About

Tura’s founder, Artistic Director and CEO, Tos Mahoney has played a pivotal role in the experimental music and cultural sector in Australia over the last 35 years. Starting Evos, the predecessor of Tura in 1987, he has contributed as both an artist/musician and a producer during that time. Tos’s role as Artistic Director, curator and arts advocate has seen the initiation and roll out of a whole raft of projects and programs across Australia and internationally.

Carly is the former CEO of Arts Capital Limited and Director of Ainslie and Gorman Art Centres. With over 25 years’ creative experience working at the intersection of community cultural development, interpretive design, and social justice initiatives, Carly brings a deep understanding of Australian culture and social justice initiatives to the role. She is a Winston Churchill Fellow and has worked in senior positions nationally and internationally, bridging First Nation’s artists, enterprise, and productions with organisations including the National Museum of Australia, FORM, the National Gallery of Australia, the Western Australian Museum and Thylacine Design. Carly is excited to support the team, artists, and partners, to facilitate cultural knowledge, exchange, storytelling and connection.

Originally engaging with Tura as a performer locally and regionally, Tristen now holds the position of Producer. A broad skill set both on and off the stage, Tristen curates, develops, presents, and tours new work and existing programs. He works closely with artists and creatives providing artistic and technical support to fully realise work and create engaging and meaningful experiences.

Rachel joins Tura as Communications Manager following her experience working in media, advocacy and policy roles. She’s spent her career working to bring attention to issues that matter in the not for profit sector - including the country’s largest community legal centre, and a financial rights NGO. She’s worked across all levels of government in different Australian states. She’s advised the Lord Mayor of Sydney, been a chief of staff to a federal senator, and most recently worked as senior policy adviser for a gender equality team reporting to the WA Minister for Women.

Annika is a sound artist with an eclectic and genre-diverse practice. She performs under the monikers Nika Mo, Great Statue, and contributes to the local ecology of experimental sound both as an individual and as a co-director of Tone List label. Annika facilitates sound-based creative projects with Martu, Gija, Bunuba, Gooniyandi and Walmatjarri language groups.

Musician, researcher and educator Dr Gillian Howell is a musical connector and changemaker whose creative practice and applied research investigate the social, cultural and political contributions of place-based community music making. Much of her work concerns music in peacebuilding, community dialogue, and self-determination in places recovering from war, crisis, or disaster. Her work has taken her around Australia and the world, including to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, Norway, Kosovo and North Macedonia, and she has delivered research consultancies for Save the Children Middle East, Musicians Without Borders, Tura, and the Sri Lanka Norway Music Cooperation. Gillian is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne and has been the director of Tura’s Sound FX community music partnership program in the Kimberley since it began in 2017.

Philip Samartzis is a sound artist, scholar, and curator with a specific interest in the social and environmental conditions informing remote wilderness regions and their communities. His art practice is based on deep fieldwork where he deploys complex sound recording technology to capture natural, anthropogenic, and geophysical forces. The recordings are used within exhibition and performance to demonstrate the transformative effects of sound within a contemporary art context. He is particularly interested in concepts of perception, immersion, and embodiment to provide audiences with sophisticated encounters of space and place.

Acknowledged as one of Australia’s finest didjeridu players, Mark Atkins is also recognised internationally for his collaborative projects with some of the world’s leading composers and musicians. A descendant of Western Australia’s Yamitji people, as well as of Irish/Australian heritage, Mark is known not only for his masterly playing, but also as a storyteller, composer, percussionist, visual artist and instrument maker. Mark has performed alongside and composed with artists such as Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, Sinead O’Connor, Philip Glass, Donald Lunney, Ornette Coleman, Peter Sculthorpe, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Gondwana, Jenny Morris, John Williamson, James Morrison, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO). He is a founding member of Black Arm Band.

Erkki Veltheim is an Australian/Finnish composer and performer. His practice spans noise, audiovisual installation, improvisation, notated music, electroacoustic composition, pop arrangements and cross-disciplinary performance. Erkki has been commissioned by the Adelaide Festival, Vivid Festival, Australian Art Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Musica nova Helsink and composed the orchestral works for celebrated Australian indigenous musician Gurrumul's posthumous album Djarimirri.