Flora Carbo is a saxophonist, composer and music leader from Naarm (Melbourne, Australia). Her unique practice creates novel musical environments that connect people through improvisation, composition and conceptual works, led by her explorations into the vocal qualities of the alto saxophone.
Her work traverses settings, methods and scales, with works devised for major festival stages at Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Canberra International Music Festival, Phoenix Central Park’s Strata Festival, Amersfoort Jazz Festival, and alongside luminaries of Australian jazz and improvised music like Barney McAll and Andrea Keller. Her creativity grounded in a constant flow of collaboration amongst a tight-knit generation of leading young Australian artists in Naarm, with regular projects and small gigs for new ideas alongside uncategorizable original musicians like Helen Svoboda, Niran Dasika, Iran Sanadzadeh, Eitan Ritz, her brother Theo Carbo, and many others.
Flora’s recorded projects are acclaimed documents of moments in this scene. Her albums are MAGNIFY (2023); Arthur’s Walks (2022); VOICE (2020); and Erica (2018). Her bands include The Rest Is Silence; Aalto; The Floor Is Well, Thanks; Flora Carbo Trio; and Ecosystem. Her unique saxophone sound has been honed through private study with Julien Wilson, Jim Denley, Melissa Aldana and Scott McConnachie, she completed a Bachelor with Honours degree at the University of Melbourne and the James Morrison Academy in 2019.
Increasingly recognised as a composer, Flora’s significant commissions and premieres include Momentually with Theo Carbo at the 2023 Canberra International Music Festival; the SIMA Emerging Composers Commission 2022; Flora Carbo Percussion Ensemble for quartets of adaptable instrumentation at 2023 Strata Festival; and Ecosystem for three voices and three saxophones at the 2022 Melbourne International Jazz Festival.
Flora was the Melbourne International Jazz Festival’s Take Note Leader for 2022. She was a finalist for the Freedman Jazz Fellowships 2022 and 2021; for the Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year at the 2019 Australian Jazz Bell Awards; and for the 2016 National Jazz Award; and won the James Morrison Scholarship at the Generations in Jazz Festival in 2017.
In 2023 Flora undertook ‘Residency in Motion’, a five-month international program generously supported by the Ian Potter Cultural Fund. Pursuing her long-held interest in situating her musical thought within concepts of embodiment and motion, Flora travelled solo by bicycle through Europe and the UK, alternating creative time with artist residencies, mentorships, network building and collaborative opportunitiesas an intensive development of her emerging solo practice.
“Some serious buzz”
THE AGE
“When I put on Flora Carbo’s debut record, Erica – my first time hearing her – my mind raced straight back to the last time I heard Bernie. The two moments seemed connected by a thread. It was not only that the music was good – though the best moments on the record are sublime – it was why it was good. It felt real.”
MUSIC TRUST
“Australian saxophonist Flora Carboand her collaborators soundtrack these scenes with light, playful improvisations, flitting along a fine line between spiritual jazz and freak folk to deliver some whimsical compositions.”
SCOTT MURPHY
“You can hear Flora Carbo‘s determination in her playing.”
NIKOS FOTAKIS