I had the absolute honour of participating in a masterclass with viola da gamba maestro Paolo Pandolfo during the Australian Viola da Gamba Society’s annual consort intensive in Hobart, Tasmania. Our consort group prepared an unbarred piece by Orlando Gibbons, and it was wonderful to receive Paolo’s insights—especially on the art of doing less and allowing greater spaciousness on the bass viol.

Paolo also gave two extraordinary back-to-back concerts in Hobart, performing his own arrangements of Bach’s Cello Suites for gamba. His playing was utterly riveting: virtuosic yet deeply expressive. Later, I attended his concert at the Melbourne Recital Centre, where he brought the solo bass viol repertoire to life with breathtaking artistry—from the intimacy of de Machy, through the bold experimentalism of Tobias Hume’s The First Part of Ayres, to his own arrangement of Bach’s First Cello Suite. As the Sydney Morning Herald so perfectly described, Paolo’s playing made this historic, yet thoroughly contemporary, instrument shine with "brilliantly poetic" expression.

Led by composer and creative director Jenny M. Thomas, Cör of the Matter is a choir dedicated to reviving and reimagining traditional Welsh songs. With a Welsh name but no Welsh heritage, I felt a growing urge to connect more deeply with the language and culture—and what better way than through song. Fittingly, one of the most famous Welsh songs is titled Myfanwy. Cör of the Matter performed at the Portarlington Folk Festival and at the historic Welsh Church in Melbourne’s CBD, offering audiences stirring performances enriched by Jacqui Stockdale’s atmospheric visual projections and the sensitive piano accompaniment of Joseph O’Connor. The concerts were a vibrant celebration of tradition, storytelling, and new artistic interpretation.

www.jennymthomas.au/the-cor-of-the-matter

Reached was the third piece in a trilogy of works by Jonathan Sinatra, performed at The Living Museum of the West. Myfanwy activated sounds from industrial artefacts and played viola da gamba, collaborating with dancers Jonathan Sinatra and Bronwen Kamasz, musician Piotr Nowotnik, narrator and mosaicist Libby McKinnon, and horticulturist Jude Bowman. The piece took the form of a guided walk through the museum’s History of the Land garden, with the performance unfolding through a combination of movement, sound, storytelling, and interaction with the landscape. This immersive, multidisciplinary event was hosted by the museum and was free for attendees to enjoy.

Myfanwy collaborated on viola da gamba with dancer Janette Hoe for Now Pieces at Dancehouse. ‘At the heart of each Now Pieces is the disciplined exploration of improvisation-in-performance. Each performer is invited to play – in whatever way they choose – with the art of spontaneity.’ - Dancehouse Website

www.dancehouse.com.au/whats-on/finale-now-pieces

Two sound artists and two dancers create a site-responsive work delving into the intersecting histories of Melbourne’s Living Museum of the West (MLMW). MLMW houses an industrial ruin, a parkland, an art park, a repository of stories and artefacts, and a meeting place along the banks of the Mirrangbamurn (Maribyrnong River). MLMW is the forming of ancient lands by effusive volcanic activity, indigenous custodianship over millennia and the recent colonial, industrial and contemporary history of this place. The four artists will inhabit the site and activate these histories drawing on the museum’s extensive oral history recordings, physical artefacts, and photographic archive. The quartet will also reference part II of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl which contains a gut wrenching, psychedelic, and somehow slightly optimistic view of many of the themes that are captured in MLMW’s multi-layered history: “Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yell! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!”

Link to live performance: www.facebook.com/share/v/1BcfRynQ9d/

This event was part of MAP Experimentum 2021 www.facebook.com/melakaartandperformancefestival#mapexperimentum2021 #melbournelivingmuseumofthewest #contemporarydance #soundart

Dancers

Jonathan Sinatra www.jonathansinatra.com

Bronwen Kamasz www.bronwenkamasz.weebly.com

Sound Artists

Myfanwy (Min) Hunter www.myfanwyhunter.com

Emma Bathgate www.emmabathgate.com

www.livingmuseum.org.au

‘Beyond the Hunter’s Gate’ live stream music offering with Emma Bathgate for MAPFest. A meeting of old and new approaches and engagements with voice and viol. Emma Bathgate and Myfanwy Hunter bring their background in early music, classical and opera into experimental terrains, opening a momentary portal into their combined sound world. For this piece, Myfanwy will unearth the timbral potential of the viola da gamba and Emma will unleash her extensive vocal palette. Together, their sonic forces will likely transport listeners from the guttural, through the corporeal to the ethereal. Listeners are invited to lie down for this live stream, or to move and dance if you feel to.

’Beyond the Hunter’s Gate’ was presented as a part of Melaka Art and Performance Festival 2020. Full performance listing: https://www.facebook.com/melakaartandperformancefestival

Full program: https://melakafestival.com/

MAP Fest 2020 is proudly supported by: E-Plus Global, Tony Yap Company, ImPermanence Productions

#mafpest #mapfest2020 #bassviol #violadagamba #voice

Crossings was a live-streamed performance event staged from the Westgate Punt ferry as part of the 2019 MAP Festival. The performance featured dancer Jonathan Sinatra, with Myfanwy Hunter collaborating as a videographer responding to the site, environment, and movement of the ferry.

Set against the stark industrial backdrop of the Westgate Bridge and the tidal rhythms of the lower Yarra River, the work explored themes of transition, balance, and the body’s negotiation of unstable spaces. The performance was accompanied by an evocative pre-recorded audio track titled Slow Ferry Crossing by Perth artist Solar Cell Kid, which underscored the work with a slow, meditative soundscape.

Myfanwy and Jonathan moved in dialogue with the ferry’s swaying momentum, the surrounding river sounds, and the tension between human presence and the working river environment. The live-stream extended this site-specific encounter beyond the physical location, inviting remote audiences into a space of gentle dislocation and embodied listening. Crossings embodied MAP Festival’s commitment to experimental, location-responsive artistic practice.

Dancer ~ Jonathan Sinatra

Videography ~ Myfanwy Hunter

Sound credit ~ Solar Cell Kid ‘Slow Ferry Crossing’

With thanks to Westgate Punt Skippers - Fletcher, Dave, and owner Rob.

#mafpest #mapfest2020

In early 2019, in the wake of the devastating Black Summer fires across Australia, Myfanwy offered an intimate afternoon of music in support of recovery efforts. Performing on her Tasmanian Huon Pine and Sassafras viola, she presented the reflective and soulful Sarabande movements from each of Bach’s six Cello Suites. This fundraising event was dedicated to the wildlife affected by the fires, with all proceeds donated to Wildlife Victoria.

In November 2019, I collaborated with the wonder-full performance duo LIPS—Camilla Maling and Ineke De Graaf—for the Strathbogie Arts Festival. We joined the Bridge to Bridge ephemeral sculpture walk, where Camilla and Ineke engaged with the landscape and sculptures while I recorded participants’ experiences and observations. Later, as steady rain poured outside, we gathered in the hall for a shared listening session of the harvested sounds with local artists and residents. Huge congratulations to Councillor and my incredible cousin Laura Binks and all the SAF organisers for such a beautiful and engaging festival and event.

A 1-day immersion into the theory and practice of TRE - Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises.

In this 1-day workshop, Certified TRE Provider Myfanwy (Min) Hunter will present the neurological, structural and psychological underpinnings of TRE - Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises. Participants will learn how to activate and regulate their own tremor response with the TRE exercises.

TRE is a simple and powerful physical practice that releases tension stored deep in the fight-flight muscles of the body, particularly the psoas. TRE is effective in releasing trauma, alleviating insomnia, anxiety, depression and chronic tension.

TRE is equally effective in helping individuals building neurological cohesion, vagal tone and psycho-emotional resilience. TRE is an excellent practice to prepare for performances, public speaking, meetings, exams, interviews and any life events where greater calm and neurological cohesion are desired.

This workshop is suitable for all levels of familiarity with the TRE practice. Bookings are essential as workshop numbers will be capped at 10 due to venue capacity.

Full address details will be sent on registration.

The Future is Female was a Sonic Electric performance art project directed by Juliana España Keller that explored the musical and sonic possibilities of everyday domestic objects. In this work, I collaborated as a performer, focusing on the transformation of amplified kitchen appliances—such as mixers, blenders, and toasters—into instruments of experimental sound. Through contact microphones, live mixing, and improvisation, we uncovered the hidden resonances, rhythms, and textures embedded in these familiar objects.

The performances blurred the lines between noise, music, and theatre, offering audiences an immersive and playful experience that questioned ideas of functionality, creativity, and domestic space. Sonic Electric invited a reimagining of the everyday through a sonic lens, turning the banal into something unexpectedly vital and alive.was a performance art project directed by Juliana España Keller that explored the musical and sonic possibilities of everyday domestic objects. In this work, I collaborated as a performer, focusing on the transformation of amplified kitchen appliances—such as mixers, blenders, and toasters—into instruments of experimental sound. Through contact microphones, live mixing, and improvisation, we uncovered the hidden resonances, rhythms, and textures embedded in these familiar objects.

The performances blurred the lines between noise, music, and theatre, offering audiences an immersive and playful experience that questioned ideas of functionality, creativity, and domestic space. Sonic Electric invited a reimagining of the everyday through a sonic lens, turning the banal into something unexpectedly vital and alive.

Link: www.cargocollective.com/julianaespanakeller/THE-FUTURE-IS-FEMALE

Inflation Situation (2019) was a one-hour durational performance developed and performed by Myfanwy Hunter (sound) and Jonathan Sinatra (movement) for house-body, a Tony Yap and Takashi Takiguchi of Impermanence Productions, presented at Siteworks as part of Melbourne's MAP Festival.

Set within a contained room, the performance explored amplified quietude, deflating skins, and disrupted material usage, moving through cycles of inflation, deflation, rise and fall. Hunter and Sinatra worked with the political, physical, and phenomenological dimensions of space—examining mass, movement, economy, and bodily presence. Inflation Situation asked: in a world of conflated lives and inflated feeds, where will the rest of us rest?

A Public Kitchen was a Sonic Electric performance staged on the rooftop of MARS Gallery, featuring the inventive use of amplified kitchen appliances as sonic instruments. Under the creative direction of Juliana España Keller, the performance transformed everyday domestic objects into a charged and resonant soundscape, blurring the boundaries between noise, music, and public ritual.

Link to full performance here: www.vimeo.com/315817502

At the 2018 MAP Festival in the remote regional township of Rainbow, Victoria, Philomena Manifold—geologist, dancer, and writer—embodied the geological data of the township and surrounding terrain through movement. Myfanwy Hunter—sound and visual artist—recorded Philomena’s geological observations and captured her motion through live drawing during the performance. The culminating artworks were torn and reassembled, forming a geo-temporal depiction of their interaction and the shifting landscape they explored.

Myfanwy performed on viola and bass guitar as part of the festival's Mortality performance night with dancer Alice Cummins, performance artist Wei Zen Ho, festival curator Peter Banki, plus Natalia Je, Pia Interlandi and Alan Schacher.

The 2017 Festival of Death and Dying in Melbourne was a two-day event held at Dancehouse Studios on September 9-10. It aimed to explore the Western fear of death while celebrating life, using workshops, talks, and performances. The festival was curated by artist and scholar Peter Banki and festival dramaturge Victoria Spence. The festival's goal was to provoke contemplation about how societies mark death and cope with loss, potentially leading to a cultural shift in how death is viewed

More information about the festival here: deathfest.net

Led by violinist Ernie Gruner, Bowlines was a dynamic string trio that incorporated improvised music scores interwoven with stories and conversations created between the musicians, the audience, and the surrounding environment. In this special performance, Bowlines supported Iranian musician Gelareh Pour for the launch of her new music group, Garden. The evening unfolded as a rich tapestry of cross-cultural dialogue and spontaneous musical exchange, with Bowlines responding intuitively to the energy of the space and the audience. Their collaboration with Gelareh Pour brought together diverse musical traditions, creating a unique and memorable night of improvisation, storytelling, and deep listening.
 

Due to Lilo Quartet's sold out St Kilda concert on Saturday 28th January, they will perform Dvorak's "America" string quartet the following day at Parkville's resonant Wyselaskie Auditorium. The concert will also include Arvo Part's "Summa" for violin, 2 viola's and cello, Philip Glass String Quartet No. 5, and a piece from Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin. Entry to the performance is by donation. Reservations are recommended due to limited capacity. If you missed out booking for St Kilda follow this link to reserve your spot.

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/lilo-quartet-play-dvorak-glass-part-tickets-31277645279

Join Lilo Quartet for a morning of beautiful music at the St Kilda Library as they perform Dvorák String Quartet No. 12 in F major, Opus 96 America. Lilo Quartet bring a fresh perspective to string quartet music. The joyously melodic America quartet will be their first performance for 2017. Lilo Quartet will also play selections from Phillip Glass String Quartet No.5 and Arvo Part's Summa. 

Ross Henderson - Violin I

Bronwyn Henderson - Violin II

Myfanwy Hunter - Viola

Carolyn Garnell - Cello

Bookings: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/lilo-quartet-plays-dvorak-booked-out-tickets-30711629310 

This performance is SOLD OUT. 

Myfanwy played viola for Francesca Mountfort's album launch of Swift & Raven at Bakehouse Studios 27-29 Hoddle Street Richmond, 3pm & 8pm shows. More info here: Swift & Raven launch. 

An evening hosted by Carmen Chan.

Derek McCormack - solo

Juana Beltran accompanied by Clinton Green, & Carmen Chan

Michael McNab - solo

Myfanwy Hunter + Juliana Espana Keller - sound/light duo with pianola projector machine and real time activated kitchenware. 

Time: 8pm doors open, 8.30pm start
Venue: Cross Street, Brunswick East
Entry by donation
BYO drinks

4 Things and More is initiated by Ren Walters and co-curated with Carmen Chan, Clinton Green, Myfanwy Hunter and Michael McNab.