2026 Burranbala Participants Announced
Tuesday 1 September, 2026
2026 Burranbala Participants
Burranbala (meaning ‘catalyst’ in Yuwaalaraay language) is an exciting new music residency led by Artistic Director Nardi Simpson alongside First Nations leaders Sonya Holowell (EO FN Director) and Nicole Smede, which centres on Indigenous perspectives and modes of working. Four NSW based participants (chosen from an EOI process) will join with a diverse team of musicians for a unique experience of sharing and experimentation on beautiful Dharawal/Dhurga country at Bundanon. For our inaugural year we welcome participants Nicholas Astill (Kamilaroi), Rowan Savage/salllvage (Kombumerri), Thalia Skopellos/Ellatronix (Atherton Tableland Yidinji) and Joshua Paton/JWPATON (Yuin).
The Burranbala Residency will invite all present into a period of co-learning/leading, celebrating the unique knowledge systems and practices each of the mentors and participants carry. Through yarns and guided activities we will try new things, learn from each other, and expand concepts of how to communicate, create and notate music.
Early days of Burranbala planning. Left to right: Nardi Simpson, Sonya Holowell, Claire Edwardes, Laura Case, Kaleena Briggs, Lamorna Nightingale.
We ask - what can ‘art music’ mean, when Indigenous ways of knowing and making are leading the way? Rather than a distinct-sounding ‘genre’, could it instead be a site for reclamation, resistance, and resurgence; a home for our stories, told in our ways?
The diverse participants will get to learn from and create alongside our Burranbala team: Nardi Simpson - Yuwaalaraay composer, author, Burranbala Artistic Director; Sonya Holowell - Dharawal vocalist, improviser and writer, Ensemble Offspring First Nations Director; Nicole Smede - Warrimay artist, composer and poet; Alexandra Spence - sound artist, musician; Claire Edwardes - percussionist, Ensemble Offspring Artistic Director; Lamorna Nightingale - flautist; Jason Noble - clarinettist, Hatched Academy Director; Niki Johnson - percussionist, composer, EO Creative Associate and Ronan Apcar - pianist, composer.
There will be two public events as part of Burranbala - the first, a concert on Saturday 5th December and a Yarning Circle on 6th December. Tickets will be available soon via the Bundanon website and we will let you know via the Ensemble Offspring monthly EDM.
Learn more about our 2026 Burranbala participants below!
Meet The 2026 Burranbala Participants
Thalia Skopellos (Ellatronix)
Thalia Skopellos is a producer and composer creating vibrant, cinematic and emotionally driven electronic music. Her work spans artist releases, production music and composition for film and television, with music released under her own name as well as her artist aliases Ellatronix and Lazi Daizi. Her work has received multiple Spotify playlist features and airplay on triple j. Her music has also been featured on Apple TV, Prime Video, Apple Podcasts, Singapore Airlines, and SBS TV – Great Australian Road Trips, as well as other domestic and international unscripted TV shows, including a sync placement in Denmark. As the founder of StoryBeats, Thalia will lead a panel as a part of Goolwal Goolwal at BIGSOUND 2026, exploring independent music publishing, immersive creative practice and new approaches to emotionally driven musical expression.
Nicholas Astill
Nicholas Astill is a Kamilaroi composer based in Sydney. He grew up in Nowra, on the NSW South Coast, and now composes polystylistic instrumental and electronic music. Drawing on relationships - cultural, social, natural - his music speaks through connection and story, bound less by a fixed sound than by a fascination with transforming material and the relationships moving through it. Alongside his practice he is undertaking a PhD and Postgraduate Teaching Fellowship at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where his research maps how different musical traditions connect. His work has been presented at The Gathering: Indigenous Composers Conference at the Australian National University, and his first orchestral work, Mutations, was premiered by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for its 2026 First Voices Showcase. Outside of music and research, Nicholas is a commissioned visual artist, using collage and algorithmic transformations to create vibrant digital artworks.
Joshua Paton (JWPATON)
JWPATON is a Yuin composer living and working on the unceded lands of the Darug Nation. Using electronics, field recordings and various instruments Josh explores the contrast between abstract ambience and harsh textures. Carving and smearing analog and digital material, building sound worlds examining the ouroboroi of nature and technology. Josh has recently presented work at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Brisbane Powerhouse, VIVID Sydney, the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Biennale.
Rowan Savage (salllvage)
salllvage (Rowan Savage) is a proud Kombumerri man, living on Wangal Land. He is an experimental producer and sound artist working at the intersection of connection with Country and electronic sound art. His work mutates on-Country field recordings into electronica, and inhabits and bridges the tensions between abstraction and emotion, the wild bush and the dancefloor, the personal and the social, authenticity and reconstruction. Recent highlights of his work include soundtracking the Sydney 9pm Fireworks 2022/23, and producing a new work ('Carrion Sentience') for the National Communication Museum's Signal to Noise exhibition (2025).
