ABOUT ECOTORIO
Commissioned by Play It Forward, ECOTORIO has been composed by our award-winning Artistic Director Jonathon Welch AM and former International tour conductor of 'The TEN Tenors’ Dave Newington.
ECOTORIO is an exciting, genre diverse and game changing musical snapshot
of the current state of climate change events around the
world, that includes the harrowing and the hopeful.
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ABOUT THE COMPOSERS
Dave Newington
Alumni of The University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Music, Dave is actively engaged as a pianist, producer and educator and is a sought after performer, arranger and director in a range of genres. He also has experience in music copyright, artist, venue and promoter advocacy through his work at APRA AMCOS and as a Music Victoria Artist Advisory Board member. Dave has many career standouts, one being as Pianist/Conductor for Australian classical crossover giants The TEN Tenors on a number of world tours and albums. He has also musically directed and performed for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2011 and accompanied, arranged and artistically coordinated the Victorian State School Spectacular under the musical direction of Mr Chong Lim. Dave is a passionate contributor and advocate for independent songwriters and performers, students and of programs that brings music to diverse communities, as his work with Play It Forward allows him to do.
Jonathon Welch
Jonathon Welch AM is a multi award winning singer, conductor, teacher, songwriter and recording artist with a career spanning over thirty years. Making his debut with Dame Joan Sutherland at the Sydney Opera House in the ‘Merry Widow’ 1988 Jonathon has over sixty stage roles to his credit and has performed extensively in Opera, musicals, G&S and in concert alongside many of the world’s greatest singers, directors and conductors including kd Lang, Baz Luhrmann, and Richard Bonynge to name a few.
In 2007, Jonathon’s work creating choirs for the homeless and disadvantaged in Australia was the subject of the internationally acclaimed ARIA, Logie and Helpmann award winning TV documentary ‘Choir of Hard Knocks’, also creating the ‘Jailbirds’ documentary in the Victorian Women’s Prisons and was a Judge on the highly successful ‘Battle of the Choirs’ TV series for Channel 7.
Jonathon has been recognised for his outstanding thirty year commitment to the music industry, youth music education and his work with marginalised and homeless communities with the Australian of the Year Local Hero 2008, ANZAC of the Year 2009, an Honourary Doctorate and an Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2009 and an Honourary Fellow of the Australian Council of Educational Leaders.
In 2009 Jonathon created and launched ‘Social Inclusion Week’ making Australia the only country in the world to celebrate Social Inclusion nationally, and in September 2012 launched his vision for the future of arts, cultural and wellbeing programs and training for those experiencing homelessness and disadvantage with the ‘School of Hard Knocks’ and 'Play It Forward' in 2018.