Andrew Ball

 

Andrew Ball enjoys a diverse career as a saxophonist, composer and educator. With a uniquely colourful compositional voice, Andrew draws from an eclectic variety of contemporary classical, improvised, and electronic musics. He approaches rhythm kinetically and viscerally, extends the capabilities of performers, exploits and reimagines instrumental idiosyncrasies, and aims to challenge the limits of context and genre.

Andrew currently performs with, and has toured nationally and internationally, with  groups including BULLHORN, Cheap Fakes, Barega Saxophone Quartet, Nomika, and the Queensland Jazz Orchestra. He has been featured in performances alongside artists including Laurie Anderson, Natalie Cole, Anthony Warlow, Ash Grunwald, Dale Barlow, Pub Choir, Kupkas Piano, and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared as a concert soloist with the Queensland Wind Orchestra and Divertimenti Strings.

As a composer, Andrew has completed large-scale commissions for ensembles including The Australia Ensemble @UNSW, Hourglass Ensemble, Queensland Wind Orchestra, Australian Saxophone Orchestra, and Queensland Youth Orchestras. His 2023 saxophone concerto “Exoplanet” premiered at the Sydney Opera House, featuring soloist Nicholas Russoniello and conductor Joanna Drimatis. Andrew’s music has placed as a finalist in Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra’s 2019 international call for scores, Orpheus Music’s recorder composition competition, and the Music Arrangers Guild of Australia’s national arranging competition. Andrew is an advocate of new Australian music, and has premiered his works in a variety of genres and contexts, both as a performer and composer, at events including at the World Saxophone Congress (Strasbourg, France), SaxOpen (Zagreb, Croatia), SuperSounds (Brisbane 2019), Tilde New music festival (Melbourne 2019), and the Melbourne International Saxophone Festival.

Andrew’s dual role as a composer/performer has allowed him to develop and explore an idiosyncratic stylistic niche. In 2017, he launched his ongoing solo project with the release of his album Forbidden Languages; a suite of genre-defying original works pioneering the use of extended and prepared saxophones. In 2020, the Andrew Ball Quartet released Space and Time, an EP of original semi-improvised music inspired by geometric transformatin in rhythm. His music can also be found on releases by Barega Sax Quartet, Collusion, Cheap Fakes, Nomika, Valtozash, Enthusiastic Musicians Orchestra, Bullhorn, Laura Mulcahy, Minor Gold, and His Merry Men.