ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Joseph Lallo

        JOSEPH LALLO

Joseph Lallo is a Lecturer of Music at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne, and performs internationally as a soloist, chamber musician, and conductor. He is the Artistic Director for Melbourne Saxophone and the Melbourne International Saxophone Festival.

Joseph has performed and given masterclasses throughout Europe, North America, and the Asia Pacific, including concerts with the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria and The Australian Ballet, and as a soloist with China’s Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra and Melbourne's Pro Musica Orchestra. He is a member of the chamber music ensembles Collide with cellist Yelian He and pianist Yasmin Rowe and Duo Obax with oboist Briana Leaman. In 2021 a work by Luke Severn written for Duo Obax and Yasmin Rowe, and other lines, was released by ABC Classic. The recording quickly became a regular feature on ABC Classic FM and was included in their 2021 ‘Best of Australian Classical Music’ playlist. 

Joseph’s work as a music curator explores how our experience of music can serve as a model for our connection with each other and the world around us.  His sold-out show Her Lover’s Shadow combined dance, lighting, and Australian new music to tell a story of love, loss, and memory. Joseph’s longtime artistic partnership with Jade Norfolk has led to their creation Sound of Water, a spatialised and multisensory concert that will include eight world-premiere pieces by Australian composers, to be premiered in Melbourne in 2022.

Passionate about performing new music, Joseph has premiered over 30 pieces for saxophone, including works by Keyna Wilkins, Jean-François Zygel, Tómas Gubitsch, May Lyon, and Luke Severn’s Ex Post Facto, Concerto for Alto Saxophone and String Orchestra. Premieres planned for 2022 include Kate Tempany’s Yield - for Alto Saxophone and Two Loop Pedals, and five new pieces for saxophone duo to be recorded with US saxophonist Clifford Leaman. In Strasbourg, Joseph performed the French premiere of Roger Boutry’s Concerto for Alto and Soprano Saxophone in the presence of the composer, and was a featured artist on Katy Abbot’s CD, Sunburnt Aftertones. 

A graduate of The University of Melbourne, Joseph was awarded the Catherine Grace McWilliam Bequest for achieving the highest result in his Bachelor of Music. As the winner of the Donovan-Johnston Travel Scholarship, he went on to study with Marie-Bernadette Charrier at the Bordeaux Conservatoire de Musique in France, and later completed both a Masters of Saxophone Performance and a Masters of Orchestral and Opera Conducting at the Strasbourg Haute École des Arts du Rhin with Philippe Geiss and Theodor Guschlbauer. Joseph has been the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, including a Research Training Program Scholarship for the completion of his Ph.D. ‘The Performer/Curator’, the 2013 Strasbourg HEAR New Talent Scholarship, and the 2012 Australian Arts Council Skills and Development Grant.