Creative Original Music Adelaide (COMA) gives stage for new work of local performers across genres at the Wheaty
The Wheatsheaf Hotel (The Wheaty) at inner-western suburban Thebarton was the fixture for COMA (Creative Original Music Adelaide) sessions to be played and recorded for that start in 2005.
COMA (Creative Original Music Adelaide) was started in 2005 as a volunteer-run not-for-profit association dedicated to presenting original music in South Australia’s capital city. The Wheatsheaf Hotel (The Wheaty) at inner-western suburban Thebarton was the fixture for COMA sessions to be played and recorded for that start.
Creative Original Music Adelaide was formed by a group of Adelaide-based musicians passionate about increasing chances in the city for performance by emerging and established artists of quality original music from the genres of jazz, improvised music, new classical and electronic. From its inception, COMA presented ongoing concert series on the first and third Mondays of every month, as well as additional special events. In 2017, it celebrated celebrate 12 years of presentations with more than 30 concerts featuring ensembles from Adelaide, across Australia and beyond.
COMA performances were recorded by Marty Jones at the Wheatsheaf Hotel with mixing and mastering mixed and mastered by Jarrad Payne and uploaded to an archive on a bandcamp site.
Among the early drivers of the COMA concept were creatives Hilary Kleinig and Emily Tulloch, both members of Adelaide’s Zephyr Quartet, described as Australia’s leading genre-defying explorers of dynamic cross-artform music focussed collaborations, an award winning string quartet whose musicians also compose, arrange and improvise. A composer, curator, producer and educator
Kleinig performed on baroque/classical cello with period specialist chamber ensembles such as Ensemble Galante, Adelaide Baroque, Adelaide Chamber Singers and the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. Also a skilled improviser, she played amplified cello with experimental ensembles such as Zeitgiest Orchestra. Tulloch held two first class honours degrees: in violin performance and Spanish, the latter with a thesis on the representation of the city of Merida, on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, through the lyrics of the popular song repertoire of trova yucateca. The connection between music and place was one of her favourite musings.
