AnnaSophia Robb is an American actress, model, and singer. She began as a child actress on television, making her feature film debut in Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), followed by the supporting role of Violet Beauregarde in Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Her performance as Leslie Burke in Bridge to Terabithia (2007) garnered her recognition and praise, and two Young Artist Awards. She received wider recognition and praise for playing surfer Bethany Hamilton in the 2011 film Soul Surfer and the lead role of Carrie Bradshaw on The CW's series The Carrie Diaries (2013–2014). In 2019, she played the role of Gypsy Blanchard's neighbor Lacey in the Hulu miniseries The Act.
Anohni Hegarty, styled as ANOHNI, is a British-born American singer, songwriter, and visual artist. She has presented solo work and as the lead singer of the band Anohni and the Johnsons, formerly known as Antony and the Johnsons.
Emma Donovan is an Aboriginal Australian singer and songwriter. She is a member of the renowned musical Donovan family. She started her singing career at age seven with her uncle's band, the Donovans. In 2000, she became a founding member of Stiff Gins, leaving the band three years later to release the solo album Changes in 2004. She performs with the Black Arm Band and released a solo EP, Ngaaraanga, in 2009.
Melbourne International Arts Festival, formerly Spoleto Festival Melbourne – Festival of the Three Worlds, then Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, becoming commonly known as Melbourne Festival, was a major international arts festival held in Melbourne, Australia, from 1986 to 2019. It was to be superseded by a new festival called Rising from 2020.
"Bombay" Jayashri Ramnath is an Indian Carnatic vocalist, singer, and musician. She has sung songs in multiple languages, including for Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi movies. Born into a family of musicians, Jayashri represents the fourth generation of music practitioners in her family. Trained by Lalgudi Jayaraman and T.R. Balamani. She was awarded India's fourth highest civilian award, the Padma Shri, in 2021. In December 2023, she was awarded the most prestigious award in the Carnatic music field, the Sangeetha Kalanidhi, by the Madras Music Academy. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song (Oscar) for Pi's Lullaby from Life of Pi movie. She has become one of the most sought-after Carnatic musicians today.
Liza Lim is an Australian composer. Lim writes concert music as well as music theatre and has collaborated with artists on a number of installation and video projects. Her work reflects her interests in Asian ritual culture, the aesthetics of Aboriginal art and shows the influence of non-Western music performance practice.
Ellen José (1951 – 2 June 2017) was an Australian Indigenous artist, photographer and anarchist. She was a Torres Strait Islander descendant from Murray, Darnley and Horn Islands who lived in Melbourne with husband and fellow anarchist Joseph Toscano.
Deborah Joy Cheetham Fraillon is an Aboriginal Australian soprano, actor, composer, and playwright. She leads Short Black Opera, based in Melbourne, which provides training and opportunities for emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander musical artists.
Megan Alexanda Washington is an Australian musician and songwriter who has worked mononymously as Washington. Originally performing jazz music, her style shifted to indie pop and alternative rock. She has released four studio albums, I Believe You Liar, There There, Batflowers, and Hot Fuss (2022). Both I Believe You Liar and There There reached the top 5 on the ARIA Albums Chart and Batflowers peaked in the top 25.
Laurel Anne Chartow, known professionally as Laurel Halo, is an American electronic musician currently based in Los Angeles, California. She released her debut album Quarantine on Hyperdub in 2012 to critical acclaim; it was named album of the year by The Wire.
Holly Mathieson is a New Zealand conductor and music academic.
Jonathan Patrick Wimberly is an American record producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer and mixing engineer best known as being one-half of the synth-pop duo Chairlift. The band parted ways in 2017 so Wimberly and former bandmate Caroline Polachek could focus on their careers as producers/songwriters.
Claudia O'Doherty is an Australian actress, writer, and comedian. She won the 2009 Melbourne Fringe Best Comedy Award and the Brisbane Comedy Festival Award for her debut show Monsters of the Deep 3D. She has appeared in several films and TV series, including starring roles in Love and Killing It.
Tilda Cobham-Hervey is an Australian actress. She made her film debut in 52 Tuesdays, a critically-acclaimed independent film directed by Sophie Hyde, and has also appeared on stage. She appeared in the 2020 film Hotel Mumbai, and starred as feminist icon Helen Reddy in the 2019 biopic I Am Woman. In 2023 she starred in the Amazon Prime TV series The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.
Genevieve Lacey is an Australian musician and recorder virtuoso, working as a performer, creator, curator and cultural leader. The practice of listening is central to her works, which are created collaboratively with artists from around the world. Lacey plays handmade recorders made by Joanne Saunders and Fred Morgan. In her collection, she also has instruments by David Coomber, Monika Musch, Michael Grinter, Paul Whinray and Herbert Paetzold.
Arooj Aftab is a Pakistani-American singer, composer, and producer. She has worked in various musical styles and idioms, including jazz and minimalism.
Sasha Berliner is an American vibraphonist and composer.
Alicia Lemke, known professionally as Alice and the Glass Lake, was an American singer.
Sophia Agranovich is a Ukrainian-born American classical concert pianist, recording artist, music educator and artistic director. She holds Bachelor and Master degrees from the Juilliard School, where she taught piano as a teaching fellow. She continued her doctoral studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her live performances and discography have won top international awards and critical acclaim. Her albums are charting in top 10 across all musical genres on One World Music Radio and on World Top Radio Airplay Charts. A Steinway Artist, she is concertizing at major venues worldwide, and has been described by Fanfare Magazine as "a bold, daring pianist in the tradition of the Golden Age Romantics" and praised by the American Record Guide for her "magnificent shading and superior musicianship."
Rising is a city-wide arts festival held in Melbourne, Australia. The festival was announced in 2020 as Melbourne's premier arts and culture festival, replacing the Melbourne International Arts Festival and White Night Festival, and is supported by the Victoria State Government. Following two attempts to launch the festival in 2020 and 2021 disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, Rising has been held annually each June in Melbourne from 2022. The festival has received praise for the depth and variety of its events and First Nations programming, whilst also receiving critiques about its ability to capture the purpose and identity of its predecessors.
