About
In 2004 Tim formed his avante-jazz trio the Tim ODwyer Trio with Darren Moore (drums) and Clayton Thomas (Bass). The group has toured the East Coast of Australia three times, toured Japan (2010), released 2 albums and have also played at Mosaic Festival (2007) in Singapore in collaboration with Robin Fox and Aya Sekine producing 'Stella Regions' a tribute to John Coltrane marking 40 years since his death, the Brave Festival Poland, and the famous Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland (2010). They have performed at all the major jazz festivals in Australia including Jazz:Now in Sydney (Opera House), The Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and appeared twice at the Melbourne Jazz Festival.
As an improviser/ composer/ conceptual artist and soloist Tim has been privileged to create work with an extremely broad cross section of sound makers/ theatre makers/ dancers/ painters/ poets and sculptures including: Professor George E. Lewis, British composer Peter Wiegold; Australian Theatre group not yet it's difficult with artistic director David Pledger; Australian Indigenous artist Lilla Watson; Japanese improvisers: Otomo Yoshihide, Uchihashi Kazuhisa, Tetuzi Akiyama and KK Null; Italian composer and installation artist Maurizio Pisati; Australian installation artist Domenico de Clario; Singapore director Tzu Nyen Ho; improvisers’ Robin Fox, John Butcher (UK), Jim Denley, David Brown, Greg Kingston, Jon Rose and Newton Armstrong; Japanese sculpture Katsushige Nakahashi; Australian poet Alison Croggan; Japanese composer Chikako Morishita, Clocked Out Duo...
Tim has performed and recorded with some of the most prominent jazz musicians in Australia and internationally including The Australian Art Orchestra, "Bobby Previte's Bitches Brew Project", Odeon Pope (NYC), Eric Boeren/ Michael Vatcher/ Willem DeJoode (Netherlands), Scott Tinkler, Andrea Keller's Bartok Project (that went on to win the Bell and Aria awards for best jazz album 2002), Paul Grabowsky, the 'bluepolesquartet' featuring Erik Griswold and Danny Fischer, Tony Buck, Chris Abrahams, Rudy Mahal & Axel Dörner (Germ) and Mike Nock to name a few.
In 2006 with Darren Moore, Tim formed C.H.O.P.P.A. Experimental and Improvised Music series in Singapore, and presented weekly concerts at various venues around town. In 2008 Darren became the Artistic Director of the first C.H.O.P.P.A. Festival at LASALLE and since then, with Brian O'Reilly taking over the helm in 2015, the festival has attracted international attention, regularly presenting international acts from the US, Europe and throughout Asia.
Recently, Tim was awarded a fellowship with the newly formed Academy of the Arts of the World in Cologne Germany. This 12-month artist residency occurred over 2013-14 and during this time he formed extensive networks of musicians throughout Germany, The Netherlands, France and also in the UK. These relationships are continuing and enable him to invite many artists from Europe to Singapore, supported by LASALLE and also organizations including the Goethe Institute.
In 2015, Tim joined the Australian Art Orchestra in collaboration with composer Erik Griswold in a new production titled "Water Pushes Sand". The project was workshops in Chengdu, China, with musicians from the Sichuan Opera. The group then performed at the OzAsia Festival and the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts.
Tim has a PhD from Queensland University of Technology completed in 2013. The Doctorate is a practice based research degree, that required him to compose a number of new works and write an exegesis. The solo works have been performed numerous times by members of ELISION including Graham Jennings (violin), Richard Haynes (clarinet) and Genevieve Lacy (recorder). By using the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, Tim came up with an innovative way to analyse freely improvised music and to rationalise his compositional process. "The Adventure of the Refrain: Composing with Improvised Music" - Dean's Commendation Award for Innovation (2014).
Tim O'Dwyer (b.1971), in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, is a saxophonist, improviser, composer and educator currently Head of the School of Contemporary Music at LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore where he has been living and teaching since 2004. Tim’s career has constantly stretched across borders of genre, performance practice and art forms. Trained as a jazz musician at the Victorian College of the Arts graduating with a BA Music in 1993 and furthered his studies with a tuition grant from the Australian Council for the Arts in 1995 studying with composer Richard Barrett in Amsterdam and visionary saxophonist/ improviser Evan Parker in London.
Following his studies Tim returned to Melbourne and joined the underground punk-jazz band bucketrider who went on to release four acclaimed cds and countless shows with their uncompromising original material (composed by O'Dwyer in collaboration with David Brown bass/ guitar, Sean Baxter drums, Adam Simmons saxes and James Wilkinson Trombone/Electronics) to performing the works of Sun Ra "Space is The Place" and the late-period of John Coltrane (including celebrated performances of 'Meditations' and 'OM'), to collaborations with the contemporary classical group LIBRA, the contemporary dance group danceworks (in collaboration with choreographer Sandra Parker) and performing with international rock groups like Zena Geva (Jap) and Sonic Youth (US). bucketrider performed celebrated shows at both The Melbourne and Wangarratta Jazz Festivals.
Tim has been a member of Australia’s leading Contemporary Classical Ensemble ELISION since 1994 as a saxophonist, composer and as an improviser in collaborative projects that cover opera, installation and the concert hall. Tim has premiered many new works for saxophone in this group by composers Liza Lim, John Rogers, Richard Barrett, Chaya Chernowin, Volker Heyn and Maurizio Pisati. Performing in venues as diverse as the Sydney Opera House, Berlin's Hebbel Theatre, Tokyo's Saitama Concert Hall, Radio Bremen in Germany and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; to all the major arts festivals in Australia including Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Queensland and Brisbane; to The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK), The Ultima Festival in Oslo, and Zurich's Theatre Spectacle.
Other groups he was involved in during the early 90's include: 'The Ugly Sisters' (Opera and band) with Eric Gradman (violin/ composer/ band leader), Peter Humble (drums), Dan Witton (bass) and actor Margaret Cameron; Ren Walter's 'Tip' with Niko Schauble (drums), Chris Bekker (bass) and Stuart Campbell (keyboards) performing at the first Wangaratta Jazz Festival; and as a member of the 'Horns of Death' he was involved in one of the original line-ups for the famous Australian band Spiderbait that at the time supported Beastie Boys, The Rollins Band and played the inaugural Big Day Out and Meredith Music Festivals in Victoria, Australia. Tim appears on Spiderbait's first EP 'P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang' and their debut album 'Shashavaglava' released in 1992.
As a 'grass roots organiser' and advocate of improvised experimental music in Melbourne during the 1990's, Tim became the secretary of the Melbourne Improviser's Association (MIA) in 1994, and went on to produce regular concerts of improvised music, sustaining Victorian and Federal Arts funding for many projects throughout his time. He later organised another regular experimental music event (assisted by the MIA and New Music Australia) in Melbourne with Adrian Sherriff and David Karla called 'Live at Yume Ya Gallery' in Johnston St Collingwood where they presented a variety of projects including his own trio 'Angel Machine' featuring Peter Humble (drums) and Gareth Skinner (cello).
In 1998 he took over the organisation of 'Improvised Tuesday's' up-stairs at the 'Planet Cafe' (The Troubadour) in Brunswick St Fitrzoy from Will Guthrie and Ren Walters. He renamed the event 'The Make it Up Club' and the venue was set out like a cabaret, with a door 'personality', an MC, and a bar with appropriate background music between sets. This idea stemmed from his experience presenting improvised music concerts for the MIA a few years previously that were held at the old Champion Hotel in Fitztroy in collaboration with people like Eric Gradman and Brenden Hook. The popularity of the MIUC grew, we formed a non-for profit structure, and gained state funding. As the inaugural Artistic Director of the MIUC between 1998 to 2002 and through the continuous work of people like Belinda Woods, Tom Fryer, Ren Walters, Sean Baxter, and recently Lloyd Honeybrook, the night is still going strong (in a different home across the street! - 'Bar Open') presenting improvised and experimental music every week throughout the year.
Photo Credit: Willie Lyou