Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

The Walyalup Weekend of Improvised Music (WWIM) is a new festival held at PS Art Space in Walyalup/Fremantle on June 24 and 25. The festival celebrates the diverse community around free improvisation: a kind of experimental music where all sounds are welcome. Whilst often distinguished by the imaginative use of instruments to create all manner of unusual sounds, at the centre of this music is the possibility of discovering new ways of working and sounding together through commitment to risky, spontaneous creation. In a celebration of this risk, the festival program revolves around two evenings of concerts where artists play together for the first time in new collaborations - some of them even meeting for the first time on stage. It has been curated by emerging musicians Izabelle French & Saskia Willinge with the mentorship of composer and saxophonist Josten Myburgh.

The line-up includes 29 musicians, including highly regarded local artists such as Nathan Thompson, Sage Pbbbt, Annika Moses & Pedro Alvarez, and young up-and-comers like Naoko Uemoto, Aaqila & Nicholas Kyriakacis. Alongside performances, it also includes provocative talks by interstate artists Jim Denley and Hannah Reardon-Smith, open improvisation sessions, a workshop collaboration with community organisation Sound Exploration Fremantle, and talks by local artists on professional practice. The local scene will be represented in the space, with labels such as Mystery and Wonder and Tone List setting up shop, and local organisations such as the Western Australian New Music Archive, Outcome Unknown & NoizeMaschin having a presence in the space as well. WWIM has been established to unite a diverse and intergenerational community interested in improvised music practice in Boorloo and Walyalup. Despite appearing regularly amidst the broader exploratory music scene, no dedicated platforms for this music have existed since the termination of Tura New Music’s iMprov program in 2017. WWIM is perhaps the first dedicated improvised music festival since the Perth Festival of Improvised Music held at Praxis Gallery in Fremantle back in 1985!

Tickets to the festival are available via Humanitix with a flexible, accessible pricing structure. The organisers are also crowdfunding tax-deductible donations via the Australian Cultural Fund to support artist fees for the festival performers, and invite interested donors to contribute both to directly support the festival, and demonstrate diverse backing for it in their aspirations to secure funding for next year’s edition and beyond.

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by email to unbearable.chords@gmail.com