Sonic City 2026: Smoke Between Mountains

Smoke Between Mountains, is a new work by composer and AAO Artistic Director, Aaron Choulai with the Australian Art Orchestra, and will premiere in Australia as part of AAO's SONIC CITY 2026 program. Composed for an ensemble of nine musicians, Smoke Between Mountains traces a dreamlike narrative drawing on Shinto and Australian First Nations ecological thought against an innovative score that plays with the Ghibli sound world.

Against a rich visual backdrop of video design by Michael Carmody, the work unfolds through the voice and koto of Miyama McQueen-Tokita and the percussive storytelling of Adam Manning, as Aaron Choulai employs his Sono-Kinetic Conducting system to shape improvised moments of story through sound. Blurring the boundaries between composition, improvisation and mythic storytelling, Smoke Between Mountains becomes a meditation on connection, between cultures, landscapes, generations and the fragile ecologies that bind them.

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