Kelly Lovelady — Conductor Biography [500 words]
Kelly Lovelady is an Australian conductor-curator and cultural activist with a passion for experimental programming, concert dramaturgy and composer advocacy. She is the founding Artistic Director of Ruthless Jabiru: a chamber orchestra of Australasian musicians in the UK forging projects which explore humanitarian and social justice stories through New music. Lovelady has devised, self-produced and conducted massed musical and cross-artform projects for festivals around the world and is in demand in the UK and abroad as a Musical Director and Guest Conductor with a focus on contemporary repertoire and composer collaboration.
Recent projects have included Ruthless Jabiru’s The Holy Presence of, a site-specific bass orchestra performance beneath the River Thames centring the plight of the UK’s first climate refugees; Girl, Ruthless Jabiru’s debut album in collaboration with composer Soosan Lolavar; and video art direction for the album’s single Undone, working alongside visual artists with lived experience of displacement. In the operatic space, Lovelady served as Assistant Conductor for the world premiere production of the Michael Hersch/Stephanie Fleischmann opera Poppaea for Zeiträume Basel and Wien Modern; and as returning Musical Director for Gothic Opera’s Der Vampyr revival, conducting the world premiere of her own chamber reimagination to widespread critical acclaim.
Previous projects by Ruthless Jabiru have mobilised contemporary music, immersive theatre concepts and extramusical framing to explore ideas around asylum policy, ethical sponsorship in the cultural sector, honour crime, historic nuclear testing at Maralinga, and an homage to poet-Activist Oodgeroo Noonuccal.
Career highlights have included repeat invitations to Cluster New Music & Integrated Arts Festival (Canada), Cortona Sessions for New Music (Italy), Art Pop at Pop Montreal International Music Festival, Grimeborn Opera Festival (UK) and City of London Festival; conducting members of London Symphony Orchestra side-by-side with Guildhall School Orchestral Artistry students; assisting an all-Gloria Coates programme with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; Assistant Conductor for George Benjamin’s Written on Skin at Theater und Orchester Sankt Gallen; headline billing at Joy & Dissent Festival of Cultural Activism (UK); performance interventions for Greenpeace; masterclasses with London Sinfonietta; and a jump in as rehearsal conductor for Simon Rattle’s Young Orchestra for London. Following the launch of Ruthless Jabiru, Lovelady was presented to HM The Queen and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh at a red carpet event at Buckingham Palace as an Australian cultural ambassador.
Lovelady has Bachelor and Masters degrees respectively from the University of Western Australia and University of Manitoba, Canada; and Certificates of Advanced Study from the Hochschule für Musik Basel (Curating Contemporary Music) and Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana (Contemporary Repertoire Conducting).
Her voracity for musical exploration and discovery has led to engagement as a panellist for Classical:NEXT, Australian Music Centre, Australian Performing Rights Association, International Society for Contemporary Music, Sound and Music (UK), Tait Memorial Trust (UK) and the Australia & New Zealand Festival of Literature & Arts (UK); a guest for BBC World Service, BBC Radio London, Rondo Magazin (DE), ABC Radio National and CKUW 95.9 Winnipeg; and as a guest curator for The Voice of Cassandre, The Sampler Mixtape and Nonclassical Selects.
