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Andrea Breen : Associate Artist

The sound world is always emerging and responding to other modes of being in the world. Improvisation frees me to realise, briefly, that imaginative potential exists and welcomes engagement.

Random Audio Sample: Pieces : viola solo by Andrea Breen, from the CD Selected works by AMC represented artists, vol. 36.


Photo of Andrea Breen

Artist website: http://www.andreabreen.com

Andrea Breen is an Australian multimedia artist and composer with an interest in collaboration, performance and eclectic improvisation. She creates acoustic art while researching the generative and interactive processes of sound, word (poetic texts), image (painting) and movement improvisation (dance).

Breen has worked with international teachers of performance improvisation Andrew Morrish, Al Wunder, Peter Trotman and Ruth Zaporah. In 2003 she co-established the Hobart women's improvisation collective. In 2014 she was commissioned to collaborate with New York-based Australian choreographer Rebecca McCormac (CoreDance Contemporary), to create the sound for performances Of Loss: Grief's Transitions.

In 2016 Breen co-founded, and is resident composer for, the Hobart dance/music collective Nelipot strives to bring awareness to audiences through performances about climate change and social responsibility. Nelipot performed Adrift at the Bay of Fires Winter Arts Festival in 2018 and several other performances of 'Adrift' in 2018/19 in Tasmania. Nelipot continues to develop work in response to current existential concerns.

She is a violist in the art orchestra that was an initiative of KickStart Arts, Tasmania in 2021; the ensemble continues to evolve diverse musics and performances through improvisation and collaboration. She presented a live improvisation, online, at the Performance Studies Network conference, University of Surrey UK, 2022. She conducts classes in improvisation in Hobart; recent improvisation performances include at: Launceston Improvised Music Association, MONA and at Hobart community events.

Andrea Breen's sound installations include: t[w]o islands (Sidespace Hobart 2021), Dark Edge of Europe (Kinvara, Ireland 2019) Small Daily Showings (MIECAT Gallery, Melbourne, 2013), Res/pond/ing (Jugglers Art Space, Brisbane 2010), Will the real Australia please stand up (commissioned by the University of Tasmania Gallery 1996 and Contemporary Art Space Tasmania 1997), improvisation-image-voice, a collaborative studio recording with Tasmanian poets (1999) and a performance in the national Improvisation Awards (ABC Radio, 1999). In 2023 she has been commisioned to compose for the St Brigid/women's celebration HERSELF, Gort, Irleand.

She has devised, collaborated on and directed musical theatre and dance works for Adelaide Fringe (dancemusic 2015) Hobart Fringe Festivals (Conundrum 2001, Clown Pieces 2002) and has been a musician with Playback Theatre. Recordings from her experimental sound and poetry oeuvre are regularly broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Commission's Sound Quality and on local community radio.

Breen studied composition with Don Kay (University of Tasmania) and with Ann Ghandar and Peter McNamara (University of New England). She has a PhD (UTas), a Bachelor of Music Hons (Composition and Performance, UNE), Associate Diploma in Music (violin), Diploma of Teaching, Graduate Diploma in Creative Arts Therapy (MIECAT) and a Graduate Certificate in Gestalt Therapy. She studied violin and viola with Elizabeth Morgan, John Curro, Simon Oswell, Jan Sedivka and Stella Nemet. She works as a therapist, teaches Therapeutic Arts Practice at MIECAT, and enjoys ocassional commissions for performance and composition.


Andrea Breen — current to December 2022

Selected Commissions

  Work Commission Details
Of loss : Grief's transitions (2014) Commissioned by choreographer Rebecca McCormac, Artistic Director of CoreDance Contemporary, New York
Sonic arc : a fragment of the labyrinth of revelation (1996) Commissioned by University of Tasmania, Launceston Gallery.