GHOSTS BETWEEN STREAMS

Interdisciplinary arts project: genre-bending nine-piece ensemble (Delay 45, string quartet, and electronics) meets cross-artform (sometimes AV/multimedia, sometimes contemporary dance, football freestyle and breaking/breakdancing).

Ghosts Between Streams II (2025)

ft. AV artist Jordan East, Delay 45, String Quartet

Upcoming Performances:

26 November @ Oxford Art Factory, Sydney

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Following the success of Ghosts Between Streams I (2023), the virtuosic genre-bending ensemble returns with its second iteration: a dynamic fusion of contemporary jazz, strings, and a powerful visual counterpoint which explores the environmental history of the ancient Coquun (Hunter River). The creative process involves processing over a hundred hours of Hunter River field recordings and archival footage through experimental audiovisual technologies.

The river itself becomes the central character—once a source of abundance, now simultaneously a channel for the world's largest coal exports and a living ecosystem struggling with pollution. Through music and image, we're invited to see Coquun as more than just a waterway—it's a mirror reflecting the tensions of modern Australia.

tensions of modern Australia.

“Fortune favours the bold – and the Freedman Jazz Fellowship winner’s new evocative interdisciplinary work puts himself among them.” - Limelight Magazine

“The pleasure of discovering this music – unfolding so calmly, so secretly – will inevitably draw you back, because it remains, at its core, distinctly unexpected.” - bestofjazz.org

Supported by City of Newcastle 'New Annual Festival', Create NSW 'Creative Steps' and Awabakal Local Area Land Council (ALALC)

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Ghosts Between Streams I (2023)

ft. Delay 45, Ensemble Apex String Quartet, Australian-Japanese contemporary dancer Reina Takeuchi, Filo-Australian breaker Gerard 'Kid Tek' Cabellon, Finnish-Australian football freestyler Tom Kentta

The Freedman Fellowship winning work 'Ghosts Between Streams' is a collaborative multidisciplinary piece fusing together chamber music (Ensemble Apex String Quartet), jazz and electronic music (Delay 45) with captivating visuals and expressive dance forms (Reina Takeuchi, Tom Kentta and Gerard 'Kid Tek' Cabellon). Inspired by daily walks through Stringybark Creek on Cammeraygal Country, the work delves into the struggle between nature and urbanisation and their coexistence in community identity.

"Ghosts Between Streams grew from a deeply personal starting point — collecting audio samples during COVID years 2020-2022 on regular walks through Stringybark Creek, a nature reserve on Cammeraygal Country in Sydney. Over that period, significant urban development encroached on the natural environment: construction noise reverberating through the creek, runoff polluting the waterways. Trawling back through those recordings on my phone, witnessing the timeline, is an interesting exercise which became both the seed and the compositional method. Fundamentally, the tension between nature and urbanisation became the work's central dialogue. The environmental impact of urbanisation is both the subject and the work itself.

Secondly, I’d been experimenting with interdisciplinary collaboration for a couple of years, and wanted to create a work that would bring together a team of multidisciplinary Australian artists. This included jazz quartet Delay 45 and Ensemble Apex String Quartet and Japanese-Australian contemporary dancer Reina Takeuchi and Filo-Australian breaker Gerard 'Kid Tek' Cabellon. Integrating electronics, synthesizers, string writing, and live dance for the first time, the work represented a significant expansion of my creative practice. Cinematic in scope and through-composed in structure, the work moves between chamber music, jazz, and electronic soundscapes."

Originally conceived during COVID years 2020-2022, the Freedman Fellowship award-winning project Ghosts Between Streams premiered in 2023 at the ACO Pier 2/3, Sydney. Later that year the work was performed at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival and Perth International Jazz Festival. In 2024 at the Sydney Fringe Festival, a site-specific version was performed at Sub Base Platypus, a former torpedo factory on the steps of Sydney Harbour. The performance was subsequently awarded Best in Music & Best in Dance, and was a finalist at the APRA Art Music Awards: Performance of the Year (Jazz). A live album was released on Earshift Music in Feb 2025.