Download: 2024 short bio_Anne Norman
Anne Norman is a shakuhachi performer, improviser and composer, working as a soloist and collaborating with musicians, dancers, actors, poets, visual artists, installation artists and tea masters.
Anne performs a range of music on shakuhachi with musicians of diverse traditions, from Zen meditations and Byzantine chant to upbeat collaborations with beatbox artists and free-jazz ensembles. She has performed across Australia and in Japan, America and Europe, and has composed for bells, choirs, instrumental ensembles, found objects and music for dance theatre. Anne has written a number of Vox/Shakuhachi works incorporating spoken and sung words within shakuhachi performance, inspired by time spent in nature. She is currently focused on composing for orchestra.
In addition to recitals, Anne tours to schools across Australia with taiko drummer Toshi Sakamoto, presenting an interactive Japanese Music program. She also presents solo story-telling shows incorporating music performance and sound-effect creation by primary students. Anne has been a guest presenter at Universities across the country in creative music making and improvisation. From 2015 to 2017 Anne was Artistic Director of Tunnel Number Five: festival of underground music in Darwin, bringing audiences into the resonant oil storage tunnels (built following Japanese air raids in WWII) in a spirit of creative reflection, collaboration and reconciliation. This attracted funding from the Australia Council and Arts NT to showcase musicians of various cultural and stylistic backgrounds with a highlight on Yolngu Songmen.
In 2022 Anne received a commission from the Peter and Susan Yates Foundation to compose music to celebrate the Surf Coast of Victoria. This resulted in an album released in 2024 entitled Surf Coast Wanderings featuring 20 musicians: https://annemnorman.bandcamp.com/album/surf-coast-wanderings This project was also sponsored by the Salzer and Trawalla Foundations and auspiced by The Boite.
Under the auspices of Melbourne’s Boite World Music Café, Anne has presented multi-artform presentations of Japanese and Australian musics for more than 20 years. She has received arts sponsorship from various funding bodies including the Australia Council for the Arts and the Victorian Government for creative development projects, instrument construction, public performances, CD recordings, commissioned compositions and international touring projects. These include two international and national tours with Melbourne ensemble Jouissance (two opera singers, percussion, double bass and shakuhachi performing post-modern interpretations of Hildegard of Bingen); Nadoya Music and Dance Co (AD); Questing Spirit (duo with harpsichord); and two concert tours of Japan funded by DFAT: Breath Trio 2013, and Solo Tour 2015.
In 2009, Anne authored the book Curiosi-tea, and in 2010 she created a theatre show An Afternoon absurdiTEA with Camellia Cha, featuring musicians from Tibet, India and China for the OzAsia Festival in Adelaide. Anne has also performed as solo tea raconteur and in duo with tea master Adam Wojcinski in their hilarious show “Nonchalant Bombasi-tea.”
Anne was an invited performer at the 2018 World Shakuhachi Festival in London, performing her own works for shakuhachi and presenting workshops on her vocal techniques. In 2012, Anne performed in Province, France with Barre Philips and improvising vocalists & strings from ensemble EMIR. In 2015 she was invited by the late Tom E Lewis to perform in the Walking with Spirits Festival in Arnhem Land accompanying the chant of elders on shakuhachi. In 2019, Anne gave concerts and workshops in Japan and Europe, receiving several requests from shakuhachi and flute players to write new works for them. She also toured Tasmania with Skyglass, a trio with Emily Sheppard (violin) and Yyan Ng (guitar, voice).
Anne has a Bachelor of Music (Uni Melb), Dip Ed (music), MA (ethnomusicology) and studied shakuhachi performance on a Monbusho scholarship at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts & Music with Living National Treasure Yamaguchi Goro, as well as two other lineages of shakuhachi under Nakamura Shindo and Tajima Tadashi.
Anne has produced many CDs and collaborated on other artists’ albums. A recent album is long long ago with The Faraway Trio (shak, bass & drums). Anne has performed in numerous festivals, concert halls, small halls, resonant churches, tunnels, caves, forests, carparks, yurts and ruins.
Festivals performed in include:
Adelaide Festival of the Arts, Melbourne International Arts Festival, Sydney Festival, Canberra Chamber Music Festival, Trondheim Festival (Norway), Tallinn Festival and Parnu Festivals (Estonia), Floriade (ACT); International Shakuhachi Festival (New York), Bisei International Shakuhachi Festival (Japan), Sounds Outback (WA), Shinju Matsuri Pearl Festival (Broome), OzAsia Festival (Adelaide), Port Fairy Spring Music festival, the Eel Festival (Lake Bolac), the Sea Festival (Frankston), Composing Women’s Festival (Melbourne), Tea-Cosy Festival (Fish Creek), Melbourne Didgeridoo Festival, Walking With Spirits (Arnhem Land), Festival of Australian Music (Kumamoto), Tunnel Number Five: festival of underground music (Darwin), Australian Flute Festival (Melbourne), World Shakuhachi Festival (London), Swizzeridoo festival (Bern), Nara Candle festival (Canberra), The European Shakuhachi Festival (Lisbon), Cygnet Folk Festival (Tasmania), MOFO (Launceston), Melbourne International Jazz Festival…
For more details, scroll through Anne’s Past Gigs
Curriculum Vitae (CV)