The next chapter for Sound Travellers is about to begin.  Whilst not a largescale touring program we are exploring a smaller version, in partnership with Sydney Improvised Music Association (SIMA) and with the support of Arts NSW to tour three jazz artists in 2012.  Artists for 2012 are The Vampires in May, Sandy Evans from June and Bernie McGann in October/November.

Our goals here will be to not only tour, but also to consider new performance and venue models.  Visit the SIMA site for touring dates.

SOUND TRAVELLERS national touring program, announces conclusion of the national touring program after three hugely successful years.

For three very successful and busy years the Sound Travellers program has been taking contemporary improvised music on a road-trip around the nation, bringing over 300 artists into venues and to audiences across every State and Territory.  If you would like more information, we have completed a report which is available for download.

At its conclusion in 2010 Sound Travellers has supported 53 tours to 57 destinations with over 45,000 audience members experiencing some of the finest contemporary music this country has to offer.

During its tenure a strong, vibrant network of venues, artists, audiences and commentators has flourished under the Sound Travellers umbrella, with tours visiting every State and Territory and involving artists from all around Australia.  See some of these artists on our You Tube channel.

In 2010 alone we celebrated 22 tours from March to December, which included 34 destinations covering every State and Territory from the remote Wogarno Station in WA to Toowoomba in Qld and on the way taking in every capital city and a large number of regional venues.

Sound Travellers also created and distributed two very popular compilation CDs showcasing the work of touring artists. The CDs were used widely by the community radio network, ABC national and local radio, and by international festival programmers and contemporary music associations.

The intention of Sound Travellers was to provide more performance opportunities to a larger audience nationwide, at the same time securing assistance for existing artists across the country to further develop their practice.

Artists who have been supported by Sound Travellers through our grants program include
Anonymeye, Clocked out Duo, Ambrose Chapel, The Escalators, The Vampires, Misinterprotato, Speak Percussion and Antripodean Collective, Pivot (now known as PVT), Adrian Klumpes and Shoeb Ahmad, the Austin Benjamin Trio, Keijzer McGuiness Quintet, Ross Bolleter, Triad, Mark Isaacs Resurgence Band, Liquid Architecture, Joel Stern, West End Composers Collective, Trio Apoplectic, Topology, Panoptique Electrical, Camilla Hanna, Thembi Soddell & Eamon Sprod, Ensemble Offspring at the Totally Huge Festival - TURA, Tom Vincent Quartet, Alex Masso & Peter Farrar, Jim Denley, Ben Byrne, Natasha Anderson, Amanda Stewart, Dale Gorfinkel, Robbie Avenaim, Greg Taw/Adam Trainer, Lawrence English, Nat Bates, Alex White & Jaques Soddell, Tom Hall, Jon Tjhia and Alex Nosek, Room 40, IHOS, Colin Offord, Mace Francis Orchestra, Way Out West, The  Scrapes, The  Aphids, Roil, Sandy Evans Trio, Tom O’Halloran Trio, Jon Rose & Hollis Taylor, Mumblespeak, Anonymeye and Decibel with many more supported through our special projects.

In addition to our touring program, we also initiated eight special projects to build touring infrastructure. Visit the special projects page to see what we have been doing.

We thank our artistic advisory panel with specialists from each genre was formed to make recommendations to the executive committee regarding the overall objectives of the project and the assessment of applications in the grant rounds. This panel included – John Davis (Australian Music Centre), Professor Andy Arthurs (QueenslandUniversity of Technology), Adrian Jackson (Wangaratta Festival of Jazz), Peter Nelson (On the Corner), Roland Peelman (AD, Song Company). Fenella Kernebone (Triple J and the Sunday Arts program)

The Sound Travellers project  has been managed as a partnership between established touring organisation Performing Lines and arts strategy company Ceres Solutions, with director Joanne Kee leading the project. Please note that there are no future rounds in place. If you wish to discuss a project that has the potential to provide infrastructure/new opportunities or will strengthen touring networks or you would like more inforamtion about this project please contact. Joanne Kee at  jkee(at)ceressolutions.com.au.