15 — 17 October
8pm — 9pm
North Magdalen Laundry
Standard: $35
Concession: $25
Live cello, resonating strings and movement interweave in a web of shimmering vibration in Nornir, a new multi-disciplinary work by cellist and composer Freya Schack-Arnott in collaboration with Trá Mi Dinh (dancer/choreographer) and Tilman Robinson (sound artist/engineer).
In a bold evolution of Schack-Arnott’s experimental and creative practice, the cello is augmented and expanded in space as the audience is taken on a visceral journey of disentangling and re-threading relationships.
Informed by stories of weaving, binding and restricting (transformation), Nornir will explore and reshape our relationship to the cello, the body and to sound.
Composer/Cellist: Freya Schack-Arnott
Choreographer/dancer: Trá Mi Dinh
Sound artist and engineer: Tilman Robinson
Lighting Designer/Production Manager: Siobhain Geaney
Producer: Michaela Coventry – Sage Arts
Freya Schack-Arnott (DK/AUS) is a contemporary cellist and nyckelharpist who has crafted a multi-faceted career as a performer, improviser, composer and curator; ranging from contemporary classical repertoire to experimental, electronics, folk and popular art forms.
As an improviser and composer, Schack-Arnott’s current projects include: Runa Cara (experimental/ambient folk duo with Irish-born singer/multi-instrumentalist Bonnie Stewart), The Cloud Maker (cross-cultural collaboration with 4 female musicians and winner of the the APRA Art Award ‘Best Performance of the Year 2023’), FSA/BW (experimental string duo with SSO bassist Benjamin Ward), as well as her ongoing solo composition project drawing on site-specific improvisations.
Schack-Arnott is privileged to have been selected as one of two young musicians for the prestigious 2025-26 FutureMaker program, awarded by Musica Viva Australia. She was also recently awarded Best Composition of Main Stage theatre production by Sydney Theatre Awards, for her role as composer and onstage cellist in the production “Grief is the thing with Feathers”, with Belvoir Theatre.
Alongside her contemporary practice, Schack-Arnott is engaged as an orchestral and sessions musician, including regular seasons with Australian Opera Ballet Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra and session work at Fox Studios, Australian Broadcasting Corporation and major commercial recording studios in Sydney and Melbourne. 2024 also saw extensive national touring with popular singer-songwriters such as Missy Higgins, Josh Pyke and Peter Garrett. Schack-Arnott’s performance career has taken her to all the major festivals of Australia as well as festivals across Asia and Europe. She is also co-founder and curator of the regular ‘Opus Now’ music series, an ongoing project exploring relationships between classical chamber-works and music of today.
