Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Image: Xani Kolac  
© Photo by Oli Sansom

It wasn't until I was in Year 10 that I had a music teacher who encouraged my love of improvising. Before that, classical bow holds and bar lines were my constant compass: I was a violinist and so "that meant a few things", my violin teachers would say. Notably, it meant sticking to the path well-trodden, and playing only the notes on the page. Anything else would be detrimental to my technique, my reputation and my future career in music.

But I wanted to go off-road. I wanted to be an improviser.

Improvising has been my greatest love since picking up the violin at age six: while trying to work out how to play songs I heard on the radio; trying to imitate Carlos Santana's electric guitar solos on CD, or playing out loud the made-up songs in my head. But improvisation isn't part of classical music pedagogy for violinists of our time - which is a great shame and a great loss. And I definitely wasn't given repertoire, space, or encouragement to do it.

But I did it anyway. And so it made sense that when bestowed with the great honour and responsibility of being the Melbourne international Jazz Festival Take Note Leader this year, I wanted to draw on what improvisation has taught me about leadership, and let it resonate through my new work KOŁACZ, and in my workshops with high school students around the state.

I have learnt the art of improvising by listening - to recordings, to live performers, and especially to my colleagues and collaborators. Teachers belittled and bullied me, but my peers shared their knowledge. And after a particularly tough day in my first year at uni (when a lecturer told me, in front of the whole class, that "everything I was playing was bullshit"), my friend and I nutted out a harmonic analysis on the train ride home. This kind of peer-to-peer-learning mirrors the experience of collective improvisation, and involves listening, trust, letting go, and making offers. And in my opinion, is a genuinely valuable model for meaningful leadership. The opposite is what I experienced in my jazz/improvisation course. My lecturers sowed seeds of doubt, which lead to a lack of confidence. And doubt is a tricky thing to navigate as an improviser because you need courage and trust in yourself to make a sound, to make a move, to make an offer. So I turned to my peers to learn, to share and to grow.

This year I have delivered improvisation and music technology workshops for high school students across the state. Often the students fear improvisation - especially students learning orchestral stringed instruments - so my workshops are about courage, games, play, and how to trust themselves in a musical context. I have recently been developing a compositional process that blends structure (notated motifs, unison melodies, specific modes), with freedom (improvisation, open-ended arrangements), and so I have been using this process with students to encourage bravery and trust. We learn some structured notated sections as a group, and then I break students off into trios and quartets to come up with their own arrangements that must incorporate improvisation. This process is about passing leadership on to them.

In Year 10, my music teacher gave me a CD: Astor Piazzolla's 'The Central Park Album'. He was very passionate about Piazzolla's music and transcribed all the parts for a school ensemble. I became obsessed with Piazzolla's music and desperately wanted to play in that ensemble. I auditioned and made the cut. My teacher transcribed and then notated Piazzolla's bandoneon parts for our ensemble to play; but each recording I listened to, live or otherwise, demonstrated just how improvised these melodies were. I remember one day in rehearsal, my teacher got teary, moved as I took liberties, embellishing and improvising the melodies based on my focused study of Piazzolla's own improvisatory style. My music teacher encouraged me to explore, and to develop my own unique improvisatory voice. He gave me the encouragement and the tools, then trusted me to ultimately take the lead.

At the high school workshops, the students get up and present what they've come up with at the end of the session. They've been presented with new concepts and challenges, and been given barely enough time to complete the task, and yet they all get up and perform. And it's a wonderful thing to witness: trust in themselves, trust in each other, playfulness, a letting go of mistakes or bung notes, and the passing around of leadership. It has greatly influenced how I've approached my Melbourne International Jazz Festival Take Note commission.

My new work KOŁACZ brings together the compositional system and processes that I have been developing over the past few years which blends structure with freedom. I am influenced by Piazzolla's improvised and embellished melodies, as well as his rejection of traditional genre conventions; I am influenced by the grandeur and epic-ness of Vangelis and Morricone; and I am always bringing my love of my first jazz violin influences: Stephane Grappelli, Stuff Smith and Regina Carter. But I have also made peace with my earliest beginnings in violin, drawing upon Chopin and classical music harmony that will forever be imprinted in my fingers and my bow hold. And I am inspired by the work I have done with high school students across this state. It has greatly influenced how I have gone into rehearsals with the imaginative and inventive musical collaborators of my ensemble. My compositions are maps. And now improvisation is my compass. And as the leader of this project, my hope is that we will all veer off road.

I've been working with a dramaturg to make KOŁACZ. Together we have asked questions around form, shape and meaning. Our sessions brought to light the driving question behind this work: "where do I belong" (amidst a life and career of never quite fitting in anywhere). As such, form and structure become meandering, searching shapes; and my notated compositions became a mixture of directions, instructions, and a kind of choose-your-own-adventure.

It is a magical moment taking new pieces into a rehearsal room. Especially given how much room for improvisation and performer agency exists across my 'maps'. Notes on a stave come to life, harmonic progressions tell a different story, and open improvised sections surprise and delight. I have a vision for this work, and I am leading this ensemble, but I trust my collaborators. And that trust gives the work a sense of freedom and alive-ness. My hope is that each time we perform this work, we arrive at the end having been surprised, challenged, and connected.

Studying improvisation has taught me that the more I develop my musical language - phrasing, tension, release, rhythm - the more devices I have when making sounds and offers in an improvised ensemble setting. The same goes for leadership. However, there are hits, and there are misses. And even though taking a wrong turn can lead to growth (or to somewhere new and exciting), mistakes can feel painful. So as a leader, I try to engineer off-ramps for when they're needed, so that the trust flows both ways.

At the start of the high school workshops I ask everyone to raise their hand if improvisation scares them. Most students put their hands up. By the end of the workshop, students are using improvisation to glue together a quickly prepared live performance in front of their peers. Improvising becomes a necessity - almost second nature - and collective. It is inspiring to watch the students guiding and helping each other. Leadership can be setting parameters. Listening. Sharing knowledge. Making an offer. Responding. Changing direction. Allowing somebody else to call the next section. Knowing when to bring everyone back together.

And like improvisation, leadership is being up for a road trip to somewhere new.

Hear KOŁACZ at Melbourne International Jazz Festival on Saturday 17 October 2026.
Head to melbournejazz.com for more details.