Jess sings a concert, with pianist Jacob Abela, alongside live floral arranging by Dr Shoso Shimbo, at Melbourne Recital Centre.

Experience a captivating multisensory journey where nature and humanity converge through ikebana, music, and fragrance. This immersive performance explores how the essence of nature can be distilled and expressed through creative practice.

Rather than replicating nature’s forms, the ikebana creations of Shoso Shimbo reveal its inner spirit through the thoughtful use of materials, balance, space, and movement. Each arrangement becomes a poetic reflection on beauty, impermanence, and the interconnectedness of life.

Complementing the floral artistry, Jessica Aszodi’s musical program draws inspiration from nature’s rhythms and emotional resonance. Through themes of love, memory, transformation, and the changing seasons, the music creates a dialogue between the natural world and human experience.

Together, ikebana, music, and fragrances created by Yen Huynh engage the senses of sight, sound, and smell, creating a contemplative atmosphere that invites reflection, connection, and renewal, while fostering an appreciation of nature’s enduring beauty, presence, and influence in our lives.

Program

Morton Feldman
Only

John Cage
The wonderful widow of eighteen springs

Brian Eno
Ambient 1: Music for Airports

Charles Ives
The Housatonic at Stockbridge

Liza Lim
Cassandra steps into the memory space of Selene from Oresteia

Charles Ives
Thoreau

Giulio Caccini
Amarilli mia bella

Meredith Monk
Railway Song, Window in 7s, and Paris

Keith Humble
Cabaret Songs

Björk
Jóga

Stephen Sondheim
Every Day a little death

Matsumoto & Satomi / Nakashima
Yuki no hana

Excess Noise and Liquid Architecture join forces to present Jane Sheldon, Odeya Nini and me together at Extrasensory

649 Plenty rd, Preston, Naarm.

More info and tickets can be booked here

Nightingale Gallery Concerts

909A High St, Armadale VIC 3143, Australia

7:30-9:30pm

Meta Cohen’s - Kiss my Sword Cycle

Julius Eastman’s - Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan of Arc

and other works by Jennifer Walshe, Connor d’Netto, Thomas Ades and Alex Raineri. Performing with Rachel Joyce (soprano) and Coady Green (piano)

45 Downstairs Chamber Music Festival presents:

April 30th, 7:30pm

Meta Cohen & Olivier Messiaen

Jess sings Meta’s “Delphi Songs” with pianist Coady Green

Olivier Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen, will be performed by Coady Green and Marc Peloquin on two pianos

Tix available here

More info here

BOOKINGS

Ravel Pavane pour une infante défunte
Joe Chindamo^ Are there any questions?*
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

^2026 Composer in Residence
*World Premiere of an MSO Commission

About this performance

Prepare to use your imagination in weird and wonderful ways. When French composer Maurice Ravel wrote his ethereal Pavane pour une infante défunte, he’d been dreaming of the long-lost melodies that may once have inspired a young Spanish princess to dance. Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring shares a French connection as it premiered shortly after in a Parisian theatre, but the story of this ballet music is much darker. It culminates with the raw and frenetic rhythms of a sacrificial dance, sounding wild enough to send audiences into an uproar at the first performance.

The musical tales on this program are centred around Are there any questions? – an Australian composition from our 2026 Composer in Residence Joe Chindamo. It takes its name from the final line of Margaret Atwood’s chilling dystopic novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Hear Chindamo’s piece for the first time on this narrative-fuelled program. It’s music to leave you thinking deeply about the world you live in – and the worlds that live inside you.

Featuring

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Benjamin Northey conductor
Jessica Aszodi mezzo-soprano
MSO Chorus
Warren Trevelyan-Jones chorus director

BOOKINGS

Ravel Pavane pour une infante défunte
Joe Chindamo^ Are there any questions?*
Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

^2026 Composer in Residence
*World Premiere of an MSO Commission

About this performance

Prepare to use your imagination in weird and wonderful ways. When French composer Maurice Ravel wrote his ethereal Pavane pour une infante défunte, he’d been dreaming of the long-lost melodies that may once have inspired a young Spanish princess to dance. Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring shares a French connection as it premiered shortly after in a Parisian theatre, but the story of this ballet music is much darker. It culminates with the raw and frenetic rhythms of a sacrificial dance, sounding wild enough to send audiences into an uproar at the first performance.

The musical tales on this program are centred around Are there any questions? – an Australian composition from our 2026 Composer in Residence Joe Chindamo. It takes its name from the final line of Margaret Atwood’s chilling dystopic novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Hear Chindamo’s piece for the first time on this narrative-fuelled program. It’s music to leave you thinking deeply about the world you live in – and the worlds that live inside you.

Featuring

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Benjamin Northey conductor
Jessica Aszodi mezzo-soprano
MSO Chorus
Warren Trevelyan-Jones chorus director

Timeless stories

John ADAMS Chamber Symphony
Holly HARRISON And Whether Pigs Have Wings
Osvaldo GOLIJOV Ayre

Benjamin Northey conductor
Jessica Aszodi mezzo-soprano

Bookings at WASO

Experience a captivating evening at the classical vanguard with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Benjamin Northey and featuring mezzo-soprano Jessica Aszodi. Enter the exhilarating world of John Adams’ hyper-dynamic Chamber Symphony, before delighting in Holly Harrison’s playful And Whether Pigs Have Wings. Then be transported by Osvaldo Golijov’s luminous song cycle Ayre, a mesmerising blend of diverse musical traditions and evocative storytelling.

Presented in association with Perth Festival.

Timeless stories

John ADAMS Chamber Symphony
Holly HARRISON And Whether Pigs Have Wings
Osvaldo GOLIJOV Ayre

Benjamin Northey conductor
Jessica Aszodi mezzo-soprano

Bookings at WASO

Experience a captivating evening at the classical vanguard with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Benjamin Northey and featuring mezzo-soprano Jessica Aszodi. Enter the exhilarating world of John Adams’ hyper-dynamic Chamber Symphony, before delighting in Holly Harrison’s playful And Whether Pigs Have Wings. Then be transported by Osvaldo Golijov’s luminous song cycle Ayre, a mesmerising blend of diverse musical traditions and evocative storytelling.

Presented in association with Perth Festival.

“ObserveOrientDecideAct”

somatic vocal workshop @ Extrasensory. 649 Plenty Rd, Preston, Naarm

Saturday Jan 10th 12-4pm ($60-40) Bookings via humantix

Can you listen to your insides and outside at the same time?  

A workshop in the form of a rehearsal in the form of a piece of music 

The voice is the most intimate kernel of the self. Expressed up from our insides, our voices resonate the voids of the body, as they make their way through the oral orifice, the portals of our noses and mouths, and out into an external world. “out there”, free of ourselves our voices become part of an acoustic landscape of vibrant chaos. This workshop asks us to feel into voice as a tool for navigation, for knowing how we are (Observe) where we are (Orient) and where we are going (decide) in a landscape for listening.  

We will spend the first 3 hours rehearsing how to “observe, orient, & decide” then for the final hour we will “act” as a group to create a work-in-process with our listening bodies. We will undertake a series of exercises in listening with the felt sense, voicing with the whole body and navigate one another with attunement.

Exstasis @ extrasensory

649 Plenty Rd, Preston, Naarm

Improvising duo Lizzy Welsh and Jess Aszodi : “Amarant”

Experimental takes on Hildegard von Bingen’s Canticles of Ecstasy by James Rushford and Jess Aszodi

New work for flutes, objects and audience participation by Jodie Rottle

Sonic choreographies by the "Somatic choir"

Bookings at Humanitix

Jess sings Meta Cohen’s “Delphi Songs” at the MCM Queer Perspective Festival (September 19-21) Bookings open soon.

Jess will be facilitating an evening of meditation and guided touch exercises, followed by free form a cuddle puddle and oxytocin overdose. Afterwards we gather for a (not compulsory) dinner and a chat.

These sessions are part of the "very soft opening” of new multidisciplinary arts venue “Extrasensory”. For the rest of the year folks are invited to come, commune and contribute, as we get to know each other. Events in August are Free! We ask for a $10 donation towards food costs.

Doors are at 6. Come early for a chat and cuppa. We will start the practice at 7.

649 Plenty Rd, Preston, 3072

Jess sings Cathy Berberian’s comic strip delight “Stripsody” in a free lunchtime concert at Monash University (where she also teaches voice).

More information here

The concert also features the Monash animated notated ensemble playing music by Cat Hope, Rose Gooden, Louise Devenish, Aaron Wyatt and more.

Jess will be facilitating an evening of meditation and guided touch exercises, followed by free form a cuddle puddle and oxytocin overdose. Afterwards we gather for a (not compulsory) dinner and a chat.

These sessions are part of the "very soft opening” of new multidisciplinary arts venue “Extrasensory”. For the rest of the year folks are invited to come, commune and contribute, as we get to know each other. Events in August are Free! We ask for a $10 donation towards food costs.

Doors are at 6. Come early for a chat and cuppa. We will start the practice at 7.

649 Plenty Rd, Preston, 3072

The Joan Events No. 1

8pm, Friday August 8
Hall of St Mary’s, North Melbourne

The JOAN EVENTS are a multi-year project - in honour of pianist, choral improviser, educator and longtime Astra member Joan Pollock -  with the aim of generating new works and performances between these two domains of concert expression.

Joan Event 2025: creative exchanges among a spectrum of guest performers.

Performers:
Kim Bastin, piano; Elizabeth Drake, piano; Caroline Almonte, piano; Jessica Aszodi, voice; Jaslyn Robertson, synths, Iran Sanadzadeh, pressure-sensitive table floors

Works by:
Ruth Crawford, Helen Gifford, 

Jess performs:

3 Latin Prayers by Giacinto Scelsi

Aria by Wojtek Blecharz

GLORI by Jennifer Walshe 

supported by the Joan Pollock Creative Fund and Creative Australia

Improvising duo with Lizzie Welsh (viola d’amore) as part of the “Dimensions of incomprehensibilities” experimental improv series