Meet the Team

BackStage Music brings together a strong team behind the scenes of technical and financial support. To present a Series of concerts featuring local artists showcasing local, national and international talent. The Series is curated by flautist Lamorna Nightingale who has a strong connection with the Sydney music scene through her work as a performer in Ensemble Offspring and personal artistic projects. The organisation was founded by Lamorna Nightingale and Elizabeth Jigalin in 2016 and has benefitted from the generous contributions of expertise and time by many artists along its journey, thank you to you all!

COMMITTEE

Lamorna Nightingale

Lamorna Nightingale, Artistic Director, is a freelance flautist, concert presenter, educator and publisher who is passionate about the future of art music in Australia. She has many years experience working in the orchestral sector and is a core member of the new music group, Ensemble Offspring. Lamorna Nightingale’s transformative contribution to new Australian music spans many recordings and performances, the presentation of unique concerts experiences, and multiple pedagogical volumes published via her company, Fluteworthy.

Lamorna founded BackStage Music back in 2016 with composer Elizabeth Jigalin as a way to support more innovative music making in Sydney.

Damian Barbeler

Damian Barbeler, BackStage Music Creative Producer is an award-winning composer and multimedia artist. His works have been performed and broadcast around the world. His work, often combines multiple art forms and is recognised for his unique visually inspired style, especially his lush, emotional creations inspired by textures and patterns in nature. He regularly collaborates with colleagues from diverse fields including film, architecture, software design, media arts, dance and more. He frequently makes multi-art works incorporating film, theatrical and sculptural elements with music. He is a lecturer in composition and music technology at Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Kate Tribe

With a career spanning the financial services, arts, and health/community sectors, Kate brings creativity, strategic planning, and problem-solving skills. She combines her expertise in quantitative data analysis with her talent for engaging people, creating meaningful connections, and delivering end-to-end value.

Kate spent a decade at CommBank in customer data insights and outcome delivery. She earlier founded Tribe Research, a quantitative market and social research company, which she led for two decades. As the founder and former director of classikON, Kate championed independent musicians, promoting classical and new music performed in unique spaces.

As a visual artist, Kate’s work reflects the calm and joy of everyday moments in abstract designs. Deeply connected to the practice of stitching on trains, her art explores the therapeutic nature of creativity, the power of social interaction, and the ever-changing beauty of landscapes glimpsed from a train carriage.

Naomi Johnson

Naomi Johnson is a versatile arts manager and flautist passionate about creating strong, resilient communities within the Australian performing arts. She completed a Masters of Business (Arts and Cultural Management) at Deakin University in 2024, pivoting from eight years of music programming for ABC Classic to fundraising with the Opera Australia Capital Fund.

As a flautist, Naomi enjoys creating intimate, playful spaces at the intersection of music and speech. She has been involved with BackStage Music since its inception, performing with The Music Box Project to open for yMusic in 2016 and as part of a hectic reimagining of The Flight of the Bumblebee by Elia Bosshard in 2017.

Sean Sexton

Sean Sexton is a Melbourne based lawyer with a PhD, and a recently published satire of the legal profession. He has a lifelong passion for music – either listening to it, watching it performed live – or making it with modular and analog synthesisers – or guitars and fretless bass. Back far in time, he fronted the art rock band, the Holocene Lard Factory, covering songs by AC/DC with a vacuum cleaner.

Rory Knott - Production Coordinator

Rory Knott

Rory is a composer, ethnomusicologist, and multi-instrumentalist. He is a masters graduate from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and casual academic, as well as working closely with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra as part of their production team. Rory’s compositions offer an emergence of styles and genres taking influence from his work in Chinese music and studies of jazz, funk, rock, world, and contemporary art music. Rory was first a part of BackStage Music when he performed in one of their concerts with his new music ensemble SPIRAL in 2017. He studied Backstage Music as part of his honours thesis, and joined their production team in 2024.

Alex Fontaine

Alex Fontaine is an experienced freelance Oboist with a career including professional engagements in symphony, opera, ballet, musical theatre orchestras as well as chamber music and circus. In 2022, he returned home to Australia after performing as Oboe + Cor Anglais soloist and character with Cirque du Soleil in their resident show Drawn To Life at Disney World Orlando, Florida.

Since returning he has settled back into performing as a casual musician regularly with The Opera Australia Orchestra with whom he has been a member for over thirty seasons of opera and ballet since 2012. Alex also performs regularly with the Sydney Philharmonia, Sydney Symphony, The Metropolitan Orchestra and professional musical theatre productions.

First Nations Subcommittee

Kaleena Briggs

Kaleena is an Indigenous Australian singer and songwriter, renowned as one half of the acclaimed duo Stiff Gins, alongside Nardi Simpson. Born in Melbourne, Kaleena hails from the Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta peoples of southern New South Wales and northern Victoria. Formed in 1999, Stiff Gins have garnered recognition for their unique blend of stunning harmonies and insightful songwriting. They have released several albums, including "Origins" in 2001 and "Kingia Australis" in 2005, both showcasing their deep connection to their cultural heritage.

Elias Wilson

Elias Wilson, is a Biripi man, audio describer, classical tenor and Aboriginal arts administrator, whose work occupies the intersection of old art forms and new audiences. As an Audio Describer, he has delivered live theatre & event audio description for Riverside Theatres, Darlinghurst Theatre Company, and Sydney WorldPride, and has also described visual art, with a focus on First Nations work, for the National Portrait Gallery Canberra, NGV Melbourne, State Library of Victoria, and galleries at UQ and UNSW. As a singer, Elias is a sought-after opera, oratorio and chamber performer, and has appeared with Pinchgut Opera, the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, and Victorian Opera. Elias balances his creative practice with work for Backstage Music, and ACHAA, the NSW Aboriginal Culture, Heritage & Arts Association.

Laura Case

Laura is a proud Wiradjuri woman and lecturer in musicology at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She completed her PhD at the end of 2023 and is passionate about using music to reframe Indigenous histories and reclaim Indigenous knowledge. Laura is a classical violinist with over 25 years of performing and teaching experience. She has performed with pioneering Indigenous hip hop artist Rhyan Clapham (DOBBY), Aboriginal country singer Uncle Roger Knox and is a member of Deborah Cheetham Fraillon's Ensemble Dutala - Australia's only Aboriginal chamber ensemble. In 2024, Laura performed on stage with Ensemble Dutala at the annual Garma Festival in East Arnhem Land.

Access and Inclusion Subcommittee

Georgia Scott

Georgia studied a BMus (Hons) at the Royal College of Music in London and an MMus at the Sydney Conservatorium, participating in the 2018-2019 Composing Women Program. Georgia’s music aims to explore identity and lived experience, with her music often exploring the lived experience of disability. Her works My3LiNAti0nS for solo flute, performed by renowned flautist Claire Chase, The Ghost in the Machine, written for UK-based natural horn specialist Isaac Shieh; and her Chamber Opera Her Dark Marauder, performed by Sydney Chamber Opera, all seek to explore the lived experience of disability in music. Alongside composition, Georgia is a strong advocate for artists with disability, sharing her research into the representation of women with disability in music at Harvard and Columbia universities and working as an access facilitator for BackStage Music. In 2021, Georgia’s Opera Her Dark Marauder was a finalist for Work of the Year: Dramatic in the APRA AMC Art Music Awards, and Georgia received the Australia Council for the Arts Young Artist Award at the 2021 National Arts and Disability Awards.

Ria Andriani is a musician, writer and advocate for disability and the arts. She has been involved with Backstage since 2022.
Ria writes by day and sings whenever she can. She has been involved for several years with Sydney Chamber Choir and has performed solo in Sydney and the UK. Ria is passionate about access for people with disability in all places, including on stage and online. Follow her on www.facebook.com/RiaAndrianiWriterAndMusician

Philippa Horn, design and website support. With over 20 years experience within the arts, Philippa has demonstrated a strong commitment to the sector. Having worked with many companies including the International Society of Contemporary Music, Artology and Graeme Wood Foundation, New Music Network, Aurora Festival, Australian Music Centre, The Song Company, Salut! Baroque and Pinchgut Opera.