SU Studio Talk 84: Speak Percussion – A Radical Repertoire: Highlights from 25 Years of Speak Percussion

Speak Percussion’s Sounds Unheard Studio Talk series, “The Potential of Percussion”, brings together founding artistic director Eugene Ughetti, current artistic director Kaylie Melville and long-time collaborator Matthias Schack-Arnott to reflect on 25 years of one of Australia’s most adventurous contemporary ensembles. Across three episodes, they explore how Speak has continually expanded the possibilities of percussion — through cross-disciplinary collaboration, instrument building, conceptual inquiry and performance practices that reach well beyond the concert hall.

In the third and final episode, “A Radical Repertoire: Highlights from 25 Years of Speak Percussion”, Eugene, Kaylie and Matthias look back on landmark works that have defined Speak Percussion’s fearless creative vision. From Pigeons — a work built around clay target trap machines — to the intimate one-day collaborations of the Before Nightfall series; from the monumental Atlas of the Sky with composer Liza Lim, to the electronic transduction of energy in Transducer with Robin Fox, this episode celebrates the ideas, courage and culture of critical inquiry that have sustained 25 years of extraordinary percussion.

Thank you for joining us for Speak Percussion’s Studio Talks Series, ‘The Potential of Percussion’.

For more information on Speak Percussion, please visit: www.speakpercussion.com

[Photo © Darren Gill]