Conducting Deborah Cheetham's Wominjeka Song Cycle, April 22 at the Melbourne Recital Centre. (Photo by Liam Hennebry, courtesy of the MSO.)
Conducting Deborah Cheetham's Wominjeka Song Cycle, April 22 at the Melbourne Recital Centre. (Photo by Liam Hennebry, courtesy of the MSO.)
Aaron Wyatt is an accomplished violist, conductor and software developer. He is an assistant lecturer at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music and Performance at Monash University and plays in the internationally recognised Decibel new music ensemble. As a developer, he programs the group’s innovative animated graphic notation app for the iPad, the Decibel ScorePlayer, and since the start of the pandemic has been a major contributor to JackTrip, a system for high-quality audio network performance over the internet initially developed out of Stanford. Having Noongar, Yamatji, and Wongai heritage, Aaron is an advocate for Indigenous classical musicians and is the director of Ensemble Dutala, a group founded by Short Black Opera for ATSI musicians. He recently premiered Deborah Cheetham’s new work, Nanyubak, for viola and orchestra as a soloist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and was nominated for a Helpmann Award for his role as musical director in the premiere of Cat Hope’s new opera, Speechless, at the 2019 Perth International Arts Festival.
He conducted the premiere season of Gina Williams' and Guy Ghouse's opera, Koolbardi Wer Wardong, comissioned by the West Australian Opera as part of their youth opera series. The work is the first of its kind, written entirely in the Noongar language. In 2022, Aaron became the first Indigenous person to conduct a state symphony orchestra in concert when he conducted the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra performing Deborah Cheetham's musical acknowledgement of country, Long Time Living Here, at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. (The event was covered in The Age here.)
You can contact Aaron at enquiries at psi-borg dot org.
