self-produced projects

Referees provided on request

---

Founding Artistic Director, Ruthless Jabiru; London, UK — 2011 to present
Creative direction, musical direction and management of a chamber orchestra of professional Australasian musicians in the UK

• Devising/curating contemporary music-led projects around humanitarian & social justice themes 
• Building Creative Partnerships with artist-Activists, NGOs and other initiatives from the music, campaigning and creative sectors
• Creating and maintaining an evolving database of professional Australasian musicians in the UK
• Researching, recruiting and leading a team of 20-40 members per project
• Overseeing all aspects of production and performance
• Researching, developing and implementing a portfolio of composer collaborations and commissioning projects
• Building an online and concertgoing audience through dedicated social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X)
• Creating and maintaining a dedicated orchestra website: ruthlessjabiru.com
• Writing/issuing a monthly newsletter to all subscribers (ruthlessjabiru.com & kellylovelady.com): Ruthless original
• Devising/managing all aspects of fundraising, finance, resourcing & business development

VENUE PARTNERSHIPS

• Arcola Theatre, LSO St Luke’s, Union Chapel, Hackney Showroom, King’s College London, Australia House London, Omnibus Clapham, Arts Theatre West End, St George’s Headstone

FESTIVAL PARTNERSHIPS

• Grimeborn Festival, Joy & Dissent Festival of Cultural Activism, British Council: UK/Australia Season, Australia & New Zealand Festival of Literature & Arts

PROJECT SUPPORT & SPONSORSHIP

• Mayor of London’s Back to Business Fund, Nonclassical, Sound and Music, Creative Europe, Creative Climate Leadership, Kulturno Izobraževalno Društvo PiNA, Julie’s Bicycle, Culture Unstained, Australia Council for the Arts/Creative Australia, Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, Creative Partnerships Australia, Australian Cultural Fund, Tait Memorial Trust, West Australian Government in Europe, Australian Business, Westfield Shoppingtowns Limited, Westpac Institutional Banking, Mighty Bright, Slingshot Sponsorship, Barbican Centre, Limelight Magazine, Chineke! Orchestra & Foundation, Oneworld Publications, Pen and Sword Books, Pluto Press, Masks for Music, Crowdfunder, Easyfundraising

PRESS COVERAGE

• Gramophone, Tempo, BBC London, BBC World Service, I Care If You Listen, The Quietus, Bandcamp Daily, Night After Night, The Wire, BBC Radio 3, Eavesdropping Conversations, Seen and Heard International, Limelight Magazine, Other Minds, International Arts Manager, The Times, The Sunday Times, Britain Magazine, ABC Arts, Australian Music Centre, Resonate Magazine, Sound and Music, The Sampler, Faber Music Fortissimo, Musical Pointers, Orpheus Complex, ABC Radio National, Classical Source, Noted, Gig Magazine, Music Council of Australia, Music Forum, Loudmouth, Australian Times

Curator, Mixtapes [kellylovelady.com] — 2022 to present
Fortnightly cross-genre playlists of experimental music with a view to expanding the definition of “contemporary classical”: kellylovelady.com/category/mixtapes 

• Commissioned mixtapes for The Voice of Cassandre, Nonclassical Selects, Cortona Sessions for New Music, Music Patron

Post-production, Soosan Lolavar x Ruthless Jabiru [Girl]; London, UK — 2023-2024

• Preparing and collating feedback on 7 rounds of edits with composer and soloists
• Communicating notes to mastering engineer
• Liaison with engineer and label staff (Nonclassical) on track/album metadata 
• Overseeing commissioning of album artwork, sleeve design, liner notes
• Researching and hiring a publicity team (Ramp Global PR) to support the album release
• Identifying media targets and overseeing album launch strategy/PR campaign
• Collaborating with composer, label staff and publicist on press release
• Devising a concept for a music video to support the release
• Researching and commissioning 3 key video artist-Activists with lived experience of displacement
• Sourcing archive and supporting materials from refugee musician organisations in Lebanon, Italy and Colombia
• Providing creative direction and musical guidance to selected video artists over a 6-month period
• Devising/managing an album launch party to include an exclusive premiere screening of the video art
• Researching and securing a launch party venue (Close-Up Cinema)
• Writing personalised invitations to key industry contacts, stakeholders & full project team
• All online and social media marketing on behalf of Ruthless Jabiru and my professional conductor profile
• Budget management and communication with supporting grant bodies

[Saviet is] accompanied with muscular elegance by the brilliantly named, London-based, Australasian activist chamber orchestra Ruthless Jabiru and conductor Kelly Lovelady—who sustain a fever-pitch intensity throughout this gripping debut album … it’s a knockdown debut.

night after night

Conductor/Producer, Ruthless Jabiru x Soosan Lolavar [Girl]; London, UK — 2023

• Raising more than £42,000 to support debut album recording and post-production
• Liaison with composer Soosan Lolavar to source scores, partsets 
• Commissioning one new work and one new arangement
• Liaison with Musicians’ Union on recording rates and best practices
• Creating project timeline and orchestral rehearsal schedule
• Recruiting a team of 30 professional musicians and production staff
• Researching and securing recording venue and stage furniture
• Meetings and conductor rehearsals with 3 soloists
• Rehearsing and recording 4 major works over 4 days

Conductor/Producer, Ruthless Jabiru x Decibel New Music Ensemble x Brunel Museum x British Council: UK/Australia Season [The Holy Presence of]; London, UK — 2022
Ruthless Jabiru and Decibel New Music Ensemble (Australia) unite for a massed bass orchestra performance in Brunel’s Thames Tunnel shaft with composer-soloist Cat Hope as part of the British Council’s UK/Australia Season. Music by Kaija Saariaho, Lindsay Vickery, Tansy Davies, Pedro Alvarez, Julius Eastman & Cat Hope: ruthlessjabiru.com/programmes

• Researching conducted repertoire and graphic scores for bass orchestra
• Co-devising musical programme with Decibel’s Artistic Director Cat Hope
• Sourcing scores/parts and creating arrangements for bass orchestra
• Researching London rehearsal/performance spaces and securing Venue Partnerships
• Liaising with local suppliers for equipment and stage furniture
• Creating project timeline and orchestral rehearsal schedule
• Devising conceptual/creative narrative around the impacts of climate change on northern Wales
• Liaising with Activists and creatives dedicated to climate action in Fairbourne, Gwynedd  
• Recruiting and leading a team of 25 orchestral players, creatives and production staff
• Budget management and payroll
• Sourcing/creating graphics and marketing imagery
• Creation and management of event pages and ticketing interface
• Devising/implementing online and social media promotional strategy
• Approaching media targets for previews and reviews
• Sending invitations to personal industry contacts
• Longform collaborative interview with Cat Hope for Decibel Journal: The Holy Presence of
• Liaison/co-creation with composer Cat Hope on world premiere of Never at Sea
• Supported in part by a Career Development grant from Creative Australia

Driving, repetitive rhythms were pushed hard, with a strong sense of urgency imparted by director Kelly Lovelady. There was something relentless and unaccommodating about this performance … as if the audience were uninvited guests at a private ritual.

planet hugill

Lovelady kept the collective ensemble tight, and the five-strong double bass section came into its own. The literally vibrant experience of being so close to massed basses will stay with me for a long time … [an] imaginative, powerful programme.

i care if you listen

Campaign Manager, Ruthless Jabiru x Crowdfunder [Ruthless Jabiru: Studio Pivot]; 2020
Fundraiser to support album recording project in collaboration with composer Soosan Lolavar in lieu of live orchestral performances during Covid 

• Devising a 4-week online fundraising campaign and social media strategy
• Securing product donations in kind from Barbican Centre, Limelight Magazine, Chineke! Orchestra & Foundation, Oneworld Publications, Pen and Sword Books, Pluto Press, Masks for Music, Nonclassical 
• Designing/managing campaign website and donation interface
• Writing to past and prospective individual donors
• Daily social media posts/interactions for duration of campaign
• Securing matchfunding from the Mayor of London’s Back to Business Fund
• Raising £10,665 in 28 days

Conductor/Producer, Ruthless Jabiru x Arcola Theatre x Grimeborn Festival [Silk Moth]; London, UK — 2019
Fully-staged realisation of music by Bushra El-Turk, Liza Lim and Cassandra Miller in collaboration with director Heather Fairbairn: ruthlessjabiru.com/programmes 

• Devising musical programme around Bushra El-Turk’s chamber opera Silk Moth
• Pitching proposal to Grimeborn Festival producers
• Recruiting and leading a team of 20 musicians, cast, creatives & production staff
• Sourcing scores/parts and creating piano reductions of all scores
• Securing rehearsal Venue Partnerships in kind
• Creating project timeline and rehearsal schedule
• Liaising with Activists and creatives supporting survivors of honour crime
• Budget management and payroll
• Sourcing/creating all marketing graphics and copywriting
• Devising and implementing online and social media promotional strategy
• Writing and distributing production press releases
• Liaising with festival PR/publicity team
• Longform interview for Composers Edition: On staging Bushra El-Turk’s Silk Moth this August for Grimeborn
• Conducting all calls across an intensive 5-week rehearsal season and 5-show run
• Nomination for 2020 True Honour Awards (Iranian & Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation): annual celebration of individuals/organisations who have taken a stand against ‘honour’-based abuse

Kelly Lovelady conducted with masterful sensitivity throughout … [her] carefully considered programming makes abundant conceptual sense … It was one of the most remarkable musical experiences of my year … demanding that we look and listen. A sincere and sensitive exploration of ethnicity, domesticity and violence.

tempo: a quarterly review of new music

Utterly captivating … This was a daring and powerful theatrical evening which lasted less than an hour, but whose emotion will resonate for far longer.

i care if you listen

Conductor/Producer, Ruthless Jabiru x King’s College London [The Drowners]; London, UK — 2018
Baritone Morgan Pearse and Ruthless Jabiru in collaboration with the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies — programme of Nicole Lizée, Rosa Lind, Andrew Ford, Wolfgang Rihm, Fausto Romitelli: ruthlessjabiru.com/programmes

Delicate, dedicated modernism … as ever with this orchestra the performance standards were impressively high, especially given the technical demands of the music.

the arts desk

Conductor/Producer, Ruthless Jabiru x Hackney Showroom x Joy & Dissent: Festival of Cultural Activism [Fuel]; London, UK — 2017
Ruthless Jabiru at Joy & Dissent: Festival of Cultural Activism — programme of Julia Wolfe, Gloria Coates, Cat Hope, Michael Cryne, Osvaldo Golijov: ruthlessjabiru.com/programmes