2020 Festival Artists

Kirsty McCahon

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Australia

Kirsty McCahon is supported by John Holmes and Kym Smith

Kirsty McCahon is Australia’s leading practitioner of Historical Performance on the double bass and violone. She is the Principal Bass of Pinchgut, Brisbane Baroque, Orchestra of The Antipodes and former Principal Double Bass of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, a position she held for 20 years. She has performed in the Brodsky Quartet, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Musica Viva, Halcyon, Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Mornington Peninsula Festival, Les Talens Lyrique and L’Arpeggiata. She has performed, recorded and toured throughout Europe with ensembles such as Ensemble Itineraire, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique and ELISION. A passionate supporter of young women and girls, Kirsty was an invited mentor at the inaugural Sydney “Women of the World” conference in 2014. Kirtsy McCahon and Kees Boerma formed the duet “Bass Extravaganza” to showcase ‘the glorious beauty of the bass’, and worked in collaboration with writer David Malouf in an especially commissioned work for the AGNSW. Kirsty is a founding member of the Australian World Orchestra and in 2016 performed as a featured soloist in the world premiere of Elena Kats-Chernin’s Concerto for 8 Double Basses The Witching Hour.