Judith Hamann & James Rushford

Concert

Judith Hamann (cello) and James Rushford (keyboards, alto violin) have a long history of playing together, since in 2008, while still students in Melbourne, they formed the Golden Fur trio with Sam Dunscombe (clarinets, computer), an ensemble keen to distance itself from the canonical power centers of contemporary music. Since then, Golden Fur has commissioned numerous works from Australian composers and given the first Australian performances of many of their works.

Judith Hamann and James Rushford also sometimes perform as a duo, for a program in an exceptional venue, the Basilica of Valère.

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Judith Hamann

Born in 1983 near Melbourne
Lives in Berlin

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Judith Hamann holds a Doctorate in Musical Arts from the University of San Diego, specializing in contemporary cello performance. She is also a composer.

His current work focuses on examining manifestations of "trembling" in solo performance, new works for cello and humming, and research into the "collapse" and "de-mastery" of instrumental practice.

Judith Hamann has extensive experience of improvisation and sound art in collaborative projects in Australia and abroad. She has worked with numerous musicians and ensembles, as well as with visual artists, architects and filmmakers on interdisciplinary projects.

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James Rushford

Born in 1985 in Melbourne
Lives in Melbourne

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With a doctorate from the California Institute of the Arts, James Rushford is a musician and composer whose work is inspired by contemporary, concrete, improvised and collagist musical languages, as well as those dating back to the Middle Ages. He traces the folds and crevices of these musics.

James Rushford's performance practices on piano, synthesizers and electroacoustic devices, as well as on portable organ, reveal a delicacy of touch and a harmonic sensibility in which unorthodox tunings coexist with influences ranging from Impressionism to 20th-century avant-garde and many varieties of popular music.

As a composer, he has created original works for symphony orchestras, percussion ensembles and numerous collaborations with other musicians.

In particular, he seeks to translate light and shadow into his music. Their exploration of Lake Geneva in residence at La Becque inspired Lake From The Louvers, a vinyl LP (Shelter Press, 2021). His latest releases include Block Gifts, an LP (Holidays Records, 2022) featuring three works for organ composed between 2015 and 2018. Using the harmonium, the portable organ and the electric organ, James Rushford lets us perceive in a sensitive and subtle way the squeaks, stutters of interpretation, the fingers sweeping the keys, all belonging to his compositional universe.