Evan Lawson
Evan J Lawson (b.1989) is one of Australia’s leading emerging queer artists, working at the forefront of contemporary culture as composer, curator, and conductor, chiefly as artistic director of Forest Collective.
Hailed by Alexandra Mathew in Limelight Magazine that "his conducting was superb, rhythmic, precise, and expressive...his whole stance was like that of a dancer," Evan graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2010 with a Bachelor of Music Performance (Hons. composition) under the tutelage of Johanna Selleck. In 2015, he completed a Masters of Music Research (conducting) at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music under Benjamin Northey with the assistance of an Australian Postgraduate Award. He has studied internationally with David Aronson (Wiener Staatsoper), Alim Shakh (Moravska Filharmonie) and Matthias Pintscher (Grafenegg Festival).
Alexander O’Sullivan of Partial Durations has said "Lawson's music is, bar to bar beautiful." Performances and commissions of his music have included Ensemble Lux (Cite Internationale Universitaire de Paris, France), Tonkünstler Orchestra (Grafenegg Festival, Austria), Cochlea Duo (SoundSCAPE New Music Festival, Italy), Edges Duo (University of Oregon, USA), Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Metropolitan Sinfonietta, Forest Collective (Melbourne Recital Centre, Metropolis New Music Festival), Victorian Youth Symphony Orchestra (highlighted in two seasons), Hopkins Sinfonia, Australian Children's Choir, Creative Victoria for Allotropy String Quartet, Syzygy Ensemble, VCA Symphony Orchestra and the Chamber Strings of Melbourne.
Evan made his European conducting debut in 2015 with the Tonkünstler Orchestra, as a part of Grafenegg Festival. As guest conductor Evan has worked with the Moravska Filharmonie, Australian National Academy of Music Orchestra, Hopkins Sinfonia, Melbourne University Symphony Orchestra and at the New Music Studio Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. Evan was the inaugural musical director for the RMIT Symphony Orchestra, musical director for the Australian premiere of Holcombe Waller's Requiem Mass: LGBTI Working Title (for Day4Night Performance Space and Carriageworks), Come Away with Me to the End of the World (by Adriano and Raymondo Cortese for Ranters Theatre, Malthouse Theatre and Dublin Theatre Festival), and for various opera productions, including Benjamin Britten's Curlew River (Gertrude Opera), the world premiere of his opera Calypso (Forest Collective), Carmen (In Good Company), Die Zauberflöte (Gertrude Opera in two seasons) and the world premiere production of Nina Sofo's Laugh Out Loud (VCA). Evan has worked with some of the world's finest musicians, including Brett Dean, Fabian Russell, Marshall Maguire, Tony Arnold and Warwick Stengards.
Photo by Meghan Scerri