsive work with young singers is being recognised and awarded internationally. Her work has been featured in collaborations through Melbourne Festival, Dark Mofo, and Sydney Festival. In 2014, the House ensemble was established and are gaining recognition as an extraordinary multidisciplinary performance collective. They have performed with Sydney Chamber Opera in their acclaimed production The Howling Girls and in 2019 were featured at the Venice Biennale in renowned Australian video artist Angelica Mesiti’s work Assembly. Danielle is a sought after artist having worked with companies such as the Australian Theatre for Young People (ATYP), Sydney Chamber Opera (SCO), The Australian Institute of Performing Arts (AIPA), Brent Street and PACT to create exciting works for and with young people. Alongside her work with young people, Danielle has directed mainstage shows at the Seymour Centre, The Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Complex and Merrigong Theatre, to name a few.

Soren Goulding (they/he) is an artist in Sydney who writes songs and lots of other things that aren't songs. They also like to sing and draw little pictures. They have worked on many projects with The House That Dan Built, including Reverence and Bagatelle.

Leila Harris (she/her) is a soprano/musician, singer-songwriter, composer and producer. She is passionate about transcending and blurring genre constraints and using outspoken and unconventional art to centre diversity and uplift audiences and musicians. Leila sings with choirs and ensembles including The House That Dan Built and the Sydney Philharmonia Choir, and performs as a vocalist and instrumentalist in bands and ensembles. Her own music fuses her eclectic training and influences to combine complex harmonic arrangements and operatic vocals with electronic production, dense orchestral arrangements and soundscapes. Leila will graduate from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2023 with a Bachelor of Music (Honours).

Deborah Kam (she/they) is a singer and visual artist currently studying fine arts at the National Art School. They are in their third year working with The House That Dan Built; undergoing vocal and Suzuki training, and have performed in the shows Tender Young Creatures, Salt and Bagatelle.

Bedelia Lowrencev (they/them/she/her) is a groovy disabled actor, dancer, singer and theatre maker. Bedelia frequently collaborates with their deaf, twin brother Jeremy, exploring the intersection of queerness, disability and deafness. Most recently, Bedelia performed in their new work, COLLISION for Sydney WorldPride at PYT Fairfield, ANIMATE LOADING at Casula Powerhouse, and interned at Performance Space as a Createability intern, and was the Access Coordinator for Liveworks 2023. Bedelia has a keen interest in communal care, story sovereignty, reciprocity and advocacy in their arts practice. Bedelia lives and works on Wategoro and Wangal Land.

Instrumental Ensemble

Hilary Geddes is a guitarist, improviser and composer based in Eora/Sydney on Gadigal Land. She is the 2021 Freedman Jazz Fellow, a 2021 ABC Jazz Scholarship recipient, and the 2019 recipient of the Jann Rutherford Memorial Award. Hilary is the bandleader of the Hilary Geddes Quartet, and released her AIR-nominated debut album 'Parkside' (ABC Jazz) in 2021. Hilary works as an in-demand guitarist in the Australian jazz and improvised music scenes, performing alongside jazz luminaries such as Mike Nock, Lakecia Benjamin (USA), Laurence Pike and Jonathan Zwartz.

Jason Noble is one of Australia’s most versatile clarinettists – experimental to classical – a soloist and core member of Ensemble Offspring. Jason has performed at festivals locally and internationally, from Warsaw to London, Shanghai to Kabul, and all major cities across Australia. “His expertise and virtuosic playing give new insights into the versatility of the bass clarinet” (Sounds Like Sydney). His album releases include THRUM (2020) – a collection of improvised ambient sounds created with Kim Cunio on piano – and Chi’s Cakewalk (2017), an album of new Australian works for clarinets. He has also made guest appearances on albums for Gurrumul,  Sally Seltmann, ABC Classics, Gondwana Voices, Paul Mac, Halcyon, SICKO improvising orchestra, and the Tiwi women’s choir Ngarukuruwala. Recently he performed at the Adelaide Festival in Incredible Floridas, curated by Kim Williams, appearing as soloist with the Australian String Quartet. 

Véronique Serret is a highly versatile violinist, vocalist and composer, effortlessly bridging the divide between classical and contemporary art forms. In demand as a leader, chamber musician, mentor and collaborative artist, Véronique is known for her inclusive sound world, willingness to experiment across genres and her work on the six string violin. She is dedicated to the creation of new music and the exploration of sound through diverse collaborations. As a contemporary classical soloist, Véronique performed Arvo Part’s Tabula Rasa with the Sydney Symphony, Peteris Vask’s Lonely Angel at Four Winds Festival, she gave the Australian premieres of Boulez’s Anthemes and Brian Howard’s Desires Ingrained for solo violin—as well as Cathy Milliken’s Crie, and Holly Harrison’s Ice Giant, written especially for her. In 2022 she gave the Australian premiere of Unsuk Chin’s theatrical work Double Bind for Backstage Music and recently performed Nico Muhly’s electric violin concert ‘Seeing is Believing’ with the Tasmanian Symphony at MonaFoma 2023. Véronique’s ARIA nominated album co-composed with didgeridoo legend William Barton is HEARTLAND. Their work Kalkani opened the QSO’s 2023 Maestro season.

Rubiks is Jacob Abela (keyboards), Tamara Kohler (flutes), Gemma Kneale (cello), Kaylie Melville (percussion), bringing together Australia’s most exciting and versatile young performers. Since debuting in 2015, the ensemble has been hailed as “a formidable contribution to Australia’s growing community of contemporary music makers” (Partial Durations) and commended for “incredibly personal, strangely spiritual and ultimately deeply touching” performances (Limelight Magazine). The ensemble has collaborated with Australian and international artists including Marcus Fjellström (SE), Amy Zhang (US), Bec Plexus (NL), Ashis Sengupta (IN), Kinds of Kings (US), Short Black Opera (AU), Samuel Smith (AU) and Invenio Singers (AU). Their international appearances have included performances in Germany, England, the Netherlands and at the closing events for the 2018-19 Australia Fest in India. National festival appearances include the Metropolis New Music Festival (Melbourne) and City Recital Hall’s Extended Play Festival (Sydney). Rubiks are also a resident ensemble in the Melbourne Recital Centre’s acclaimed ‘Local Heroes’ chamber music series. In 2017, Rubiks launched the Pythia Prize, an annual commission project that supports an Australian female or gender diverse composer to collaborate with Rubiks on the creation of a new work. The Pythia Prize was awarded to Samantha Wolf in 2017, Christine McCombe in 2018, Bianca Gannon in 2019, Felicity Wilcox in 2021 and Sylvia Lim in 2022.