Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
Dr Louise Devenish is a percussionist who creates interdisciplinary musical works as a performer, director and devisor. Her practice focuses on new modes of performance and instrumentality to explore the sounds, stories, and ecologies of the world around us. As a soloist, collaborator, and ensemble musician (The Sound Collectors Lab, Decibel, and others), she performs internationally at festivals such as MONA FOMA, Nagoya and Shanghai World Expos, Tage für Neue Musik, Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, and Tongyeong International Music Festival. Louise's ‘interpretive flair and technical brilliance’ in performance has been recognised by APRA AMCOS Art Music Performance of the Year Awards and a Luminary Award, a Churchill Fellowship, and Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship. Louise is Convenor of Classical Music and Percussion Coordinator at Monash University, where she is director of artistic research project The Sound Collectors Lab, creating new works with teams of collaborators across music, visual arts, digital arts and spatial design. Her writing on music is published in academic books and journals, industry publications and zines.
www.louisedevenish.com.au
Research interests
Percussion performance, pedagogy and modes of presentation
Contemporary art music in Australia
Post-instrumental practice
The climate crisis and environmental communication through music
Digital notation
Music and gender
Key research themes in The Sound Collectors Lab:
Post-instrumental practice
Post-instrumental practice is a pioneering methodology integrating visual and sonic artforms/mediums in both process and product. This interdisciplinary approach to new music creation focusses on the expansion of musical tools and methods, with an emphasis on the application of structural, compositional and instrumental musical devices to materials traditionally associated with non-sonic aspects of performance (such as theatrical sets, lighting, gaming hardware, notation or physical gestures). The Sound Collectors Lab applies and develops the four key characteristics of post-instrumental practice in artistic research projects: Instrumentality, Plurality, Technique Transferral, and Integration (Devenish 2021).
See projects: Alluvial Gold, The SoundCatcher, Digital Phasing, Cosmic Time
The climate crisis and environmental communication through music
The climate crisis is a global issue strongly influencing the evolution of art music: shaping new directions in creative practice, informing conceptual frameworks, and guiding curatorial and collaborative approaches to programming and mentorship (Devenish and Goh 2024, forthcoming). The Sound Collectors Lab develops creative works that reveal and communicate environmental stories through music, with projects ranging from sonic representations of natural phenomena for solo performer, through to group projects emphasising human impacts on the natural environment and broader issues surrounding the climate crisis to bridge the gap between data, reflection, and action. Our approaches combine eco-artistic (Milligan 2022) and interdisciplinary collaborative methods
See projects: Alluvial Gold, The Bloodwood Series, Sonic Possible Worlds, Climate Notes, We’re Always Touching Underwater
Percussion performance, pedagogy and presentation
Creation, recording and performance of new works featuring percussion, aimed at expanding and developing percussive materials, techniques, performance practices and pedagogies. Research in this area is practice-led, emphasising performer-composer collaboration, historic and new directions in Australian music (Devenish 2015), gender diversity in music, and supervision of PhD and Masters artistic research projects. The Monash Percussion Studio undergraduate teaching program is informed by this research.
See projects: Alluvial Gold, Sonic Possible Worlds, Cosmic Time, Digital Phasing, Self-World
Monash teaching commitment
Graduate Research Program Director (Music, Theatre and Performance)
Convenor of Classical Music Stream
Percussion Coordinator
Graduate Research Supervision
Unit Coordinator: Music Performance unit sequence (ATS1044, ATS1045, ATS2122, ATS2123, ATS3136, ATS3137)
Community service
Percussive Arts Society: New Music/Research Committee
Perth Symphony Orchestra: Artistic Advisory Board
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
External positions
Core artist, Decibel New Music Ensemble Incorporated
2013 → …
Senior Lecturer, Chair of Percussion, University of Western Australia
2013 → 2019
Research area keywords
- Music Performance
- Australian music
- Percussion
- Post-instrumental practice
- Experimental music
- Contemporary art music
- Artistic research
- Digital notation
- Practice-led research
- Climate crisis
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Diversifying Music in Australia: Gender Equity in Jazz and Improvisation
Burke, R., S. Barrett, M., Hall, C., Hope, C., Devenish, L. & Canham, N.
1/05/21 → 31/12/25
Project: Research
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The role of post-instrumental practice in twenty-first century music
Australian Research Council (ARC)
17/02/20 → 30/06/25
Project: Research
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Decibel as part of the Australia/UK Season
Hope, C., Devenish, L. & Wyatt, A.
1/08/22 → 31/12/22
Project: Research
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Beyond the gender binary: a survey of gender marginalization and social boundaries in Australian jazz and improvisation
Goh, T., Hope, C., Devenish, L., Barrett, M. S., Canham, N., Burke, R. L. & Hall, C., 2024, In: Frontiers in Psychology. 15, 14 p., 1412511.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Open AccessFile -
Contemporary musical virtuosities
Devenish, L., Hope, C. & McAuliffe, S., 2024, Contemporary Musical Virtuosities. Devenish, L. & Hope, C. (eds.). 1st ed. Abingdon UK: Routledge, p. 1-13 13 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (Book) › Other › peer-review
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Contemporary Musical Virtuosities
Devenish, L. (ed.) & Hope, C. (ed.), 2024, 1st ed. Abingdon UK: Routledge. 195 p.Research output: Book/Report › Edited Book › peer-review
1 Citation (Scopus) -
On the New Virtuosity Manifesto
Devenish, L. & Hope, C., 2024, Contemporary Musical Virtuosities. Devenish, L. & Hope, C. (eds.). 1st ed. Abingdon UK: Routledge, p. 89-94 6 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (Book) › Other › peer-review
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Virtuosity, post-instrumental practice, and collapse: a correspondence
Devenish, L. & Torrence, J., 2024, Contemporary Musical Virtuosities. Devenish, L. & Hope, C. (eds.). 1st ed. Abingdon UK: Routledge, p. 146-153 8 p.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (Book) › Other › peer-review
Prizes
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ABC Classic FM 'Forty Under Forty'
Devenish, Louise (Recipient), 2016
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
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APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards: Performance of the Year
Devenish, Louise (Recipient), 8 Sept 2020
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
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APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards: WA Performance of the Year
Devenish, Louise (Recipient), 2018
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
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APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards: WA Performance of the Year
Devenish, Louise (Recipient), 2016
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
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APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards: WA State Luminary
Devenish, Louise (Recipient), 8 Sept 2020
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)
Activities
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Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Snare Drum Award (Event)
Louise Devenish (Contributor)
2024 → …Activity: Industry, Government and Philanthropy Engagement and Partnerships › Membership of an advisory panel/policy group/ board
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APAX: Australian Performing Arts Exchange
Louise Devenish (Speaker)
19 Aug 2024 → 23 Aug 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to conference
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Classical:NEXT
Louise Devenish (Speaker)
14 May 2024 → 17 May 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to conference
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TENOR: International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation
Louise Devenish (Speaker)
4 Apr 2024 → 6 Apr 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to conference
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Encounters: Artistic and scientific investigations of the world around us
Louise Devenish (Organiser)
28 Apr 2023 → 8 Sept 2023Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Contribution to workshop, seminar, course
Press/Media
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The collaborative process behind Alluvial Gold with Louise Devenish and Stuart James
18/07/23
1 item of Media coverage
Press/Media: Blogs, Podcasts and Social Media › Podcasts
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Michaela Gleave - Michaela Gleave, Amanda Cole, Louise Devenish, Cosmic Time. The Sound Collectors Lab, Bandcamp.
12/07/23
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Article/Feature
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BackStage Music launches 2022-23 season
Louise Devenish & Anna McMichael
16/05/23
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Article/Feature
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The narratives of water, land, air, and space: Louise Devenish on The Sound Barrier
16/04/23
1 Media contribution
Press/Media: Article/Feature
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