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Biography

Paul Cutlan

Alto Saxophone, Clarinet & Bass Clarinet

Paul-CWM websmall web
Paul has been a member of the Australian Art Orchestra since 1997. His career as a versatile multi-instrumentalist spans many different styles encompassing contemporary classical music, world music and jazz.

Paul graduated from the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music in 1987 with Honours in Composition. After freelancing with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, he moved to Sydney in 1989, where he worked with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra. Notable jazz artists/ensembles with whom Paul has played include Jann Rutherford, Original Otto Orchestra, Ten Part Invention, James Morrison, Judy Bailey, Steve Hunters' Nine Lives, Clarion Fracture Zone, Wanderlust, American drummer Bobby Previte's Bitches Brew Project and New York pianist and composer Jim McNeely.

In 1997 Paul joined world/jazz group MARA! with whom he has been on five European/ North American and numerous Asian tours, and features on their ARIA winning album Live in Europe. With MARA! he has performed hundreds of school shows for Musica Viva, touring all Australian states and Singapore.

Cutlan's own group Coltrane Project has been thrice recorded by the ABC in the studio and live in concert.

In 2003 he composed the music for and performed in the acclaimed theatre production Birth of the Cool for the Sydney Festival. A unique combination of narrative, performance poetry, programme music and jazz, it celebrates the lives and poetry of the "Beat Generation" of American poets of the 1940s and '50s. Subsequent seasons were at the Seymour Centre and Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2005.

Photo Credit: Joe Glaysher

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