"8"
An original music, violin, percussion & visual projection concert

Sunday 9 October 2025

1st Session: 1pm-2pm

2nd Session: 4pm-5pm

The Film Studio, The Arts Incubator, 36 Camp Street, Ballarat

Tickets: $15 unwaged / $30 waged

(Limited to 40 seats per session)

For the first time, the acclaimed multimedia work “8” comes to life on a physical stage, blending music, VR visuals, and immersive performance. "8" is a collaboration between composer and master percussionist David Jones, renowned Australian violinist Sarah Curro, and award-winning VR artist ReVerse Butcher, and also featuring Carmen Warrington as a guest vocalist. This concert merges live music with large-scale projection to create a singular sensory experience.

“8” features eight original compositions by David Jones, each paired with a visual artwork from ReVerse Butcher’s acclaimed "Circle Series", with live violin by Sarah Curro. With visuals originally created natively in Virtual Reality (VR) in 2019 using Tilt Brush, a virtual reality painting app, these works marked the conception of ReVerse Butcher’s now-celebrated XR practice. Though the "Circle Series" has since grown into an internationally exhibited & award-winning body of work — with highlights shown at Venice Immersive (2025), Hidden Festival (2025), Raindance Immersive (2024), and Fed Square x Oshi Gallery: 20 Years of Culture (2022) — the original 8 exploratory "Circle Series" artworks that form the heart of “8” have never before been seen live in Australia.

The live performance weaves these early VR artworks with Jones’ virtuosic and genre-spanning music — jazz, contemporary classical, and rock influences combine into a fluid meditation on rhythm, body, and multidimensional space. At the centre, Curro’s Spur Semi-Acoustic Violin becomes the golden thread, uniting the shifting soundscapes with the equally dynamic visuals.

Staged at The Film Studio, part of Ballarat’s Arts Incubator (36 Camp Street, Ballarat Central), the show takes full advantage of the venue’s capacity for large-scale immersive projections. The result is an intimate, transformative concert where sound and image breathe together, carrying audiences on a journey through space, time, and perspective.

“8” has previously been presented in virtual reality spaces, where audiences around the world experienced it remotely & immersively in VR. However, due to pandemic-era challenges, a live, physically staged version has never been possible until now. The 2025 Ballarat show marks a historic first: the moment when “8” is finally shared with a physically present audience.

With only 40 seats available per session, this is a rare opportunity to witness a collaborative work that balances virtuosity, experimentation, and meditative beauty. “8” is more than a number — it is an exploration of cycles, creativity, and the power of art to transform perspective.

Session Times:

Sunday 9 October 2025 – 1pm-2pm

Sunday 9 October 2025 – 4pm-5pm

Tickets:

$15 unwaged

$30 waged

Bookings are essential.

If you have any questions about the concert, please contact reversebutcher@gmail.com.

ABOUT DAVID JONES

David Jones is recognised as one of Australia’s most accomplished and versatile percussionists, celebrated for his work across jazz, classical, world music, and experimental forms. Over his career he has collaborated with artists including James Morrison, Tommy Emmanuel, John Farnham, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Stevie Wonder, and John Denver, and performed with the Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, the Queensland Orchestra, and internationally with the West German Radio Big Band and Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa in Japan. His solo album Colours of the Drum (2008) was nominated for an ARIA Award, and in 2010 he became the first drummer to receive the prestigious Melbourne Prize for Music for his “lifelong contribution to the music community.” A dedicated teacher and honorary fellow at the Victorian College of the Arts, Jones integrates his meditation practice into his artistry, creating works that are both technically dazzling and spiritually resonant. In “8”, his eight original compositions form the sonic foundation of the collaboration, weaving rhythmic worlds that carry the audience through shifting dimensions of sound and space. He is currently based in Malmsbury, Australia.

ABOUT SARAH CURRO

Sarah Curro is a distinguished Australian violinist and educator, celebrated for her exquisite & commanding performances across orchestral, chamber, and contemporary music. Curro is a full-time member of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO), playing in the 1st Violin section, and a graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. Curro has performed with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Queensland Philharmonic, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, and the MSO. Beyond her performance career, Curro champions innovation in music, commissioning 40 solo violin pieces in her VOLUME series and collaborating with artists to expand the expressive possibilities of her instrument. For “8”, Curro plays her unique Spur semi-acoustic violin, customised in a previous collaboration by multi-disciplinary artist ReVerse Butcher with nine hand-painted graphic scores inspired by Benjamin Britten’s Dies Irae. This one-of-a-kind instrument, documented in their co-written interactive eBook "This is Not a Violin, it is a Doorway", transforms music into a visual and performative experience, blending virtuosity, imagination, and a striking stage presence. She is currently based in Melbourne, Australia.

ABOUT REVERSE BUTCHER

ReVerse Butcher (rVb) is an XR/VR/AR artist and poet whose work exists at the intersection of the surreal, the absurd, and the immersive. Her practice spans virtual sculpture, film, sound, performance, collage, painting, illustration, and visual poetry (VISPO), blending analogue materials and hand-built techniques with cutting-edge immersive technologies. The result: richly layered experiences that probe embodiment, language, and perception. rVb distorts and reconfigures the boundaries of text, image, and space, creating worlds where the physical and virtual collide. As a queer, female artist, she challenges aesthetic norms and established power structures, inviting audiences to embrace uncertainty, multiplicity, and presence. Her recent projects include The Continuous Present, a 120-minute VRChat experience that won Best Art World Experience at Raindance Immersive 2025, & The Last Stanza, a Web XR commission for HTC Viverse blending VR sculpture, sound, poetry, immersive gameplay, & interactivity. With a multi-disciplinary career spanning over 20 years, rVb adapts seamlessly across mediums—from live performance to virtual worlds. She will use any medium necessary to subvert reality until it is less dull & oppressive. She is currently based in Ballarat, Australia.

ABOUT CARMEN WARRINGTON

Carmen Warrington is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work spans acting, writing, music, and meditation. Known as “The Voice of Peace,” she has released dozens of meditation recordings — including the acclaimed Meditations for Life series for ABC Music — and built an international following for her calming and transformative sound work. A graduate of NIDA and a former stage and screen actress, Carmen later became the author of two best-selling inspirational books (Today I Will… and Today I Am…). As a musician, she has collaborated with percussionist David Jones since the early 1990s, co-founding the innovative jazz-fusion ensemble AtmaSphere and pioneering immersive “soundbath” experiences. Blending voice, poetry, and sound, her artistry is dedicated to creating moments of deep reflection, inspiration, and inner stillness. She is currently based in Malmsbury, Australia.