Biography
Stuart is currently a sessional lecturer in music technology and a PhD candidate at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, and a music producer and engineer at The Soundfield Studio. Stuart originally graduated from All Saints’ College in 1994 in which time he had been involved with the EVOS Young Composers program with Allison Applebaum at the University of Western Australia, studied popular piano with Barry Palmer, studied music composition with Cathie Travers, and been a state finalist in the ASME Young Composers competition. Stuart since studied jazz piano at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, a bachelor of music composition degree at the University of Western Australia studying with Roger Smalley, Lindsay Vickery, Nigel Butterly, and Anthony Payne. Stuart graduated in 2000 and was awarded first class honours with a thesis based on medieval and contemporary compositional practice. In this degree Stuart also pursued electives in electronic music and computer programming. Stuart also completed a Masters in Creative Arts degree at WAAPA and SOCA graduating in 2005 and specialising in sound synthesis, digital signal processing, and multi-signal processing.
As a composer Stuart has had composition commissions with the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), West Australian Symphony Orchestra New Music Ensemble, Tetrafide Percussion, and his work has also been performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Michael Kieran Harvey, and Decibel. However Stuart has also been heavily involved with sensembles/bands as a pianist, drummer, and a laptop performer, and has supported in concert Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, David Byrne from The Talking Heads, Francois Breut, Antonio Forcione, The Hoodoo Gurus, Van She, KK Null, and Sarry, and has been active performing works by Australian composers Percy Grainger, Cat Hope, Lindsay Vickery, Julian Day, and American composers Alvin Lucier and Marina Rosenfeld. Stuart has toured with the new music ensemble Decibel to Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Brisbane, Auckland, Ghent, Berlin, Biberach, Rottenburg, Catania, and Palermo, some of these concerts being broadcast live to air on ABC Classic FM and South West German Radio (SWR). Stuart has also been active in studio production and recording having produced/co-produced music for the Johannes Luebbers Dectet, Det Nopsus, Will Stoker and the Embers, The Shallows, ShockOne, The Substance, Pyromesh, and Looweeze De’Ath. Having worked with Lee Bradshaw for many years (producer at Armstrong’s Studio’s in Melbourne) Stuart has since setup The Soundfield Studio with Cliff Blackburn.
Stuart has also been involved in research in electronic music theory and praxis, particularly developments in sound synthesis and controller technologies, and has also been active in the development of software for new practices in electroacoustic music performance with the Decibel Ensemble. Stuart has also worked as a music typesetter for Dr Sam Leong, various composers, and various research projects undertaken by Dr David Symons and Victoria Rogers. Publications include a book published through Ashgate and various journal articles for the Australian Musicological Society. Stuart became involved with Kosmic Sound in 2006 as part of their education department (now known as XPD) and has worked as a consultant and salesperson for software and hardware, as well as providing services in IT. Stuart has also remained active in a teaching capacity for some years. Originally Stuart worked as a ProTools instructor at Murdoch College as part of their MILES careers program from 2007-08, and as a music composition tutor at Hale School in 2008. Stuart has also worked as a sessional lecturer in music technology at WAAPA since 2008.
For more information, and an extended bio, discography, and listing of compositional work please contact Stuart directly at sgj@soundfieldstudio.com
Stuart’s Masters thesis can be downloaded here: http://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/107/
Stuart’s music typesetting is viewable in the following text: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9780754666356
