Sydney’s six-piece collective Microfiche explore compelling musical landscapes, traversing improvisation and composition in performances that celebrate the beauty of the unexpected.

This July 2022, Microfiche hit the road on tour around Australia's eastern states, from Hobart to Cobar, presenting music from their most recent album alongside new compositions and inspired improvisations. Featuring Freedman Fellowship and Jan Rutherford Memorial Award recipients, Microfiche is Max Alduca (bass), Nick Calligeros (trumpet & electronics), Holly Conner (drums, percussion & electronics), Sam Gill (saxophones), Novak Manojlovic (piano & keyboards) and Phillippa Murphy-Haste (clarinet & viola).

Since forming as a student jazz ensemble at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2015, Microfiche’s six members have grown into some of Australia’s most esteemed and forward-thinking improvisers, with the collective proving themselves to be one of the most creative and boundary-pushing acts to emerge from Sydney in recent years.

Casting a wide stylistic net that draws upon jazz and experimental approaches, and a recent addition of electronics, Microfiche have over their seven years of playing developed an expressive and identifiable sound that skirts easy categorisation.

Microfiche has had a flurry of creative activity in recent years, including a 2019 European tour (centered around a performance at Copenhagen Jazz Festival); the release of their second studio album 'Everything and Other Infinities' on Portuguese label Creative Sources Rec; and a month-long performance residency in 2021 with special guest collaborators including Chris Abrahams, Sia Ahmed, Phil Slater and Bonniesongs at 107, Redfern.

In 2022, Microfiche have delivered a five-star performance at Phoenix Central's jazz festival STRATA, and have collaborated with Living Room Theatre in the new multidisciplinary theatre work ‘The Reckoning’.

★★★★★ - “The recording may well become a reference for the future up and coming generations of this country’s free jazz to utilise. It’s an ensemble to be admired and eagerly consumed.” - Dingo Jazz Journal

★★★★★ - “The whole ensemble come together to create a lush, slightly tense sonic landscape that could be the closing credits to a film...the overall effect is spellbinding" - Hugh Robertson, Limelight Magazine

★★★★ - “This music comes from highly original minds, with all nine pieces containing compulsive narratives and unique sound worlds…” - John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald