Colbourne Ave started after musician Spike Mason was travelling around Europe in 1996. He went to some beautiful jazz concerts that were acoustic, and more like concerts than he was used to in the Sydney jazz scene. One of these was in the round, and it was so moving and intimate that he decided to try and recreate the experience in his own scene back home. After much searching, he found that the church in Glebe he was working for had perfect acoustics for listening. From 2000 to 2009 the venue was called "eight oclock sharp", the name of the first ever series - a season of the play Waiting For Godot with five jazz piano concerts. There was a very strict 'no talking during the music' rule, and the promise that the music would start exactly on time - eight oclock sharp!

Over the years, and with help from Andrew, Barney, and the CafeChurch community, the concert series grew from half a dozen performances a year - almost always acoustic, often in the round with great musicians and respectful audiences - until in 2008 they organized their third 'Jazz Piano Master Series' with sixteen solo pianists over four weeks. It was so good they decided they had to do it every week!  Over the next couple of years we managed to organise a consistent series of concerts, and changed our name to Colbourne Ave.

  • 06 Nov 2001

    program 2001

    jazz in the round guitar postcard

    Featured some of the finest and up and coming guitarists in the Sydney Jazz scene. The groups were quite varied, some were acoustic trios, others were electric groups.

    6th november

    Emmanuel Schmidt

    10th november

    Carl Dewhurst

    13th november

    Kees Stein

    20th november

    Cameron Deyell

    27th november

    Steve Crain





    Miss Julie postcard (Strindberg)

    This series included a production of Strindberg's Miss Julie - "Not your average Swedish psycho-sexual suicide play".

    17th - 18th - 23rd - 24th - 25th May

    Miss Julie

    director - James Scott

    Read 3510 times

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