I acknowledge and pay my respects to Whadjuk Noongar boodja and its custodians and Elders. This continent was stolen. There won't be peace until it is returned to its rightful custodians.
I stand unreservedly for a free Palestine from the river to the sea.
Thanks to Alexander Turner for designing this website, and to Josh Wells, Emma Daisy and @1ilbug for the photos throughout.
I'm a composer-performer of experimental music. I live in Boorloo (Perth), and also regularly work with collaborators elsewhere, especially in Berlin and Naarm (Melbourne).
As a composer, I make music drawing from a gamut of techniques associated with location sound recording, extended just intonation, improvisation, electroacoustic music and experimental composition. I'm interested in the border between sound and silence, in resonance and tuning, in the entanglement of music and place, and in concepts of speculative fiction and world-building in music.
As a saxophone player, the language I have spent the most time developing is built around very quiet, resonant sounds unfolding over long durations, using circular breathing and sustain pedals to work at extended timescales and explore just harmonies and the rhythms of beating. I often play outdoors ("as weather").
I am also an organiser/independent curator, and produce the Audible Edge Festival and the annual public program of Tone List.
Short (200 words)
Josten Myburgh (b. 1994) is a composer, improviser, saxophonist and organiser based on Whadjuk Noongar boodja in Boorloo.
Josten is co-director of not-for-profit organisation Tone List, and since 2017 has curated their award-winning Audible Edge festival. They also work as an independent curator and producer and have collaborated with numerous festivals and institutions to present exploratory music programs, including the WA Museum, Liquid Architecture, Tura New Music and the State Library of WA.
They have performed in concert series and festivals worldwide, including Alternativa Festival (Prague), Vestafor (Rosendal, Norway), Offene Ohren (Munich), MONO (Meanjin), FILEC Festival (Cuernavaca), Perth International Jazz Festival, Fremantle Biennale, Supersense Festival (Naarm), the NOW now (Sydney) and Inland (Naarm). Their work has been published on Another Timbre, Edition Wandelweiser, Tone List and Flaming Pines.
They have also contributed sound for interdisciplinary works nationally in programs including the Boorloo Heritage Festival, Kier Choreographic Award, Perth Festival and at the Art Gallery of WA.
Frequent collaborators include Eduardo Cossio, Sabine Vogel, Jameson Feakes, Emilio Gordoa, Joshua Pether, Sage Pbbbt, Michael Pisaro-Liu and Daisy Sanders.
They are a recipient of the Schenberg Fellowship and numerous other competitive grants.
Long (1 page)
Josten Myburgh (b. 1994) is a composer, improviser, saxophonist and organiser based on Whadjuk Noongar boodja in Boorloo (Perth, Western Australia). Their music draws from a gamut of techniques associated with location sound recording, extended just intonation, saxophone improvisation, electro-acoustic music and experimental composition. It is informed by speculative fiction and world-building, poetically imagining ways of relating to place.
Josten graduated from composition studies at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 2015, before undertaking extensive self-directed studies including private tuition with composers Michael Pisaro-Liu and Antoine Beuger, and workshops including Sonic Mmabolela, Composers Meet Composers, and the Creative Music Intensive.
Josten is co-director of Tone List, a Perth-based record label for exploratory music, and since 2017 has curated their acclaimed annual Audible Edge festival. Audible Edge won an Art Music State Luminary Award in 2023 and has received 4.5 and 5 star reviews in Limelight Magazine. Josten has also curated programs for the Unhallowed Arts Festival (SymbioticA), Tura New Music, Mandurah Arts Festival, the State Library of WA, WA Museum Boola Bardip, and for Liquid Architecture’s Disclaimer journal. They were a coordinator of several of Tura's programs from 2014 until 2018, booking Boorloo concerts for Félicia Atkinson, Will Guthrie, Callum G'Froerer, Aviva Endean, Lucas Abela and Rosalind Hall.
They have performed in concert series and festivals worldwide. Notable performances include Alternativa Festival (Prague), Vestafor (Rosendal, Norway), Offene Ohren (Munich), Echoraum (Vienna), Sacred Realism (Berlin), MONO (Meanjin), VOLTA (Ciudad de Mexico), Festival Internacional de Libre Expresión de Cuernavaca, the Perth International Jazz Festival, Fremantle Biennale, Supersense Festival of the Ecstatic (Naarm), the NOW now (Sydney) and Inland Concert Series (Naarm).
They have ongoing projects with Nick Ashwood, Eduardo Cossio, Lena Czerniawska, Aviva Endean, Jameson Feakes, Emilio Gordoa, Sage Pbbbt, Joshua Pether, Michael Pisaro-Liu, Adam Pultz-Melbye, Daisy Sanders and Sabine Vogel. They play in the bands residues, Ghost Gum Reverb and Nika Mo. They have also played with artists such as Chris Abrahams, Burkhard Beins, Jim Denley, Matthias Müller, Christian Marien, Martin Debrička, Andrea Neumann, Tizia Zimmermann, Laura Altman and the Prague Quiet Music Collective.
They have released their own work on Another Timbre, Edition Wandelweiser, Flaming Pines and Tone List. Their work with sound has been a component to presentations by Daisy Sanders, Katie West, Noémie Huttner-Koros, Joshua Pether and Elizabeth Pedler in contexts included the Art Gallery of Western Australia (2023), Boorloo Heritage Festival (2023), the Kier Choreographic Award (2022), Perth Festival (2022), Situ8 (2021), MoveMe Festival (2019), and in various presentations at the Blue Room Theatre and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. Their own work was included in Audiosfera, an international survey of sound art curated by Francisco Lopez at the Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid).
In 2019 they were awarded the Schenberg Fellowship. They have held residencies at the Bogong Centre for Sound Culture and Goolugatup Heathcote. They have also been the recipient of competitive grants by Creative Australia, the Western Australian Department of Local Government, Sports and Cultural Industries, the Ian Potter Cultural Trust, and APRA AMCOS. They have been a finalist in numerous awards including the WAM Awards, the APRA Professional Development Awards, the Performing Arts WA Awards and the WA Youth Awards. They are an Australian Music Centre Associated Artist.
