Firebrand pianist Ronan Apcar and trailblazing saxophonist Alice Morgan join forces to present a contemporary take on saxophone playing that swings between poise and ebullience. Bookended by two world premieres from Australian composers Andrew Howes and Gerard Brophy, the pair combine virtuosity with lyricism in an international survey of new saxophone works and arrangements. Modern classical music sits alongside sounds and influences beyond the Western world in this exploratory program that invites audiences to encounter the rich soundworld of this duo in unexpected ways.
About Alice Morgan
Alice Morgan is a Sydney/Eora-based saxophonist and musician recognised for her vibrant artistry and her unwavering commitment to contemporary live performance. From classical to experimental, her passion for music shapes her dynamic work as a performer.
Hailing from Christchurch, New Zealand, Alice studied at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where she was awarded Alice was awarded the Board of Governor's Annual Scholarship for individual merit, and the Peter Richmond Memorial Prize for her contribution to chamber music. She graduated in 2017 with First Class Honours in Saxophone Performance under the tutelage of Michael Duke and Christina Leonard. In the same year, Alice toured Europe as orchestral soloist and travelled to Verona to participate in the Estivo Chamber Music Festival.
Since her nomination for the renowned Freedman Fellowship, Alice has become a prominent voice in the Sydney music scene. She performs extensively with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as Guest Principal Saxophone, has appeared as concerto soloist with the Resonance Ensemble in Tony Ryan’s Concerto for soprano saxophone and orchestra and with Ensemble Apex in Ibert’s Concertino da Camera, and has premiered numerous Australian chamber works in eclectic ensembles with Ensemble Offspring. Alice was featured on Moorambilla Voices' album Goodighoo Yanmay, and in 2025 was the Performer of the Week on ABC Classic with her performance of Jenni Watson's Downpour broadcast live across Australia with glowing reviews.
With performances described as “sublime, full of colour and life” (Stuart Greenbaum), Alice is known for championing Australian music, having premiered and recorded works by leading composers including Holly Harrison, Paul Stanhope, Stuart Greenbaum, Elizabeth Jigalin, Alice Chance, Damien Ricketson, Kirsten Milenko, and Andrew Howes, among others.
Alice has a particular affinity for chamber music. She was named Ensemble Offspring’s Hatched Associate Artist in 2024, and is a regular collaborator with the Bowerbird Collective. As a chamber musician she has appeared in concerts across Australia and Italy, including the world premiere of Andrew Howes’ The Eyes of the Earth for saxophone and string quartet at the Lyrebird Festival in the Megalong Valley, NSW. In 2025, she performed alongside the Bowerbird Collective and accordion virtuoso James Crabb for the Moonbird Festival on King Island, Tasmania, and travelled with Ensemble Offspring to perform in Bellingen Muse.
Alongside her performing career Alice is a keen educator, having presented masterclasses at both the Melbourne and Sydney Conservatoriums, and in 2026 will present a program of works and masterclasses at the Aotearoa Classical Saxophone Summer School at the University of Auckland. Alice is also an experienced producer and orchestral manager as one of the founding members of Ensemble Apex. She has been a loyal part of the production team for many of their successful concerts, ranging from RUEL x Red Bull Symphonic to Verdi’s Requiem at Judith Neilson’s Dangrove.
About Ronan Apcar
Ronan Apcar is a pianist, musician, and composer with a reputation of versatility, edge, and tenacity. His love for music across many styles – jazz to the avant-garde, contemporary art music to house music – translates into his open-minded, exciting, and unique work as a musician. Described as "a talent beyond his age" (Limelight Magazine) and “a force to be reckoned with” (ClassikON), Ronan is known for bold programming of contemporary repertoire, advocacy for Australian music, and a diverse musicmaking practice that includes performing, composing, arranging, improvising, curating, and collaborating.
An alumnus of the Australian National Academy of Music where he studied with Timothy Young, Ronan began as a self-taught pianist. He studied at the Sydney Conservatorium High School with Elizabeth Powell and then graduated dux of the ANU School of Music where he studied with Wendy Lorenz and Susanne Powell. During this time, Ronan also studied composition with many prolific Australian composers, including Stephen Leek, Christopher Sainsbury, Jodie Blackshaw, and Huw Belling.
Ronan performs in an eclectic mix of concerts and festivals in both intimate and large-scale venues across metropolitan and regional NSW, Victoria, and the ACT. Various performances range from soloist with Ensemble Apex to a multimedia DJ set for the opening of Machine Hall; collaborative performances in festivals including Sydney Festival, Canberra International Music Festival, Shepparton Festival; with organisations such as Moorambilla Voices, Luminescence Chamber Singers, Opera in the Country; and at venues ranging from rural Victorian town halls to the Sydney Opera House. He also appears as both soloist and collaborator in grassroots musical series playing experimental, electronic, and improvised music. Ronan is also the pianist with Ensemble Offspring.
As a composer, Ronan’s works tend to be split between either serious-natured works or more light-hearted, even silly pieces. Writing mainly solo and small ensemble works, he has received commissions from national institutions including Australian National Academy of Music, Canberra International Music Festival, Inspire Music Australia, and the National Carillon. He also creates collaboratively, especially in group improvised settings - mainly with Tsiran on works like Passing Electrical Storms, performed at the National Gallery of Victoria in response to a Shaun Gladwell XR artwork, and their forthcoming debut improvised album. Ronan is represented as an associate artist by the Australian Music Centre.
Through residencies at Bundanon and The Old School, Mt Wilson and supported by the Australian National University, Ronan has been developing his electronic music practice using keyboards/synthesisers, effects pedals, drum machines, and microphones. Combining performance, composition, and improvisation, Ronan has been creating medium-to-large scale structured improvised works, including one on a soon-to-be-released record, Break(ing)down.
Ronan’s debut album Dulcie Holland Crescent (2021) – featuring unpublished solo works by Australian legend Dulcie Holland – is an ABC Classic featured album. He recorded Holland’s unpublished masterpiece Concertino for Piano and Strings in 2025 with Ensemble Apex conducted by Sam Weller, shortly after reviving the work in 2022 with Canberra Sinfonia conducted by Leonard Weiss, for which he received a Canberra Critics’ Circle Award. Ronan has also been nominated for the prestigious Freedman Fellowship and received grants both privately and from all levels of public bodies for his work.
PAUL STANHOPE
phoSpheric Variations (versions for sax)
A modern Australian classic from one of our leading figures, ‘phoSpheric Variations’ is scintillating in its demand for vigour, drive, and rhythmic precision. Stanhope achieves a sense of epic storytelling in just a few, urgent minutes.
ELIZABETH JIGALIN
New work
World premiere
EINOJUHANI RAUTAAVARA
Notturno
What should be dissonant on paper turns out to be an extraordinarily colourful harmonic language; bright yet icy. As the piano defies gravity, a meandering saxophone line adds eerie intrigue, evoking images of a stroll through a Finnish forest in the middle of winter.
KEVIN JUILLERAT
L’Étang du Patriarche
Exploring the notes between notes and timbre beyond conventional playing, Juillerat’s ‘The Patriarch’s Pond’ is an arresting tribute to Mikhail Bulgakov’s ‘The Master and Margarita.’ A huge scope of expression is demanded, from the most calamitous climaxes to the quietest sounds of air, as the piano and saxophone play a strange version of cat-and-mouse.
ANDREW HOWES
The Eyes of the Earth
World premiere
A new arrangement of Sydney’s own Andrew Howes’ optimistic work inspired by the bush of our backyards - specifically, the endless cycle of renewal through the eyes of a lyrebird.
GERARD BROPHY
trois tableaux
i. …snowy afternoon in Balat
ii. Yerevan blues
iii. it rained all night….
World premiere
This three-movement work was written specifically for Alice and Ronan, following performances Gerard Brophy had heard. Evoking the lands of Turkey and Armenia, the luscious bed of sound Brophy creates for the saxophone’s final melodic flickers and fragments fades away for a grounding and centring finish.