Biog
Melbourne-based musician Anastasia Russell-Head completed her Master of Music Performance in 2008 at the Victorian College of the Arts, having studied harpsichord with Priscilla Alderton, Elizabeth Anderson and John O’Donnell. She is especially interested in extending the harpsichord and its repertoire beyond the baroque ‘pigeon hole’ and into the worlds of theatre, film and improvisation. In 2009 she undertook a residency in solo performance at Victoria University, featured in Ranters Theatre Company’s Affection at The Arts Centre, and launched a new performance series with harpsichord and percussion duo The Tea Set (with Leah Scholes).
Fusing baroque and contemporary improvised music, Expire: Double-Bill was Highly Commended at the 2008 Melbourne Fringe Festival awards. 2008 also saw the continuation of Anastasia’s collaboration with theatre company With the Teeth in another sell-out season at the Butterfly Club, as well as performing with Melbourne Lyric Opera and with Dean Arcuri at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. As one half of the duo Beautiful Rubble (with Fernando Ariel Gallardo), she won the inaugural City of Perth Award for Most Innovative Act at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.
2007 saw the premiere of Listening to Trees, a collaborative music piece presented in the Melbourne Fringe Festival, the composition and presentation of work for Musicircus in the Melbourne International Arts Festival, and travelling to Belgium to compete in the Bruges International Harpsichord Competition, as well as the creation and performance of music for the sell-out I’ve Written a Letter to Daddy at the Melbourne Fringe Festival (With the Teeth).
Anastasia has extensive performance experience across many genres, including cabaret, early music, experimental music, theatre and opera; has appeared at the Melbourne International Arts Festival (2006, 2007) Melbourne Fringe Festival (2004, 2007, 2008) and Melbourne Comedy Festival (2005, 2007, 2008); and has been broadcast on 3MBS and SBS radio. She is a recipient of the Alan C. Rose Memorial Project Grant (2006), and of the Marion Isabel Thomas Prize (2008).