Helen Davey Cox - portrait

Bio ...

Helen Davey Cox has had a career as a musician, composer, improviser, playwright and song-writer in music-theatre, poetic world/folk, jazz & experimental genres. Her passion is 'sound-painting' in cross-arts contexts, creating music in direct dialogue with other art forms. She is a multi instrumentalist (voice, prepared/piano, zither, accordion, lap harp, guitar, percussion and found objects) and has released five CDs of original material.

During the 1980s and 1990s she performed on Melbourne's live music circuit averaging 180-200 gigs a year. From 30s & 40s jazz standards and her original songs, she moved into world-folk, a-cappella, and improvisational music styles. Completing a Bachelor of Education (music) in 1991, Davey went on to co-write, produce, direct and compose large scale music-theatre productions for children for a decade.
In 2005 she relocated to Switzerland and recorded her debut CD From Another Room, worked in several ensembles and toured with Dodo Hug and Effisio Contini. Davey became a resident musician for Zuerich's Playback Theatre-Bumerang, in 2008 and joined the musicians pool of Zürich's womeninmusic.ch, coaching women's creative processes in voice, piano and songwriting. In 2010 Helen founded her cross-arts Salon Series, performing interactive Sound-Paintings with text, visual, movement and theatre artists.

Davey has since recorded four more Cds, Carvings (2011), Trans-Lations (2013), and in 2014, both the March Equinox and June Solstice albums from her online project "52 Sound-Paintings". In 2020, she completed further studies in composition for film. Currently Davey is an active member of several impro music and theatre groups and composes for solo piano, women's chorus and short films.

Photo - Max Zingg: Mimi the cat joins a performance.

Trained and/or worked with these arts practitioners...

David Aebli, Jason Allen, Guillaumne Apollinaire, Ingrid Barring, Karen Berger, Ruth Bieri, Sonia Bischoff, Cherie Bridges, Brian Brown, Tom Burke, Juli Cady Ryan, Lisa Call, Cornelius Cardew, Jim Carpenter, Efisio Contini, Bronle Crosby, Ian David, Danny Diesendorf, Rachel Dubois, Mavis Durham, Mike Evoy, Rosie Fayman, Jonathan Fox, Dora Ficher, Jack Fisher, India Flint, Theresa Gaskin, Karin Gisler, Pete Goodlet, Andrew Gray, Alex Gromeier, Ermie Gruner, Carolyn Hanna, Nancy Hersh, Jenifer Hetherington, Helen Hiebert, Neil Hodgson, Ella Hofmann, Dodo Hug, Linnet Hunter, Dorte Hyldstrup, Megan Jones, Sophia Khan, Casey Klahn, Dariusz Klimczak, Esther Knappe, Hilde Knottenbelt, Laurie LeBreton, Ann Lewis, Rebecca Lister, Padraig McCaul, Catherine Magill, Eva Marlin, Chris Maynard, Brigitte Meyer, Cynthia Morris, Kathleen O'Brien, Gerry Orkin, Felice Panagrosso, C. Pat Pattison, Mark Payne, Mauricio Paz Viola, Josef Piras, Katherine Portelli, Ferdi Rauber, Daniel Robinson, John Rowland, Maggie Ruley, Sermsah Bin Saad, Alex Sangster, Bob Sedergreen, Patty Sgrecci, Tomasz Spiewak, Petrus Spronk, Ruth Stadelmann, Anne E. Stewart, Christoph Stiefel, Emily Taylor, Gerda Tobler, Lenka Vanderboom, Peter Wanzenried, Helga Westmark, Brian White, Holly Wilson, Markus Weidmann, Al Wunder, Brenda York, Fra Zella.