Jazmourian Ensemble in Conversation with artist John R. Walker

Join artist John R. Walker with musicians Malek Mohammadi Nejad and Anna McDonald, as they discuss, among other things, how the encompassing landscape of John R. Walker’s panoramic oil painting Driving the Badja Road, 2009 has inspired a new musical composition. As Jazmourian Ensemble, the ANU School of Music’s Ensemble-in-Residence, Malek and Anna will perform their new work in company with the painting.

Jazmourian Ensemble was formed in 2019 by Malek Mohammadi Nejad, a setar master native to Iran, and current ANU PhD Candidate, together with ANU Alumni Dr Anna McDonald, an internationally renowned baroque violinist who now plays the kamancheh. The two musicians, from Iran and Australia, are inspired by the mountains and deserts of these ancient lands, and by the age-old Persian idea of music – that it is a sacred conversation between friends.

This creative conversation flourished during a recent visit to the studio of Braidwood-based painter John R. Walker. Learning that his painting Driving the Badja Road would be exhibited in the Drill Hall’s exhibition ANU Art Collection: Conjunction (24 October – 21 December 2025), the Jazmourian Ensemble set out to compose a new work in response. 

For Nejad and McDonald, the qualities of Persian music, which resonate harmony with nature, are echoed in Walker’s painting. Persian music is originally based on such symbols of nature as water, fire, earth, the sounds of animals and wind in the trees. Nejad describes, “You observe nature and respond to it, and you recognize that it observes and responds to you. You become a part of it.”

Jazmourian Ensemble was formed in 2019 by two musicians, from Iran and Australia, who were inspired by the question, “What do the music of the east and west have in common?” Malek Mohammadi Nejad, a setar master native to Iran, together with Anna McDonald, an internationally renowned baroque violinist who now plays the kamancheh, created their new idea of an ensemble while travelling together in Iran and Armenia for three years.  Ancient Persian music in a modern, intercultural creative collaboration. We respond musically to the beauty of diverse cultures in Australia, as well as the stunning natural environments in which these cultural conversations take place. Our music reflects the interconnection between eastern and western cultures throughout history. Ancient Persian culture is a unified system which encompasses human connection to the natural world through art. Music in the western world has always drawn symbolically from nature too. We share the sky, mountains, deserts and oceans, and they remind us of the friendship between us.

https://www.jazmourian.com/

John R. Walker lives and works in Braidwood, NSW. He is best known for his paintings of the Australian landscape and has been exhibiting for over 40 years. Walker’s portraits of the Braidwood district have come to define the landscape of the region.  In recent years he has also explored in depth the country around the Flinders’ Ranges in SA, the Hay Plains of NSW, and Orange in NSW.

Retrospectives of his work have been mounted at the Drill Hall Gallery in ACT, Orange Regional Gallery in NSW, SH Ervin Gallery in Sydney, and Maitland Regional Art Gallery in NSW.   In November 2025 Forest Song, an exhibition of recent paintings and monoprints of trees, will open at the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, running until the end of January, 2026

Walker is included in many major public, private and corporate collections, including the National Gallery of Australia.  He is a regular finalist in the Wynne, Archibald and Sulman Prizes.

John R. Walker is represented by Utopia Art Sydney.

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Image: John R. Walker, Driving the Badja Road, 2009, oil on polyester, 177 x 439 cm. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Christopher Hodges & Helen Eager, 2025, Australian National University Art Collection