Composer

Biography

Yvette Audain was born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand, where prior to her Australian relocation in January 2012, she had already invested in a career as a prolific freelance composing musician. Her music has been performed throughout New Zealand as well as in Australia, Japan and the USA.

Yvette’s recent achievements include having her work ‘Eulogy’ read and recorded by the Auckland Philharmonia in their 2010 Graduate Composer Workshop, and subsequently programmed in the APO concert ‘Works With Words’ in association with the 2011 Writers and Readers Festival. Since 2008 Yvette has also been a member of the APO’s team of arrangers.

Recent commissions include ‘Three Auckland Nocturnes’ which was performed by the Auckland Mandolinata Orchestra at the 2008 FAME international mandolin orchestra festival in Sydney, ‘Walking Bach’ which was premiered by the same ensemble in Auckland, January 2011, and ‘Felix the Cat: The Magic Bag’, a short cartoon soundtrack for the APO Wind Quintet. In 2012 ‘A Charleston Kick With Steel Caps’ was included in the programme for Saxcess’s nationwide Chamber Music New Zealand tour.

March 2011 brought the well-attended ‘Grooves Unspoken: Music by Yvette Audain’, a self-curated programme consisting entirely of Yvette’s own music, at St Lukes Church, Remuera, Auckland. This was in proud association with the Auckland Fringe Festival, and was recorded for broadcast by Radio New Zealand Concert.

Yvette, whose instruments are clarinet, saxophones, recorders and Irish whistles, has worked professionally in a variety of genres: classical (APO; New Zealand Opera), military band (the full-time Royal New Zealand Navy Band), Celtic-style originals (trio ‘Doris’), gypsy (the Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band), and many more situations in between.

However, Yvette’s principal performance interest is early jazz. She has had the honour of leading the reed section of Brett’s New Internationals, New Zealand’s only authentic 1920s dance orchestra. Yvette has also lead a smaller ensemble affiliated to ‘APOPS’, the APO education programme, performing to school audiences around the Auckland region.

So far in Melbourne, where she is currently based, Yvette has become a member of the all-female Dixieland jazz band ‘Frilly Knickers’, performed with innovative ensemble Three Shades Black in the 2012 Melbourne Fringe Festival, and is in the process of forming her own smaller jazz ensembles and duos. She continues to perform her own compositions at events like the Surrey Hills Music Festival.

Yvette holds a Bachelor of Music in composition and clarinet from the University of Auckland, and a Bachelor of Music (First Class Honours) in composition and ethnomusicology from Victoria University of Wellington, where she subsequently completed her Master of Music (with Merit) in composition.

“I enjoyed performing and recording Yvette Audain’s ‘Eulogy’ for narrator and orchestra very much. Such a warmth of texture and harmonies which created a sympathetic palette for Olivia Macassey’s word painting” – Kenneth Young

“Yvette’s music always has a freshness of her own, often a quirky sense of humour, and an artistic freedom, especially in the more Eastern-style pieces I’ve heard or played in other Auckland performances, such as APO composition workshops, APO commissioned arrangements for youth concerts, 175 East, APO’s Remix, APOPS ensemble concerts, and the Clocktower Concerts of The Committee.” – Katherine Hebley, cellist, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and 175 East

Awards
Bishop Junior (1996) and Senior (1997) Scholarships
Llewellyn Jones Prize in Music for Piano (1999)
Graduate scholarship from the New Zealand Federation of University Women (2001)
2nd place in the Sky City Auckland Wind Orchestra Composers’ Competition (1998)
Several placings in the Auckland University Lilburn Composition Prize Concerts (1996 – 4th; 1998 – 1st; 1999 – highly commended)

Source: Yvette Audain, October 2012