MAXed Out COMPANY

The MAXed Out Company is now in its third year of rapid growth and development. The 2010 project will be sensational, featuring an opportunity to compose an original work with one of Australia's most energetic and exciting performance ensembles TaikOz. Audience members still talk about the spellbinding performance of the Company and TaikOz at the 2009 Moorambilla Festival and this year they will work with composer Dan Walker to explore the festival theme Coming Home.

MAXed Out gives high school aged children (years 7 to 10) the opportunity to participate in this Company - we call it a Company because they work collaboratively with their peers from across the region and with the professional musicians and artists who lead the project in a focussed and intensive artistic environment. 

The 2009 work will be premiered at the Moorambilla Festival.  In 2008 the 3 movement multimedia work was shown at the Western Plains Cultural Centre in Dubbo in November, a first for youth in this region. 

Residency camp dates      

MAXed Out Company Camp #1                           18 - 22 August 2010  

Regional Choir Camp (Girls & Boys & Youth):         15 - 19 September 2010

and Moorambilla Festival  17-10 September 2010

What happens at the camps?

The selected participants will meet to create “MAXed Out” through a series of workshops with key artists. “MAXed out” seeks to build on the growing skills of youth in the region with digital technology, and integrate more contemporary musical styles within an art music frame, incorporating live instruments and percussion in performance for the festival. This ensemble will provide gifted regional youth with rhythmic and musical skills the opportunity to compose a work collaboratively while in residence at the August camp.

Working with their regional peers and the internationally acclaimed percussion group TAIKOZ, composers Dan Walker and composer / artistic director Michelle Leonard, and pianist Luke Byrne they will create a 20 minute work for percussion, vocals / choral music, and music composed for mixed ensemble (string quartet, wind instruments) based on the stories and myths of the Pilliga Scrub Yowies!