Chris Cody – Astrolabe “A Summer Voyage” + Julien Wilson – Meditations & Mutations

Chris Cody – Astrolabe ‘A Summer Voyage’

Astrolabe is a musical account of the voyages of French explorer La Perouse, who landed in Botany Bay during the Summer of 1788.

Chris Cody’s work draws upon jazz, classical and world music to take audiences on a vibrant and exciting musical odyssey.

Inspired by La Perouse’s amazing voyage through the Pacific regions of North and South America, Asia and Australasia, the music delves into differently imagined times, cultures and places to convey the emotions Chris felt after reading the ship journal.

“Cody builds improvisational space into the work, and such gifted players inevitably lead us to uncharted lands,” – John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald

Julien Wilson – Meditations & Mutations

Julien Wilson’s Sydney premiere of his spontaneous solo adventures without maps, taking listeners to places both wild and peaceful.

Recorded during Melbourne’s interminable lockdowns, the pair of solo albums called ‘Meditations’ and ‘Mutations’ are melodic electroacoustic cinematic soundscapes created using just woodwinds and electronic effects.

Renown music critic John Shand calls the music “as close to directly communing with another human soul as art can contrive. Light shines through this music – muted, like afternoon sun through a high window”; and he observes that the electronic effects create “environments in which the saxophone unfolds its stories (of fathomless humanity), rather as birds sing in trees.”