CHRISTOPHER HALE ENSEMBLE (Perth/Sydney/Melbourne) – Premiere

Christopher Hale has long pursued a uniquely personal approach to bass guitar and composition, developing projects with patience and depth. His major works are rare but impactful, earning critical praise, enthusiastic audiences, and appearances at major international festivals. After winning the Freedman Fellowship in 2012, he launched Sylvan Coda—an album and live show with flamenco dancer Johnny Tedesco and an 11-piece ensemble. A decade later came Ritual Diamonds, a collaboration with Korean drumming pioneer Woo Minyoung, performed at MIJF and Japan’s Kanazawa Jazz Festival. Now a senior figure in Australian jazz, Hale has worked with hundreds of students from the upcoming generation, notably as a core faculty member of the Australian Art Orchestra’s Creative Music Intensive, where from 2014–2023 he shared his personalised system of hohŭp—a Korean-inspired breathing and body movement method for rhythm. For this MJC performance, Hale reunites with two Ritual Diamonds partners Simon Barker (drums) and Jamie Oehlers (saxophone), joined by master pianist and new Melbourne local Brett Williams. They will present new original material, with Hale’s characteristically combination of vivid melodies and rhythmic mystery.

“Ritual Diamonds is a milestone album for Australian jazz” – Eric Myers, Australian Jazz Museum

“Hale doesn’t deal in surfaces, so much as underlying principles and the various ways these may be interlocked.” – John Shand, The Sydney Morning Herald