Songs for Those Who’ve Come Across the Seas

Andy is an award-winning director of theatre, music theatre and opera. He has also worked as creative producer of multidisciplinary arts programs, creative director of large-scale events and festival director. In 2007 Andy co-founded Adelaide based theatre company Slingsby. The company is now well-established as a leading international immersive theatre company, having toured to more than 170 venues, with over 1,000 performances across 13 countries and counting.

Andy is renowned for creating original live performance moments that are emotionally powerful and visually bold. His work across theatre for young audiences, opera, cabaret, music theatre and symphonic concerts has pushed him to develop a distinctive theatrical aesthetic that is at once personal and epic.

Andy has directed productions and events for Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, State Opera South Australia, State Theatre Company South Australia, Adelaide Festival of Arts, Adelaide Fringe, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide Chamber Singers, Australian String Quartet, Windmill Theatre, Restless Dance, Tutti Ensemble, Rundle Mall Management Authority and the International Astronautical Federation. In 2019 Andy was Show Director for the World of Wearable Art Awards Show in Wellington, New Zealand.

Quincy has spent his life being a freelance composer and musician. He has played and written for many bands over the decades, in many different styles – the most recent being the despicable gypsy band Golonka and the folk outfit Miranda Bede. 

He has written over seventy works for soloists, chamber ensembles and orchestras that have been performed in hundreds of concerts. And written the music for over forty theatre works, for companies all over Australia, with his second opera being scheduled for performance in 2025. 

He has toured many countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas. 

He is co-director of The Firm, a company that presents concerts each year featuring Australian classical musicians in programmes of new Australian music along-side carefully chosen repertoire. 

Quincy lives in Adelaide with his dear Anna, and has three children: Arland, Clara and Miranda.

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He then studied at Flinders Drama Centre and did additional training with Gerrard MacArthur at RADA in London. He has worked for all of Australia’s major theatre companies and been involved in the development of many new Australian works. Cameron recently premiered a one-man show in The Adelaide Cabaret Festival The Sound Of Falling Stars, in which he played 30 male singers who died before their time. He also recently completed a long run playing Zazu in Disney’s The Lion King. Prior to that he spent three years with Sydney Theatre Company’s full-time acting ensemble under the direction of Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton.

Cameron is also an ARIA award winning singer/composer (The Audreys). He has composed music for film and television and for many other shows, often in collaboration with song-writing partners David Heinrich and Quincy Grant (including previous Adelaide Cabaret Festival hits Little Bird and You, Me And The Bloody Sea).

A childhood spent in the laid-back tropical climes of Darwin in the Northern Territory, Leah brings a refreshing and unique authenticity to her work. You can hear the echo of artists such as Meshell Ndegeocello, Martha Wainwright, Joan As Police Woman and Trixie Whitley in Leah’s vocal delivery. You can hear and feel the depth of emotion she invests in her songs and the honest stories that populate them. On stage you’ll also experience some of the tales and inspiration behind Leah’s songs and enlivened by a rich musicality – whether backed by a full band or solo with ukulele (in the Northern Saltwater country style), acoustic, or  electric guitar in hand.

With Venetian, Aboriginal and Irish heritage, Leah has a fascinating historical, geographical and cultural mix to draw from. As a result, she possesses a versatility and stylistic range that has seen her work with a long list of diverse musicians and projects.

Satomi started playing orchestral percussion at the age of 12, then studied jazz drumming with maestro, Takeshi Inomata in Tokyo. She has played extensively in Japan with the Soulful Unity Jazz Orchestra and her groups, Vivace and Jackpot, the latter winning two major jazz contests. Satomi won the Best Player Award at the 1993 Asakusa Jazz Contest and her group was then twice invited to perform at the Manley Jazz Festival. In Adelaide, she plays regularly with Black Fedora Jazz as well as with several other ensembles covering blues, Latin and Bulgarian music styles. She joined the Brendan Fitzgerald Trio in 2012 and performed with the group in Beijing, Shanghai and at the Hong Kong Performing Arts Centre Street Concert. Satomi has appeared twice at The Hoot!, Adelaide Hills Jazz Festival and at 2014 The Clare Valley Carnival of Music performing with Brendan Fitzgerald and Svilen Panayatov accordian duo, Latin-jazz group Ah Hum! and holding her own multi-cultural percussion session/workshop.

Satomi Onishi is also a physical chemist with specific expertise in scanning probe microscopy and surface physics.

Gareth regularly works with Australian ensembles The Zephyr Quartet, Golonka, The Baker Suite, The Various Nefarious, The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and other Art music ensembles as an accordionist, as well as regularly recording for theatre companies, Slingsby and Brink. He is also a regular collaborator with cabaret star, Anya Anastasia.

As a writer, Gareth composes for gypsy outfit Golonka, theatre, and doco/mockumentaries on SBS and ABC tv, as well as being a former member of world music group The Meru Vibe, which has shared the stage with The Bamboos, Sneaky Sound System, and international electro/tabla sensation, Talvin Singh.

Gypsy outfit Golonka!, has played at numerous Australian festivals, including The Adelaide Arts Festival, Womadelaide, and shared the stage with many interstate and international groups including Zulya & The Children of the Underground, and has recently represented Australia as part of the UNESCO Cities of Music project in the Hamamatsu World Music Festival in Japan…

In 2017, Gareth composed the music for William Yang & Annette Shun Wah’s work in the Adelaide Festival of Arts, ‘Backstories’. (CAAP : Contemporary Asian Australian Performance)

Geoff has worked as an Event Producer, Production Manager, Lighting Designer, Set Designer, Public Artist and Venue Designer. His work has ranged from many smaller innovative productions at the Performance Space, Queens Theatre, Belvoir, Red Shed, non-theatre venues (tents, warehouses and more) to large-scale theatre/dance productions, festivals, art exhibitions, events, museums and venue creation. His love of light and dance has led him to work with many of Australia’s top choreographers and allowed him to explore the endless combinations of colour, angle, intensity, and movement, of light. With his company Bluebottle he has designed many lighting installations and lit public artworks, buildings, landscapes and freeways. Geoff received a Churchill Fellowship in 2010 to study Outdoor Theatre in Europe. This led to the creation of Barrio, inspired by the “participatory theatre” movement currently sweeping Europe. Finding innovative ways to involve community and other industry in Events was at the heart of Barrio. Its success was in the unique way it gave its audience ownership of the event. Geoff has been working on Festivals since the late 80s when he began working for Sydney Festival. He subsequently went on to become an integral part of the senior management teams of the Sydney Festival, Adelaide Festival and Womadelaide Festival. Recent Awards include: 2015 Helpmann Award for Best Scenic Design for Little Bird; Ruby Award for Sustained Contribution; Green Room Award Best lighting Design for Night Letters; Sydney Theatre Award Best Lighting Design for Never Did Me Any Harm. Geoff is Slingsby’s Artistic Associate (Design).

Ailsa completed the Bachelor of Dramatic Art in Design (NIDA) in 2003. Recent design credits include Jack Maggs and The Puzzle (State Theatre Company South Australia), Watershed (Opera Australia), The Marriage of Figaro (State Opera South Australia), Marrow (ADT, costume design) and The Tree of Light (Slingsby).

Design credits for State Theatre Company South Australia include: The Dictionary of Lost Words (costume design), Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, Girls and Boys, Single Asian Female, Chalkface, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia (costume design), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Ripcord (set design), Gaslight, Jasper Jones, End of the Rainbow, Sense and Sensibility, Switzerland, The 39 Steps, Beckett Triptych, The Importance of Being Earnest, In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play, The Ham Funeral, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), The Price and The Cripple of Inishmaan.

Other design credits include Tracker (ADT, costume design), Dido and Aeneas (State Opera South Australia), A Christmas Carol (Ensemble), Boxing Day BBQ (Ensemble), The Boy Who Talked to Dogs (Slingsby, costume design), Emil and The Detectives (Slingsby, costume design), Cloudstreet! (State Opera South Australia, costume design), Yo Diddle Diddle (Patch), Cranky Bear (Patch), Debut 5 (Restless), Naturally (Restless). Ailsa worked in costume on The Straits, LAID, Undertbelly – A Tale of Two Cities, Underbelly – The Golden Mile, Blue Water High, The Last Confession of Alexander Pearce, Ten Empty, The Boy from Oz Area Spectacular, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – The Musical and High School Musical. Ailsa was the recipient of the 2011 Mike Walsh Fellowship.

Chris is a lighting and video designer from Adelaide, South Australia. Following his completion of the Technical Production course at the Adelaide Centre of the Arts, Chris has continued to develop his experience across theatre, dance, and other live events in Australia and internationally.

Chris worked on the inaugural Illuminate Adelaide Festival to deliver their flagship project Light Cycles in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, crafted by the world-leading Montreal-based studio Moment Factory. Chris has since been working on a number of large outdoor lighting installations with Illuminate Adelaide, Moment Factory and others.

Chris has worked with State Theatre Company South Australia on Single Asian Female, A View from the Bridge, Brothers Wreck, In The Club, Terrestrial, Mr Burns, Red Cross Letters, Eh Joe for the Beckett Triptych, Gorgon, Masquerade, The Kreutzer Sonata, Maggie Stone and Little Bird. Chris has completed designs for Gravity and Other Myths’ Ten Thousand Hours and Playbook. Carla Lippis’ Mondo Psycho live at WOMADelaide 2022. Theatre Republic’s The Garden, How Not To Make It In America, The Bleeding Tree and Lines. Australian Dance Theatre’s The Third, Objekt, Of All Things, The Beginning of Nature Part 1 and Ignition 2016. Restless Dance Theatre’s Zizanie and Touched. Slingsby’s The Tree of Light, The Boy Who Talked to Dogs, Songs for Those Who’ve Come Across the Seas, Emil and the Detectives and The Mouse, The Bird and The Sausage. Windmill Theatre Company’s Moss Piglet, Rella, Creation Creation, Hiccup!, Beep, Grug and the Rainbow, Big Bad Wolf and Story Thieves. Vitalstatistix’ The Photo Box, Cher and Quiet Faith. Flying Penguin’s Oleanna, Bitch Boxer and Seawall.