Musica Viva Australia Announces 2023 FutureMakers
The program aims to nurture emerging chamber music leaders
Founded in 2015, Musica Viva Australia’s FutureMakers program looks for young professionals who will shape Australian arts. The 2023 FutureMakers are violist Katie Yap and double bassist, vocalist, and composer Helen Svoboda. Within the two-year program, the pair will be supported to create an ambitious music-centered performance project.
A modern and Baroque violist, Katie Yap is a founding member of prog-Baroque quartet Croissants & Whiskey, the Chrysalis Harp Trio, and crossover folk/Baroque group Wattleseed Ensemble. She is also the Artistic Director of the 3MBS women-in-music festival Music, She Wrote, and of Wattleseed Ensemble. Yap plays regularly with the Australian World Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Van Diemen’s Band, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.
Helen Svoboda was part of both the 2020 Freedman Jazz Fellowship and the 2020/21 Australian Art Orchestra Pathfinders Music Leadership Program. Exploring the melodic potential of the contemporary double bass, she has released albums including Vegetable Bass and Since Subito. Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in composition with Cat Hope at Monash University, she has performed with Cory Smythe, Sebastian Gramss, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and the Australian Art Orchestra.
"There are two qualities I look for in the young musicians Musica Viva mentors as part of its FutureMakers program: a certain fearlessness and widespread peer respect," said Musica Viva Australia’s Artistic Director Paul Kildea. "Both Helen and Katie have these qualities in spades. It is a delight and privilege to plot and plan with them their emerging careers, conscious that these plans will have a huge impact on Australia’s cultural landscape for decades to come."
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