Artistic Team

WAYJO’s immensely talented and passionate Artistic Team are the foundation of our program. They provide the knowledge, musicianship and inspiration for our orchestras, ensuring that each musician develops and improves their skills throughout the year.

Mace has been involved with WAYJO since 2001 as both a musician and Musical Director.

In 2008 Mace was appointed lecturer in jazz arranging and composition at WAAPA as well as artistic director of the WA Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO) where he has implemented emerging composer commissions and guest artist programs. Since his appointment, WAYJO has performed with Fred Wesley (USA), Darcy James Argue (USA), Allen Vizzutti (USA), Kristin Berardi (NSW), David Theak (NSW), Franck Tortillier (France), Jim McNeely (USA), Ed Partyka (Austria), Darcy James Argue (USA), Dick Oatts (USA), Mike Abene (USA), Jim Rotondi (USA), Ed Neumeister (USA) Mike Stewart (SA), Michelle Nichole (VIC), Mat Jodrell (NY), Ross Irwin (VIC) and iOTA (NSW).

Mace Francis is a passionate advocate of original Australian large ensemble jazz music, forming his own 14-piece ensemble in 2005 – the Mace Francis Orchestra (MFO). MFO have recorded 8 CDs, toured nationally four times and performed with international artists Jim Pugh (USA), Jon Gordon (NY), John Hollenbeck (NY), Satoko Fujii (JAP), Theo Bleckmann (NY), Jean-Baptiste Bridon (France) and Ed Partyka (Austria).

Since 2004, Mace’s focus on composition has awarded him the 2004 APRA Professional Development Award, the international Italian composition prize Scrivere in Jazz, a finalist in the 2010 Freedman Jazz Fellowship, nomination for two Australian Jazz Bell Awards (2013 & 2016), the 2015 winner of the APRA AMCOS Art Music Award: Jazz Work of the Year and received the 2017 Prelude Gallop House 12 month residency.

Mace has worked as guest composer and conductor with l’Orcehstre des Jeunes Jazzmen de Bourgogne (France), the Graz Composers Ensemble (Austria), the Showa University of Music Big Band (Japan) the Satoko Fujii Tokyo Orchestra (Japan) and nationally with the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Jazz Orchestra (NSW), ATM15 (VIC), The Bennetts Lane Big Band (VIC), the Enthusiastic Musicians Orchestra (QLD), The Con Artists (QLD) and the West End Composers Collective (QLD).

In 2017 Mace was appointed the festival director of the Perth International Jazz Festival, and completed a PhD exploring site-specific composition for which he received the 2015 Faculty Research Medal.

macefrancis.com

For over 20 years Marty has performed as a musician on Trumpet, Trombone, Sousaphone and Alto, Tenor and Baritone Saxophones, taught brass, theory, composition and improvisation in several primary and secondary schools, directed large and small school and community ensembles including the Western Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra. Marty’s musical versatility has enabled him to engage in a diverse range of genres from New Orleans style brass, Latin, Jazz (small to large groups), Reggae, Ska, dub, funk/soul, as well as his own original music for quartet, sextet, and big band.

He often plays with his own Latin group, “Nueva Salsa Orchestra”, local Symphony Orchestras and is also in high demand as a session musician appearing on over 50 recordings as a performer, and or composer and arranger. He is a regular part of the pool of pit musicians hired for professional touring musical productions – most recently the Perth season of “Hair”, Tim Minchin’s “Matilda” and the Disney touring production of “Aladdin”.

Ricki Malet has been performing all over Perth for the last 20 years (including a residency with quartet ‘The Fix’ at the Moon Café for 15 years) with various bands covering lots of different styles and has toured extensively. With tours to Europe in 2002 with original band Prawns with Horns, New York in 2006 with the West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO), Melbourne in 2006 with the Mace Francis Orchestra (MFO) and 2007 with Funk outfit The Roast as well as Australian tours with MFO in 2008, 2010, 2011 & 2013, the Daniel Susnjar Afro-Peruvian Jazz Group in 2017 & 2018 and the Jamie Oehlers Quintet in 2019. Also, most recently Ricki has played and recorded with the Australian National Jazz Orchestra at the Sydney Con Jazz Festival in 2017 & 2019 and been invited to perform and workshop students at The Brubeck Institute in 2014, 2016 & 2017, SHOWA University in Tokyo, Japan in 2018 and Kunstuniversität Graz (KUG) in 2019.

He has recorded 7 albums with MFO, 2 albums with trad jazz group The Hounds, 1 album with Daniel Susnjar’s Afro-Peruvian Jazz Group, 1 album with Australian National Jazz Orchestra, 1 album with Jamie Oehlers, 1 album with Kate Pass Kohesia Ensemble and an album and an EP with his ‘electric band’ Fat Sparrow in 2015 and 2017. In addition he features on tracks with many other groups including Descarga, Prawns with Horns, Drapht, Optamus, Odette Mercy and her Soul Atomics, Saritah and more. When not performing, Ricki also teaches at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA).

WAYJO’s Artistic Advisory Committee is a valuable source of expert assistance in the areas of jazz, big band music, industry networks and the music business. We are very proud to have such a distinguished team of musicians on hand to help WAYJO.

Ross Irwin
John Morrison
Ed Partyka
David Theak