I’m a musician and arts manager based in Adelaide.
I am the Artistic Director of Nexus Arts, where I work to present and support contemporary musicians and visual artists from non-dominant cultural backgrounds, and where we create and present new work that aims to progress towards an intercultural understanding of Australian arts.
I work with Creative Original Music Adelaide (COMA) presenting and developing contemporary music from some underrepresented genres in Adelaide; and I play the violin working with groups such as Zephyr Quartet as a performer and a composer-arranger.
Why do you do it?
I am passionate about supporting other artists to create art that challenges, comforts, and provokes. Through Nexus and COMA, I get to do this and to contribute to the cultural life of this city.
It’s not easy in the increasingly unstable environment our arts sector faces, but I fundamentally believe that art is worth striving for. I make art too because I think it’s a core part of me, and if I stop then something is missing.
What do you love about the city you live in?
I love to travel, but Adelaide will always be home and I will always have that connection to it as a place.
Where did you go for your last holiday?
Berlin, Naples, Florence, and Rome. I had three weeks of art, food, and history after Christmas and it was incredible.
What's your favourite item of clothing?
A top that a designer friend made for her final collection in her university graduation and then I was lucky enough to buy. It’s a zero-waste design – exactly what fashion needs moving forward.
What was your favourite TV show when you were a kid?
Not a show, but I was obsessed with the Errol Flynn film 'The Adventures Of Robin Hood'. I still don’t mind a good bit of swashbuckling.
If you could travel back in time for a day, where would you go?
I’d be pretty keen to see how Berlin looked in the 1920s; provided I was rich.
If we were coming over to your place, what would you cook us?
Look, to be honest, at the moment it’s the middle of Adelaide’s festival season, so we’d probably have cheese. And wine.
What's the best lesson you've ever learned?
I’m not a huge risk taker in life, but in art I firmly believe in the mantra 'risk and you shall receive'.
Are you happy with your work/ life balance?
I’ve never known how to answer this one. I don’t think I have one – that’s the problem (and the solution) with the arts: your life is your work. They’re intertwined. I don’t think of it as a balance, more of a variable ebb and flow.
How do you define success?
I think if you can contribute to a better world – big or small – that’s success.
What's your spirit animal?
My friends know that guinea pigs are special, little creatures to me, but I don’t really feel like a rather fragile, highly susceptible, prey animal is my idea of a spirit animal. I mean, obviously you’re supposed to say something like a jaguar, right? Let’s go with an iguana. Why not.
