The word jazz has confounded simple explanations throughout its relatively short history. Is it a definable musical genre, and therefore subject to precise definition, or does it describe an approach to music with specific processes and outcomes? Is it necessarily the property of a specific time and place, or is it a living, changing, organic phenomenon? What is its place in the current politics of music, and of art in general?
ABOUT PAUL GRABOWSKY:
Paul Grabowsky is one of Australia's most distinguished performing artists -- an acclaimed pianist, composer, arranger and conductor.
He has written the scores for over twenty films in Australia, the UK and US including Innocence (Paul Cox, director), Shiner (John Irvin, director) and Last Orders and most recently, Eye Of The Storm (both Fred Schepisi, director). Works for the theatre include Love In The Age Of Therapy, commissioned by Opera Australia and Presidents Land, commissioned for the 2009 Queensland Music Festival.
Grabowsky is the founder of the Australian Art Orchestra with which he tours internationally, collaborating particularly with traditional and contemporary indigenous performers. He has won four ARIA awards, two Helpmann awards and was the Sydney Myer Performing Artist of the Year in 2000, and received the Melbourne Prize For Music in 2007.
He was Artistic Director of the Queensland Music Festival from 2005-2007 and of the 2010 and 2012 Adelaide Festival.
