New Works | Arts Education | Community Works
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Short Bio
150 words
NATE GILKES is a Helpmann award winning musician, arts educator and artistic director working across disciplines of New Music Theatre, Arts Education and Training and Community Works. His practice sits at the collision points of music, theatre and opera, often using multi modes and artforms to convey story.
Nate composed the score for the Helpmann Award winning production, Robot Song with Arena Theatre Company (Best Production for Children and Young People), as well as scores for POWER (Force Majeure and Sydney Biennale), Hipbone Sticking Out (Big hART and Melbourne Festival), and Acoustic Life of Sheds (Ten Days on the Island). He is a former Artistic Director at Marian St Theatre for Young People in Sydney.
Nates holds degrees from the Victorian College of the Arts in Directing, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Education and currently completing an MFA in Cultural Leadership at NIDA.
Longer Bio
NATE GILKES is an award winning musician and artistic director working across disciplines of theatre, music and performance. As theatre maker, director, music director and performer, Nate’s artistic practice sits at the colliding points of music, theatre and opera. Drawing on art and popular music, opera and contemporary performance practice, Nate sees music and the sung voice as fundamental connectors to our own ancient, human story and the activating agent for making theatre.
Nate composed the score for the Helpmann Award winning production, Robot Song with Arena Theatre Company Best Production for Children and Young People), and is a former Artistic Director at Marian St Theatre for Young People in Sydney.
Recently he has worked across the country with many companies and in roles including Composition and Music Direction for POWER (Force Majeure and Sydney Biennale); Robot Song (Arena Theatre Company - Helpmann Award Winner 2019 for Best Performance for Children and Young People); A Kindling Throne (Arena Theatre Company - Work in development 2020)
As Artistic Director of Marian St Theatre for Young People, Nate created new youth driven works Testament, The Red Dust and Odyssey, Philip Pullman’s Grimm Tales as well as facilitating new writers and creators in works Nelly the Very Curious Elephant, Within Reach and Jack and the Beanstalk.
Direction for new musical Jack of Two Trades (Jeanne Pratt Artist in Residence, Monash University) and Death Comes Calling (Monash Centre for Performing Arts); Composition for The Acoustic Life of Sheds (with James Milsom, Big hART and Ten Days on the Island - APRA Art Music Award Winner); Music Direction for Hipbone Sticking Out (Big hART, Melbourne International Arts Festival); Blue Angel (Big hART, Tasmanian International Arts Festival); Delectable Shelter (The Hayloft Project); Collaborations with Rawcus; Vocal Direction for Murru (Big hART and Melbourne Festival); performing in Oedipus Rex/Symphony of Psalms (Sydney Philharmonia Choirs/ Sydney Festival); Parade (Federation University); For Lyric Opera of Melbourne he has directed Iphigenie en Tauride, Trouble in Tahiti and La Voix Humaine.
In 2011, he co-founded the Present Tense Ensemble with collaborator Bryce Ives. Works include: Ricercar, an immersive operatic event based on the music of JS Bach; Margaret Fulton: Queen of the Dessert (Theatreworks), Chants des Catacombes (Castlemaine State Festival) an immersive, macabre music theatre event; FOMO: the Fear of Missing Out (Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Melbourne International Comedy Festival); Good Morning MOFO (Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Malthouse); Common Ground (Arena Theatre Company and SEDA Arts); the #LOVELY WAR Project (Federation University), a town-wide activation based on Joan Littlewood’s Oh What a Lovely War and the Centenary of Anzac; and the innovative music event The Major Bruce Sessions.
In Arts Education, Nate continues to advocate for strong training for artists and young people, teaching at Marian St Theatre for Young People, The Sydney Opera House, Federation University, the Victorian College of the Arts, Opera Australia, The National Theatre Drama School, Monash University, GPACed, Artology’s WotOpera, and trains regularly with Fragment 31.
Nate holds degrees from the Victorian College of the Arts in Directing, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Education and Voice, is a NIDA graduate in Music Theatre and is currently a Masters student in Cultural Leadership at NIDA
Vocal Studio Bio (Schools Voice)
Nathan (Nate) Gilkes is a Helpmann Award winning musician, arts educator and voice teacher working across disciplines of theatre, music and community works.
Nate’s teaching practice specialises in contemporary singing, singing for theatre, and storytelling through song, and he has taught young artists in primary, secondary and tertiary levels including at NIDA, the VCA and AMPA.
He composed the score for the Helpmann Award winning production, Robot Song with Arena Theatre Company (Best Production for Children and Young People) which toured nationally and internationally. His work with young people, as previous Artistic Director at Marian St Theatre for Young People developed new youth driven music works and showcasing youth voices in the Arts.
He is a graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and is currently completing a masters in Cultural Leadership at NIDA. www.nategilkes.com