Jo Truman
Jo (Josephine) Truman is a composer/ performer/improviser and sound artist. She has a BA in Communications (UTS – majoring in sound and writing) and an MMus (Composition – Sydney Conservatorium of Music) with her research thesis on extended vocal techniques in New Music.
She has received various awards for her work – a Special Purpose Award and an International Study Grant which took her to Europe where she lived for 19 years, performing in many festivals such as the Le Mans Jazz Festival, the Strasbourg Musica Festival, Heineken Jazz Fest, and was a special guest at the First International Jazz Festival in Vilnius’s, Lithuania. She toured with luminaries in the improvisation world such as Jon Rose, George Lewis, Fred van Hoven and Amanda Stewart (with ‘Voices Unvoiced’ – Amanda Stewart, Stevie Wishart, Caterina de Re l, Truman) and performed at the Ijsbrekker and the Bimhuis (Amsterdam). She was commissioned by Staalplaat (Amsterdam ) to make her first solo cd ‘sdreamings’ which John Shand awarded a 5 star review in the Sydney Morning Herald.
She was one of only 10 artists worldwide to be chosen for the music category for a year long stipend at Schloss Solitude. During this time she produced a major work- ‘A Bite in Time’ – 3 different performances referencing three different perspectives on food and eating- involving 28 artists including musicians – Fred Frith and Lindsay Cooper, and visual artists.
Locally she has performed at MONA (Museum of old and New Art) 3x and the Basement (later Mary’s Underground) for various festivals such as the Sydney International Women’s Jazz Festival (in which she composed a new work for piano and voice based on the Covid Lockdowns).
Jo has also had several commissions to create feature length audio arts works for radio, involving her music, sound work and writing including ‘Cell Songs’ -The Listening Room, ABC Classic FM), ‘The House in the Sky’ – her poetry and prose and music (The Listening Room, Classic FM), ‘Deprem’ (Radio Eye, RN), ‘Transparent Messenger’ (The Europeans, RN), ‘The Mirrored Cry’ (The Listening Room), ‘Extreme Throats’ (series, ABC Classic FM), ‘sdreamings’ (Westdeutsche Rundfunk Koln) and ‘Bridge to Otherness’ (WDR Koln).
Jo has also been involved in the production of new contemporary opera works. She produced Australian composer Freddie Hill’s opera for children and adults “The Water Babies” which was performed between 2016-19 at the Seymour Centre, Kindlehill School and the AKA theatre.
More recently Jo received a Blue Mountains City of the Arts Grant and an Australia Council of the Arts Grant to stage “Traversing the Void” a new contemporary chamber opera for which she wrote the libretto, with the music by the Icelandic composer Hildigunnur Rúnarsdóttir and solo voice role by her sister Hallveig Runarsdottir. This follows the successful premiere in Reyjkavic in 2021. As well as librettist, Jo was the producer and artistic director for highly successful performances at the Blue Mountains Theatre and the Wesley Music Centre in Canberra ensemble “The Kanimbla Quartet”).
Image: Jo Truman at Mona FOMA (2013)