Left Hand of Darkness – Album Launch
Ian Lilburne with Emily Gelineau
Sam Ray and Lucy Browning

Doors 6pm
Show 7pm

Perth songwriter | singer Ian Lilburne crafts reflective songs for sensitive souls. His lyrics are poetic and playful while his musical influences range from Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson through to the minimalism of Steve Reich.

His latest album, Left Hand of Darkness, is a collaboration with gypsy-jazz violinist Emily Gelineau. Spare in the arrangements, Gelineau’s textured, melodic violin perfectly balances Lilburne’s intricate guitar picking and enhances his thoughtful lyrics. The thirteen songs, interwoven with instrumentals, were conceived as a song-cycle and emanated from the suspended time of COVID. Sophisticated and strangely cool, the set is loosely based on the theme of space and time, and takes a sideways glance at this mortal coil. On the recording Lilburne plays bass as well as guitar while, in addition to her signature violin, Gelineau delivers the backing vocals. In performance, they are joined by soprano Sam Ray, Lilburne’s long term singing partner, and bassist Lucy Browning.

Expect a show that is part art-folk, part jazz, part classical with a dash of wry humour.

Left Hand of Darkness is available on Bandcamp and most streaming services. 

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IAN LILBURNE —SONGWRITER|SINGER|GUITARIST

Ian Lilburne has been playing acoustic guitar and writing songs for more than fifty years. He has an original repertoire of some one hundred and twenty songs and instrumentals. Working with producers Pete Grandison (Shanghai Twang Studio) and Lee Buddle (Crank Recording), he has released four albums of original material.

For him, poetry and songwriting work as a team. He has been penning poetry as long as he has been writing songs, maybe longer. In recent years, he has been a featured poet at the Perth Poetry Club and regularly appears at their weekly gatherings in the Moon Cafe.

On his lyrics, Lilburne says: ‘My style has been influenced by prose fiction and poetry as much as popular song. I love the wordplay and trickery you find in the great modernist writers like Joyce and Nabokov while the narrative twists of spy stories have provided a rich seam to mine. But my main lyrical influence remains Leonard Cohen. As a teenager, when I first heard Laughing Lenny, a bomb went off. It has been reverberating through my imagination ever since.’

As well as his signature guitar and warm baritone, Lilburne’s recordings feature a selection of Perth’s finest musicians, notably gypsy-jazz violinist and singer Emily Gelineau, soprano Sam Ray, and keys maestro Cathy Travers. His other collaborators include many of the fine side-people who regularly appear at the Ellington as well as some of Fremantle’s prominent musicians. 

Away from music, Lilburne has had a successful career in the arts. He was the founding director of the Perth’s Artrage Festival (1986 to 1994), a former incarnation of FringeWorld, and artistic director|producer of The University of Western Australia’s centenary birthday party LUMINOUSnight (2013). Since 2023, he has been a regular contributor for Perth-based magazines XPress and Seesaw writing on music and the performing arts.

“Lilburne’s lyrics are evocative and relatable, sometimes heartbreaking or darkly witty. His musical influences are vast, his style morphing with the stories set in fantastic or mundane worlds of iPhones and snoring.”
Perth Now

EMILY GELINEAU — VIOLIN

Emily Gelineau is an award-winning violinist, pianist, vocalist, composer and arranger  known for interpreting modern styles from jazz to country, pop to rock, and world styles.

After residing in the USA for 4 years, she graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She has performed live and recorded with many renowned and influential artists across the world, including violin for the 8-Bit Big Band on their 2022 GRAMMY-Winning arrangement of “Metaknight’s Revenge”.

​Emily’s passion for gypsy jazz and Brazilian music has brought her to perform at multiple festivals and venues across the world, including the Perth International Jazz Festival, FringeWorld, Wally’s Jazz Club (USA), The JazzLab (Melbourne), Strings Attached Guitar Festival, WA Forró Festival, Fairbridge Festival and many more.

Her show, “Tea for Two – A Tribute to Stephane Grappelli”, won the Music & Musicals award at FringeWorld 2024, and and earned 5-stars in 2025. Together with accordionist Danilo da Paz, they run the Brazilian-jazz group “Jazz Tupiniquim”, which performs their arrangements of a variety of genres of Brazilian music, and has taken them all across Australia.

As a composer and arranger, she arranges for symphony orchestras (including the Perth Symphony Orchestra) and cruise ships (including Holland America Line) and is a media composer for film, TV, documentaries and advertising. 

​Emily is also an acclaimed guest entertainer, managed by Blackburn International, where she has performed onboard multiple voyages and cruise lines including Explora Journeys, Celebrity Cruises, Viking Cruises, Seabourn Cruises, and The World. 

“Emily  brings a youthful brightness and energy much needed in Jazz” 

“An absolute joy, musically fantastic, and violin pocket-rocket”
Celebrity Cruises

“Emily Gelineau is something of a musical prodigy”
Xpress Magazine

“What surprised me was how much joy and fun Emily Gelineau brought to the stage. I’d go as far as to say the performance was a highlight of this year’s FRINGEWORLD Festival calendar” –
Fiona Johnson, FringeFeed ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“Not only is she ridiculously talented, but she was so friendly and welcoming”
Bridget Woodword, FringeFeed 

SAM RAY — VOCALIST

Sam Ray began her artistic journey in the desert, in the bush and on the farm. As well as attending WAAPA and Sydney Conservatorium, she developed as an ensemble singer and soloist through performance with operatic-jazz trio The Custard Divas, SA Opera, WA Opera, Collegium, the Really Useful Group and a variety of private, corporate and public engagements. Her repertoire ranges from the realms of opera, music theatre, jazz, funk and powerhouse ballads to world-folk and even Motown. As vocalist with ‘Orchid Star’, Sam has performed at major venues and festivals in Europe and the UK, including Glastonbury, Glade, Hadra and Boom.

Her mentors and collaborators include Trilby Temperley (Cloud Kollektiv), Glenn Rogers, Audiocell (AKG), Martin Russell (Afro-Celt/RealWorld), Pete Ardron (AfroCelt/Orchid Star), Cindi Drennan (illuminart), Carmelo Musca (CM Films), Sean Williams (PhD Sound Architecture, Edinburgh University), Andrew Partington and Ian Lilburne (duo Lilburne|Ray).

She was the Goldfields Regional Musician of the Year in 1991 and awarded WAM’s ‘Café’ Song of the Year in 2008 for ‘Revien’.

Sam is a long standing member of Summa Musica choral ensemble and a creative producer for illuminart’s Stories in Light.

“Sam has the ability to work intuitively with a versatility and productivity that is refreshing”
Pete Hammond

“Her voice is ethereal and truly powerful. Her creativity in delivering her performances is always impressive.”
Carmelo Musca

“My musical tastes generally hover around country and western with a bit of rock thrown in so I was genuinely surprised and delighted by how much I enjoyed (Sam’s) mixture of opera, soul and jazz. (She has) a special talent!”
Colin Barnett

LUCY BROWNING — BASS

Perth musician Lucy Browning is an electric and upright bass player. She specialises as a side person in jazz, folk, pop, rock and musical theatre. She has a passion for helping others to bring their’ musical visions to life.

Her interest in exploring a wide range of genres has seen her perform at venues and events including the Ellington, PIJF ‘Jazz Night Out’, RTR ‘Jazz Supreme’, WAMfest, His Majesty’s Theatre, Fringe World, Nannup Music Festival, Strings Attached, Albany Town Hall and Bunbury Pride.

As a session player, Browning has appeared on recordings for alt-pop artist Cecilia, and indie-folk artist Veruca Moonon EP “Veruca Moon”. She has also recorded for folk artist Ruby Pettit’s debut album “Still We Are Rising” and EP “The Veil”, as well as indie rock artist Crystal Adele’s single “When”.