I acknowledge and pay my respects to Whadjuk Noongar boodja and its custodians and Elders.
I stand unreservedly for a free Palestine.
Thanks to Alexander Turner for designing and gifting me this website, and to Josh Wells, Emma Daisy and @1ilbug for the photos throughout.
I'm a composer and performer of experimental music. I live in Boorloo (Perth), and also regularly work with collaborators elsewhere, especially in Berlin and Naarm (Melbourne). My work is situated in a space between the traditions of location sound recording, rational intonation, improvisation, and experimental composition. I'm often most engaged with silence, space, place, melody & tuning while I make music.
As a performer my main instrument is the saxophone. Largely self-taught, an engagement with non-tempered tunings, extremely soft dynamics, multiphonics, and modal melodic concepts informed by Celtic traditional music, shape how I approach this instrument. I use circular breathing and sustain pedals to work at extended time scales and explore harmony. I also have an ongoing practice of improvising outdoors ("as weather").
The other key facet of my work is as an organiser, independent curator and producer. I co-direct the Audible Edge Festival and the public program of Tone List, and produce larger-scale projects by Sage J Harlow. I'm interested in building cultures of altruistic listening and ambitious sharing, and in understanding the role of collectives of artists in organising against capitalist exploitation.
You can read more about specific achievements & collaborations in the press biography below.
Comprehensive (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 sits in a space between the traditions of location sound recording, extended just intonation, improvisation and experimental composition. It is characterised by an attention to silence, space, place, melody & tuning.
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 with artists such as Alessandro Bosetti, Francisco Lopez, Barbara Ellison, Bae Il-Dong, Daniel & David Wilfred and Radu Malfatti. Many of these were transformative, as were brief encounters in lectures, lessons or car trips with Catherine Lamb, Jim Denley, Rebecca Lane, James Rushford, Anthony Pateras, Will Guthrie and Richard Dawson. As a composer, they have worked most recently with Prague Quiet Music Collective, Greywing Ensemble and Erin Royer, as well as with peers and friends in the Berlin and Boorloo experimental music scenes.
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, joined by Annika Moses since 2020. 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, the City of Melville, and for Liquid Architecture’s Disclaimer journal. They were a coordinator of several of Tura's programs from 2014 until 2018. Josten also works as an independent producer, mostly with Sage J Harlow, with whom they have produced an album of experimental chamber music, a long-form spoken word performance with music, and the chamber opera O,D,E, which was awarded Best Production at The Blue Room Theatre Awards, and received 5-star reviews in ArtsHub and Isolated Nation.
Josten has performed in concert series and festivals worldwide. Notable performances include Goolugatup Sounds, 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 were the musical director for Melville Midwinter, a large-scale solstice celebration at Dyoondalup Point Walter, in 2024. They have released their own work on Another Timbre, Edition Wandelweiser, Flaming Pines and Tone List.
Their ongoing projects include Tracing Presence on Land (with Sabine Vogel & Emilio Gordoa), Land's Air (with Eduardo Cossio), and collaborations with Aviva Endean, Jameson Feakes, Sage Pbbbt and Michael Pisaro-Liu. They play in the bands Nika Mo, residues (lead by Craig Pedersen), and their own quartet Ghost Gum Reverb. Other musicians they have played with include Chris Abrahams, Nick Ashwood, Burkhard Beins, Jim Denley, Annette Krebs, Adam Pultz-Melbye, Matthias Müller, Christian Marien, Michael McNab, Martin Debrička, Andrea Neumann, Tizia Zimmermann, Laura Altman and the Prague Quiet Music Collective.
Their work with sound has been a component to presentations by Matthew Morris, Daisy Sanders, Katie West, Noémie Huttner-Koros, Joshua Pether and Elizabeth Pedler in contexts including 10 Nights in Port Festival (2024), 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).
They are the recipient of major fellowships and residencies including the Schenberg Fellowship (2019), the APRA AMCOS Professional Development Award (2025) and the Prelude residency at Gallop House (2026). They have held residencies at the Bogong Centre for Sound Culture, Goolugatup Heathcote, Ting Shuo Hear Say and All That We Are. They have also been the recipient of competitive grants by Creative Australia, the Goethe Institut, the Western Australian Department of Local Government, Sports and Cultural Industries, and the Ian Potter Cultural Trust. They have been a finalist in numerous awards including the WAM Awards, the Performing Arts WA Awards, WAM Song of the Year and the WA Youth Awards. They are an Australian Music Centre Associated Artist.
Summary version (200 words)
Josten Myburgh (b. 1994) is an experimental composer and performer based on Whadjuk Noongar boodja in Boorloo.
Josten is co-director of not-for-profit organisation Tone List, and since 2017 has curated their Art Music Award-winning Audible Edge festival alongside Annika Moses. Josten also works as an independent curator & producer, and has worked with institutions across Australia to present experimental music programs.
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, 10 Nights in Port Festival, Kier Choreographic Award, Perth Festival and at the Art Gallery of WA.
Ongoing projects include Tracing presence on land (with Sabine Vogel & Emilio Gordoa), Land's Air (with Eduardo Cossio), and a duo with clarinetist Aviva Endean. They play drums in experimental rock band residues, and contribute saxophone to the songs of Nika Mo.
They are a recipient of the Schenberg Fellowship, an APRA AMCOS professional development award, and numerous other competitive grants. They are the 2026 Gallop House composer-in-residence.
