Kate Tempany

“Composition is a process through which I realise my place in the dancing cosmos. My task as an artist is to create structures which function as an invitation to the dance. Bearing witness to the unfolding of an inexhaustible, fluid play of energy is one half of my compositional endeavour; re-enacting this fluidly inclusive totality at the level of collective experience is the other.”

Tempany’s works have been premiered by leading Australian artists including Michael Kieran Harvey, Mohamed Camara, Peter Neville, Joseph Lallo, Briana Leaman, Peter de Jager, Heather Fletcher and Caroline Almonte, at venues such as Hamer Hall and MoNA. As a percussionist and workshop artist, Tempany has appeared in Scandinavia as a support for the indigenous White Cockatoo Performing Group, and across Australia at festivals, jazz and classical events, partnering frequently with Melbourne’s SalamFest. She has undertaken numerous artist residencies including at ANAM, the Grainger Museum and IgniteLab. She has used intercultural composition, percussion and dance as tools for community development over several decades. Kate has studied a wide variety of subjects at tertiary level, from physics and vector calculus to social theory, Hindi and Sanskrit and is an ardent amateur linguist.

Tempany has received awards including the Dorian Le Gallienne Composition Award, the Catherine Mary Sullivan Scholarship in Music Composition and an Australian Government Endeavour Award, enabling an extended period of study in Chandigarh, India. She is currently doing a PhD in composition at Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, where her research focuses on intercultural art music