Expect the unexpected as these “virtuosos of the bizarre” create a live stage experience that must be seen and heard to be believed. Jug band blues, political satire and lunatic on-stage antics combine as a new-vaudevillian comedy cabaret. Audiences know Mic Conway’s tongue-in-cheek style from “Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band” and “Circus Oz”. From Byron Bay BluesFest to Port Fairy and Woodford Folk Festivals to Adelaide Cabaret Festival and The Famous Spiegeltent … the National Junk Band have become festival favourites for their unique collision of illusion, passion, irreverent satire, fire, magic, singing saws, flying chooks, musical mayhem and some very funny songs. Wielding National guitars, ukuleles, sousaphone, phono-fiddle, garbage cans and even the kitchen sink, there really is nothing like them in Australia today.

Geoffroy is a Prize-winning French pianist and composer, working on a jazz composition research project at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. The aim is to develop a portfolio of compositions integrating features, sounds and processes from Francophone Pacific Islands traditional music. Ultimately the project intends to propose original approaches to the sustainability of tradition through creative composition and collaboration.

The project, entitled Pasifika Sounds,  is at its early stage of development, and this will be the very first presentation of the work before he returns to France for the summer and then French Polynesia to study traditional music (lucky him).

You can hear some sounds here: soundcloud.com/geoffroycolson/sets/pasifika-sounds/s-Q8jve

Program:

Set 1:

- A l'Ombre du Purau
- Pastels
- La Mangue Verte
- 'Aito (*)

Set 2:

- Swell (*)
- Matamua
- Tēteta (*)
- Huahine

All compositions by Geoffroy Colson
(*) World premiere

Musicians:

Geoffroy Colson: composition, arrangement, piano, Tahitian ukulele, tō'ere, programming
Nishchal Madjunath: tenor and soprano saxophone
Steve Harris: Bass
Jeremy Cook: drums

www.geoffroycolson.com