Festival guest artists Alex Dea (Indonesia), Sophie Moleta (New Zealand), Lucky Oceans (Australia), Gary France (Australia) and George Chua (Singapore) present a sampler concert profiling their unique new directions in music.

Philadelphia-born multiple Grammy Award-winning artist Lucky Oceans takes the pedal steel guitar around the world of music, supported by festival artist Gary France and guests from LASALLE-SIA’s Music programme.

Oceans co-founded the group Asleep at the Wheel in the 1970s, playing the pedal steel guitar. He won the Grammy Award for “Best Country Instrument” twice (1978 and 1993), and has written music for film and television. He currently leads his own group

The Zydecats. Oceans also presents the acclaimed daily music show The Planet on ABC Radio National in Australia.

Chua is a sound artist and performer whose audio work or music may come in the form of a performance, an installation or a sound recording. His interest lies in the extensive relationship sound has with memories, invisibility, the body and cinema. Chua has been an associate artist with The Substation since 2002. In 2004, he was awarded an honourable mention for special achievement in music by The Straits Times Life! Theatre awards.

Blending ambient beats with words steeped in personal experience and acoustic sounds, Sophie Moleta brings a unique fragile honesty to her deeply-committed performances. In this concert Moleta will perform songs from her album DIVE and new works from her forthcoming untitled collection.

Born in New Zealand, Moleta was always drawn to mystical ‘other’ experiences as a child, and having found her expression of depth through music, she began writing songs at 15. She released her first solo album TRUST at 28 – a seven-year compilation of songs – and was quickly signed by Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studio in the UK. Her second album DIVE received high critical acclaim and a cult following, particularly in France where her songs were included in the film Les Jolie Chose. She also had commercial success on the international dance scene through the release of her trance single Lover has Come Again on Renaissance Records. Moleta recently released a new album with Holmes Ives in Washington DC and is currently working on her seventeenth solo album due to be released this year. Now based in New Zealand, she prefers her music to reflect nature, simple daily life experiences and often love and its journeys.

Genre-defying percussionist Gary France will perform a programme spanning major works of the classical percussion repertoire, world music and improvisations with LASALLE-SIA staff members Lindsay Vickery and Timothy O’Dwyer.

Head of the Percussion programme at the Australian National University, France has made a career exploring the breadth of percussion performance. He has, amongst other projects, worked with major orchestras and led jazz orchestras and has been a driving force behind the acclaimed Western swing group Dude Ranch.

France’s recent world premieres include works by Sir Michael Tippet and Peter Sculthrope. His dynamic career as a teacher includes works for the Australian Youth Orchestra, the Australian National Academy of Music and the direction of Australia’s first National Percussion Symposium in 2003.

Composer, ethnomusicologist and widely-valued collaborator, Alex Dea delves into South-east Asian culture, experimental and electronic music in his revelatory performance.

Dea’s work invites the listener to hear ‘below the surface’. Pursuing the path pioneered by his compositions mentor La Monte Young, Dea’s current work explores the possibilities of combining novel tuning systems, the natural overtone series and Hindustani and Javanese melodic improvisation. Standing at a common point between cultures, Dea mixes Western, Indonesian, modern and traditional methods and techniques with particular care for creating an aesthetic that accommodates the new and the old. His work reflects indirectness, stillness, fundamental in his performances.

Artists from the festival collaborate with LASALLE-SIA Music programme’s own Fusion Chamber Orchestra, Gamelan Performance Lab, African Music Ensemble and Percussion Ensemble in an enthralling evening of music.

All are invited to join the New Directions team for a unique creative experience whether they are a composer, performer, improviser or songwriter with an interest in taking an innovative approach to music-making. Participants can explore composition and improvisation strategies on electronic acoustic instruments. No prior experience is required.

The music degree programmes focus on a range of current music practices from “East and West”, including improvisation and notation, and broad stylistic awareness, reflecting a changed musical environment that values diversity in the skills of its composers and performers. The programme reflects Singapore’s unique situation – placed geographically in the heart of Asia, with a diverse multicultural population and a long history as an international meeting-point of cultures. It also presents students with a unique opportunity to experience a broad cross-section of today’s musical practice in a single integrated structure. Blending vibrant cultures and diverse concepts found in Asia within a western music discourse, students in the programme undertake a focused study in one of four pathways – Classical Music, Jazz, Popular Music, and World Music.

The curriculum allows for a significant degree of flexibility for students to integrate issues and topics across the four specialisations. The programme has a regional artistic focus in each of its pathways with an emphasis in the areas of cross-cultural, cross-art form and cross-genre collaboration preparing graduates for broader professional situations in the creative industries in Asia and elsewhere.