Episode 5 is now live! On this episode of Ask the Mentor, percussionist and composer Eugene Ughetti answers your questions, shares his musical journey and gives his three pieces of advice he wishes someone had told him before embarking on a musical career. Along the way, he tells us how it was a visit from Santa that set him on a percussion path; how he is fuelled by passion and curiosity for the art form; how Speak Percussion evolved from being an ensemble which played classic 20th century percussion to pushing musical, post-instrumental boundaries; and much more.

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More about Eugene…

Eugene Ughetti is the founding artistic director of Speak Percussion. His artistic output is primarily an exploration of the materiality of percussion, but his work could also engage with ideas like drum aged rum, supersonic performance or the percussive military. Eugene is known for tackling complex and ambitious art music projects whether as director, composer, performer or conductor.

He has worked with some of the world’s guiding lights in new music including Pierre Boulez, Liza Lim, Steve Reich and John Zorn.

Eugene’s works have been presented at Darmstadt (Germany), Roulette (New York), SONICA (UK), Ruhrtriennale (Germany), Mona Foma (Hobart), Arts Centre Melbourne, Transart (Italy), Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), Noordezon Festival (The Netherlands), PICA (Perth), SIPFest (Jakarta), National Museum (Singapore), George Town Festival (Malaysia) among others.

Eugene has worked with most of Australia’s leading new music ensembles including conducting ELISION in the world premiere of Richard Barrett’s CONSTRUCTION in the 2011 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. He has worked with some of the world’s finest conductors including Valery Gergiev, James Levine, Pierre Boulez and Charles Dutoit. He has composed works for The Australian Ballet, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, ABC and Bionics Institute.

Eugene won the inaugural Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship (2012), MCA/Freedman Fellowship for Classical Music (2011), OZCO Creative Music Fellowship and various national Art Music Awards for his work with Speak Percussion.

Find out more about Eugene and Speak Percussion here.