Biddy Connor is a composer, arranger, performer and Artistic Director of the Letter String Quartet (TLSQ). Biddy’s diverse, cross-genre projects include working across film, television, theatre, large-scale community events and games.
As director and violist of TLSQ, Biddy pushes the sonic possibilities of the string quartet into new realms. From collaborating with Australian and international composers, poets and visual artists, to generating transcendental improvised performances, TLSQ create music that shimmers with complexity, depth and great beauty.
As a violist, singer and musical saw player, Biddy has worked with Spirtualized, Winged Victory for The Sullen (USA), Jherek Bischoff (USA), Jen Cloher, Darren Sylvester, Richard J Frankland, John Cale, Sophie Koh, Goon Sax, Mick Harvey, Grand Salvo, Laura Jean, Jon Rose, Gang of Youths and Evelyn Ida Morris.
In 2016 Biddy was a finalist for the Melbourne Music Prize’s Outstanding Musician Award. In 2021 she was the recipient of Chamber Made’s highly competitive Orange House by the Sea Artist Residency.
Recent Composition Highlights
2019: TLSQ x ASMR
An exploration of the phenomenon of ASMR through an intimate performance that both audience and performers experience through headphones. Live sounds of instruments and performers are amplified through close microphones and a central binaural microphone.

2020: All the Stories
A moving song cycle for TLSQ and singer Marita Dyson, lyrics by poet Maria Zajkowski. Responding to the historic Abbotsford Convent site.

2022: No More Sugar, No More Tea
Original folk opera exploring experiences of the First World War, told through letters from First Nations women to their husbands and sons on the front lines. Co-composed with the show’s director, Gunditjmara playwright and musician Richard J Frankland.

2022: All that you hear is all that is heard
An experiment in sound and storytelling set within Melbourne’s iconic Nicholas Building. Playing with audio and musical illusions and allusions, this site-specific work presents interwoven stories and recordings collected from tenants of the building, past and present.

2022: Lunar; The Moon: Seven Moons
Qanun, String Quartet, Four Female Voices, and Electronics. Composed by Biddy Connor and Lizzy Welsh in collaboration with Vahideh Eisaei and The Letter String Quartet based on an Iranian composition, Didi ey Mah by Mohammadreza Shajarian

Katerina Stathis is a music-therapist, multi-instrumentalist and composer. Katerina’s current soundscape practice unveils universal visceral themes conveying the gamut of emotions using a blend of analogue synthesisers, found sound and acoustic instruments. Katerina released her debut album Delusions & Heroines in early 2020, a sophomore release Refract: Covid Soundscapes Vol 1 released in August 2020 and her most recent release in August 2021 as a single, Hope Springs Eternal. Her compositions have been included in various compilations including Music Under Lockdown: Melbourne 2020 on the Shame File Music Label. Recently Katerina was involved in a collaboration for Mona Foma 2021 which saw her work featured on the sonic installation Chairway to Heaven- A Suspended Symphony in the Sky.

MADS DAVEY is a composer, instrumentalist and vocalist with a focus on analogue synthesis. She studied a Bachelor of Music/Composition at the Victorian College of the Arts and since graduating has worked writing for TV, Film, Theatre, Festival Commissions and string arrangements as well as recording and touring as a session keyboardist.She has toured and recorded for various Australian artists including; Gotye, Ella Hooper, The Verses, Gena Rose Bruce, Single Twin and more. She has toured extensively in support of local and international artists including; Fleedwood Mac, Counting Crows, Sarah McLaughlin, The Whitlams and more. She has played to audiences of all sizes, appearing live many times on television shows, playing to filled stadiums at the MCG, Rod Laver Arena, Sidney Myer Music Bowl as well as small 20 person shows upstairs at the Gaso. Mads has arranged strings for contemporary music releases including; Ella Hooper’s In Tongues LP & Capital Lady’s ‘I am Gold’ EP. Mads fronts experimental electronic/rock trio Warplane. Warplane released single ‘Drift’ in 2018, and are scheduled to release a full-length album ‘The Rustle’ in mid- 2022.

In her compositional work Mads explores a widened centre of pitch, wonky tunings and couples contrasting timbres to create new sounds. She is currently creating works pairing a 19th century pump organ with 20th century analogue synthesizers, a teaser track from this project ‘Monas’ was released in 2019. Mads is one third of STATHIS//DAVEY//KIM an analogue synth composer collective, who create large scale sound work, two of which have premiered at Mona Foma 2020 & 2021.

Solo composition commission works include; The HMS Beagle Bells for the City of Darwin, Dookie Earth Arts Festival. Two of Mads' Orchestral works, ‘Atmen’ and ‘An Anchor Cast’ premiered at Iwaki Auditorium in Southbank, and played live on 3MBS radio station.
Mads is a member of the Melbourne Synthesizer Orchestra, which debuted at Sidney Myer Music Bowl in early 2021 playing Mat Watson’s Magnitudes.

Prudence Rees-Lee is an Australian artist based in Narrm, whose work explores the intersection of spatial sound and utopian theory. Her current practice-based PhD interrogates the relationship between spatial sound technologies and articulations of utopia, and delves into the development of a unique spatial compositional language, informed by feminist epistemologies of sound, psychoacoustics, somatic sound experiences, and archaeoacoustics.

Her artistic journey spans various forms, from the baroque pop of her critically acclaimed LPs Court Music From the Planet of Love (2013) and Growing Closer (2019) to experimental improvisations like Stereophonic Experiments in Magnetic Tape and Circuitry (2020), orchestral scores (Inner Voices, 2022), and multichannel installations (Crystal Universe, 2022; Beyond Nature, 2022; Vespers of Atlantis, 2023, Woven Waves, 2023). In April 2024, she visited MONOM's spatial sound studio in Berlin to further her exploration of three-dimensional sound environments. In 2015 she co-founded Schema47, an experimental research studio based in Los Angeles that developed a series of experiences and art works to investigate how we perceive and engage with the world.
Prudence has collaborated extensively in theater, notably with the multi award-winning Los Angeles-based company Four Larks, is one half of the band Popular Music with American songwriter Zac Pennington, and has received support from institutions such as Creative Victoria, Flor De Sol (Bolivia), The Getty (USA), and New Music USA. Prudence holds a Bachelor of Music (Performance) from the University of Melbourne, a Certificate in Deep Listening from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (NY), and a Graduate Diploma in Design Innovation Technology (Sound) from RMIT, and is part of the senior management team at MESS.

Sooji is a Melbourne-based instrumentalist and composer. Classically trained in violin, Sooji’s explorations of improvisation and experimental music are informed by an attention to the nuances of timbre, tone and micro tunings. Her current practise is positioned at the nexus of acoustic instruments and electronic synthesisers, driving formal innovation through controlled experimentation. This work explores the metaphor of the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ world by deploying the ‘acoustic’ and ‘synthetic’ to achieve new aural syntheses.

RECENT WORK HIGHLIGHTS
Solo Electronic LP ‘First Loves #2’ 2021, Australian Arts Orchestra, ‘Closed Beginnings’ 2021,Chairway to Heaven installation Mona Foma 2021,Woodwind and analogue synthesiser collaboration through Creative Victoria's Sustaining Creative Workers funding program 2020, ‘Hypnos Cave’ Collaborative composer with Robin Fox and MESS for Mona Foma 2020, SONIC MASS electroacoustic quartet, Make it up Club Online performance 2020 Melbourne Music Week ‘MESS PRESENTS’ performance, 2019, 2018, Jon Rose Retrospective, Substation Violin 2019, Australian Arts Orchestra Electroacoustic project, Violin 2019,‘Cling Clang Clutter’ National LP Tour, EMPAT LIMA 2018, MESS (Melbourne Electronic Sound Studios) Professional Development Program Selected Participant 2018, 2019, Time, Place, Space NOMAD Residency, Arts House Melbourne 2017, KOCHI AIR Collaborative Arts Residency, India 2016, Australia-Indonesia Institute (DFAT) general grants round for WANITA 2015, Darmasiswa scholarship for study Indonesia 2013