NOMINATION: Performance of the Year - Jazz / Improvised Music
For the performance of a single Australian work, showcasing the performer(s)’ success in improvisatory creation or collaboration. This may entail entirely improvised work or significant improvisatory input such as solo passages.
A work is defined as a single complete musical composition, or expression. This includes music with movements or sub-works (i.e. song cycles), installations, and real-time compositions (improvised music).
If you believe your performance to be nominated in the wrong category or the details of your nomination to be incorrect, please contact the AMC via email at awards@australianmusiccentre.com.au before proceeding with the nomination.
Art Music Award guidelines →
Nominee
Xani
Nominee email
xani.k.can@gmail.com
Title of the work
Endurance
Composer(s) of the work
Xani Kolac
Performance Date
21/10/2024
Venue
Melbourne Recital Centre Salon - Melbourne International Jazz Festival
Nominator Statement
I am nominating Xani Kolacs performance of her work Endurance because it is an imaginative and exploratory performance at the vanguard of contemporary jazz and improvised music.
"Endurance" is a deeply personal, political and physically demanding solo performance composed and improvised for five-string electric violin and live looping. Presented by the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, this performance explored her virtuosity, technical innovation and artistic depth. It also marked an impressive sold-out debut at the Festival, which was enthusiastically reviewed in the press: the sheer physicality of her performance was a triumph of endurance (Australian Book Review).
"Endurance" opens with a countdown, mimicking the start of a marathon race. This subtle commentary on competition arts vs. sports and the repetition and gradual transformation, mirror the persistence required of musicians who train like elite athletes. In a country where sport is culturally dominant, while the arts remain underfunded, under-discovered and undervalued, Endurance is not just about musical stamina but about the resilience of artists and of art, proving that live music carries the same unpredictability, spectacle, and potential for human connection as sport.
The work features rapid, looping bowing patterns that subtly shift over time, creating ambiguous harmonies that eventually blur, then unravel. The technique demands extreme physical stamina, reinforcing the endurance metaphor, and a vertical (rather than linear) approach to live looping. Instead of passively observing, the audience were encouraged to become part of the sonic landscape in a shared human experience.
Xani created this work for quadraphonic sound, a traditionally male-dominated field. Unlike conventional stereo setups, quadraphonic sound dissolves the rigid front-facing concert format, allowing sound to move freely around the space. For Xani, spatial sound is more than a technical achievement it is a philosophical and political statement. By removing the division between audience and performer, she dismantles the artificial barriers of traditional performance. This mirrors the separation of land and nature from art and music, an artificial divide that she seeks to challenge through her work. Just as the real world is experienced in 360-degree sound and movement, she believes that performance can reflect this natural experience of sound. This approach aligns with her growing focus on music as a climate response, creating works that tell the stories of the world around us.
Xani is an artist of passionate perseverance, resilience and authenticity, and with this performance she demonstrates a pioneering approach to the electric violin, while testing her physical endurance as a form of musical expression. Working with spatialised and improvised live looping, and experimenting with a reimagined audience-performer dynamic, she boldly questions the divisions between performance, nature, and human resilience.
Nominee
Xani
Nominee email
xani.k.can@gmail.com
Title of the work
Endurance
Composer(s) of the work
Xani Kolac
Performance Date
21/10/2024
Venue
Melbourne Recital Centre Salon - Melbourne International Jazz Festival
"Endurance" is a deeply personal, political and physically demanding solo performance composed and improvised for five-string electric violin and live looping. Presented by the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, this performance explored her virtuosity, technical innovation and artistic depth. It also marked an impressive sold-out debut at the Festival, which was enthusiastically reviewed in the press: the sheer physicality of her performance was a triumph of endurance (Australian Book Review).
"Endurance" opens with a countdown, mimicking the start of a marathon race. This subtle commentary on competition arts vs. sports and the repetition and gradual transformation, mirror the persistence required of musicians who train like elite athletes. In a country where sport is culturally dominant, while the arts remain underfunded, under-discovered and undervalued, Endurance is not just about musical stamina but about the resilience of artists and of art, proving that live music carries the same unpredictability, spectacle, and potential for human connection as sport.
The work features rapid, looping bowing patterns that subtly shift over time, creating ambiguous harmonies that eventually blur, then unravel. The technique demands extreme physical stamina, reinforcing the endurance metaphor, and a vertical (rather than linear) approach to live looping. Instead of passively observing, the audience were encouraged to become part of the sonic landscape in a shared human experience.
Xani created this work for quadraphonic sound, a traditionally male-dominated field. Unlike conventional stereo setups, quadraphonic sound dissolves the rigid front-facing concert format, allowing sound to move freely around the space. For Xani, spatial sound is more than a technical achievement it is a philosophical and political statement. By removing the division between audience and performer, she dismantles the artificial barriers of traditional performance. This mirrors the separation of land and nature from art and music, an artificial divide that she seeks to challenge through her work. Just as the real world is experienced in 360-degree sound and movement, she believes that performance can reflect this natural experience of sound. This approach aligns with her growing focus on music as a climate response, creating works that tell the stories of the world around us.
Xani is an artist of passionate perseverance, resilience and authenticity, and with this performance she demonstrates a pioneering approach to the electric violin, while testing her physical endurance as a form of musical expression. Working with spatialised and improvised live looping, and experimenting with a reimagined audience-performer dynamic, she boldly questions the divisions between performance, nature, and human resilience.