AAO Staff
Aaron Choulai - Artistic Director
Aaron Choulai is an award winning and critically acclaimed pianist and composer whose work is recognised as innovating new directions in jazz, hip-hop and improvised music. From large scale multi media cross-cultural festival commissions. to Japanese hip-hop beat tapes, Choulai’s career spans over 20 years, crossing international borders and intersections between genre and culture.
Born in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and having lived in Tokyo for 15 years, Aaron Choulai is an artist of diverse culture and musical expression. Choulai began his career in Melbourne as a pianist before signing with the American record label Sunnyside records and moving to New York in the early 2000’s. While working during this time as a bandleader and sideman in America and Europe, Choulai’s profile as a composer and arranger grew while participating in projects such as The Black Arm Band (arr: 2007) We Don’t Dance For No Reason (comp: 2008) and Kate Ceberano (md: 2004 -2007) back in Australia. In 2008 he undertook postgraduate studies at theTokyo University of the Arts and after graduating in 2013, continued living in Tokyo where he has become a prominent figure in music in Japan.
Aaron Choulai was awarded the Freedman Fellowship in Jazz (2014), the MEXT scholarship (2008) and was included in ‘The 100 most influential people in Melbourne’ by People Magazine (2005). He has collaborated with various artists including Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter, Ben Monder, Jim Black, Daichi Yamamoto, Slack, Alan Browne, Paul Grabowsky, Joel Frahm, Yoshimoto Akihiro and more.
Jem Savage - Producer and Technical Director
Jem Savage is a musician, producer and sound engineer based in Victoria. His performances effortlessly blend live processing, looping and interactive visuals with his highly developed instrumental and vocal techniques. These performances utilise proprietary software and hardware devices including iPSi, the Isomorphic Pitch-Shifting Interface. As an audio engineer for contemporary and experimental music, Jem combines keen musical literacy with wide-ranging experience and practical know-how to fulfil the needs of the most technically demanding projects - including recordings of Alvin Lucier works “Swing Bridge” and “Sizzles” for the Australian Art Orchestra, and their critically acclaimed commission “Sometimes Home Can Grow Stranger Than Space”, touring with the ensemble to London Jazz Festival and Jazztopad Poland.
Jem has performed or collaborated with a unique cross-section of improvisers, experimental musicians and composers including Peter Knight (Artistic Director - AAO), Andrea Keller, and Barney McAll (GRAFT). He recently co-produced albums for Freedman Fellowship 2016 winner James McLean (James McLean/Phil Treloar “Dispositions”, James McLean Quartet) and finalist Joe O’Connor (Unfix, Blind Spot). He has been involved with developments, showings and premieres for theatre makers Tamara Saulwick and Kate Hunter, and created the audio design for Tim Darbyshire’s “More or less Concrete” which subsequently toured internationally. Jem is currently Associate Producer with the Australian Art Orchestra, and Sound Supervisor for the Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music.
Helen Svoboda - Marketing and Administration Coordinator
Born of Finnish/Australian heritage, Helen Svoboda is a double-bassist, vocalist, composer, improviser and nature-enthusiast. Driven by the spontaneity of improvisation and her love of exciting creative environments, Helen has developed a distinctive sound across many different musical avenues. Helen has released numerous albums as band-leader/co-leader, and has toured and collaborated with artists locally and internationally. Her compositional work has featured in projects ranging from immersive theatre production to 28-piece classical guitar ensemble.
Fuelled by strange sonic frequencies, Svoboda has released albums across a substantial number of her own original projects to date including her debut solo release Vegetable Bass and the debut album of Meatshell featuring her experimental-folk duo with saxophonist Andrew Saragossi.
Helen was the AAO Pathfinders Associate Artist for 2020/2021
Sofia Carbonara - Associate Artist
Sofia Carbonara is a performance-maker across mediums. Their debut EP for solo vibraphone, On Names, was released on Alien Passengers in July 2023. Sofia designs collaborative, interdisciplinary works with artists in their community, including their mixed-chamber ensemble Virago, which have been presented by the Detroit Institute of Art, Great Lakes Chambers Music Festival, and University Music Society (UMS). Their short film Flight (2022) with Matt Lima Films interweaves their father discussing pleasure, culture, addiction, and a reoccurring dream of flying, with Sofia’s own music and actions.
Sofia is a grant-writing professional, and previously served as Institutional Giving Associate for ArtOps, where they worked with small to medium sized arts nonprofits in Southeastern Michigan in grant-writing, reporting, and stewardship. With Virago they have co-facilitated free improvisation workshops for k-12 students. Sofia received their Bachelor of Music in percussion from the University of Michigan, and is currently pursuing graduate studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Other studies include: AAO Creative Music Intensive, Banff Workshop for Jazz and Creative Music, Trinity Laban Colab Immersion, Bowdoin International Music Festival, and study of yoga and Carnatic music in Mysore, India. Sofia is an Ecuadorian/Venezuelan American of Italian/German/Swiss descent born and raised in Buffalo, New York. They have previously lived in Ann Arbor and Detroit, Michigan.
Sofia is the current AAO Pathfinders Associate Artist for 2023/2024.