Biography

Joseph Tabua is the founder of Tabua Harrison, a progressive jazz/rock-fusion duo with fellow Australian composer Holly Harrison. Tabua is pioneering innovative composition techniques and cross cultural improvisation. Similarly, Tabua’s sound world embodies large slabs of colours that juxtapose world music influences with aleatoric and minimalist finesse. Again, Tabua’s Australian and Fijian heritage are intertwined profoundly thus creating an electrifying and distinct compositional voice. In February 2016, Tabua was the recipient of the Australian Postgraduate Award and began his PhD in creative arts at Western Sydney University.

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Composer website:  https://josephtabua.com/

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Featured Works

The Robot (For Colin Wilson), for Piano, Synthesizer,Vintage Drum Machine.

The Robot was inspired by English writer and philosopher Colin Wilson. In particular Wilson’s exploration into the heights and depths of consciousness. “The robot is a servant, a valet. A type of servant who does things for you. So you learn something like talking French, driving a car or skiing, painfully and consciously, step by step. Then the robot takes it over and does it far more quickly and efficiently than you could do it consciously. However the important thing is not to interfere with the robot once he has learned it because you’ll completely screw him up if you do. Now the problem is the robot does all these valuable things like talking French and so on for us. The trouble is that he also does the things we do not want him to do.”

Featured in Human Waves (October 2018)