Join us for an intimate series of performances in one of the city’s most unusual spaces, the hammock room at the UNESCO World Heritage–listed Hyde Park Barracks. Originally housing convicts, the hammock room is steeped in history and personal stories.
Can music change the way a space makes you feel? And can a space change the way you interpret music? Experience the hammock room in a different way as you listen to some of our best and brightest musicians in this intimate setting.
Immerse yourself in an audiovisual experience with atmospheric lighting, projected imagery and surround sound. From the comfort of a hammock, soak up the sounds of some of Sydney’s most interesting and diverse artists exploring a range of genres.
Kick off the night with a drink from the bar in the Hyde Park Barracks courtyard before heading up into the hammock room.
Members pay less with 20% off tickets
Not a member? Find out more here.
Friday 22 August
Germ Studies
Germ Studies brings an evening of musical transformation, through sound and melodic experimentation.
Germ Studies is the inspired Australian pairing of renowned pianist Chris Abrahams and harpist Clare Cooper. Rather than presenting the expected harmonic interplay of piano and harp, the duo conjure immersive sonic environments that feel simultaneously ancient and futuristic. With the crystalline resonance of the 1380s Chinese guzheng meeting the shimmering textures of a 1980s Japanese DX7 synthesiser, their music is a study in contrasts: organic and electronic, meditative and ecstatic, familiar and alien.
Drawing on the language of contemporary electro-acoustic improvisation, Abrahams and Cooper approach each performance as an open-ended investigation – testing the limits of their instruments and the acoustics of the space itself. The result is a series of unrepeatable encounters with sound that invite audiences to slow down, tune in and experience place anew.
Best known for his work with the pioneering trio The Necks, Chris Abrahams brings a distinctive sensibility shaped by decades of minimalist and improvisational practice. Clare Cooper’s work expands the vocabulary of both the concert harp and the guzheng, creating textures that dissolve traditional boundaries between Eastern and Western musical lineages. Their acclaimed double album, For Guzheng & DX7 (2009), was described by The Wire as ‘a madly generous’ collision of ‘heartbeat pulses, digital gargling and mutoid disco sci-fakery’, countered at every turn by Cooper’s raw, searching string work.
Event dates
Fri 22 Aug 6.30pm–7.15pm
Fri 22 Aug 8.30pm–9.15pm
Entry fees
General $55
Member $44