Anita Hustas specializes in improvising double bass performance and composition. Anita draws from music from many diverse cultures, and influences from many art forms. Her main ensembles are Anemone with Joe Talia and Anthony Schulz, and the Bywater-Hustas Duo with Phil Bywater.

She performs and tours regularly with a wide variety of other ensembles including The Adam Simmons Toyband, Koffer, Peter Knight's 5+2, David Tolley, Dure Dara, Ren Walters and Collider. Anita's work has also been performed by Adrian Sherriff's Oynsemble, The Sandy Evans Project, Phil Bywater's Buried Treasure, and Adam Simmons Toy Band. Solo performances include La Mama Musica, The Boite Winter Music Festival, The Make It Up Club, Port Fairy Folk Festival and Woodford Festival.

Anita is currently in her first year of Masters in Performance, Improvisation and Composition at the VCA. She lectures in Double Bass in both the Repertoire and Improvisation Streams and teaches at most of Melbourne’s tertiary institutions.

Anita was awarded an Art Omi fellowship for July/August 2005, assisted by the Australia Council for the Arts to take up a composer/performer artist residency in New York. In 2003 Anita received an Australia Council commission to compose "Music of the Trees" a graphic score for Oynsemble Melbourne, which premiered in January 2004. Anita has also just completed a new collection of graphic scores on "Water" for Anemone, premiered in November 2007.

She has performed with most major Australian artists in the fields of Improvisation, Jazz and Classical music. Anita is an in demand session musician performing on countless film scores and many other projects too numerous to mention. She is currently curating the La Mama Musica concert series with Adrian Sherriff, Annabel Warmington and Bree Hartley.

Recent playing activities

Anita Hustas Project - a long-form composition for improvising quintet commissioned for the 2001 Melbourne Women's Jazz Festival, assisted by the Australia Council.

Solo appearances at the 2000 Boite Winter Music Festival, the Planet Cafe in 1999 and 2000 for the Make It Up Club, and the 1996 Port Fairy and Woodford/Maleny Folk Festivals.

Performances for the Melbourne Jazz Coop with Prrim (Anita Hustas, Tunji Beier, Adrian Sherriff), exploring contemporary jazz via techniques from Indian Classical music.

Performance and workshop with Phil Bywater in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Performances for Melbourne Creative Musicians Alliance with Peter Knight's 5+2 and Adrian Sherriff's Oynsemble Melbourne

Performances at the HalfBent Winter Jazz Festival with Peter Knight's 5+2 and Adam Simmons Toy Band

Performance with Tatar folksinger Zulya Kamalova in Melbourne, and at the Woodford and Womadelaide Festivals.

Adam Simmons Toy Band CD 'Happy Jacket' launch at the Corner Hotel, Melbourne, and tours to Queenscliff and Meredith Music Festivals.

Phil Bywater's Buried Treasure CD 'Looking Up' recorded with assistance from Arts Victoria

Phil Bywater's Buried Treasure performance for the Boite's Afghan Refugee Benefit Gala

The Hustas-Keller Duo with pianist Andrea Keller, reinventing the relationship between contemporary jazz and classical music, supported Mulgrew Miller and Niels Henning Orsted Pedersen in 1999, played the 1998 Melbourne International Jazz Festival and 1997- 2000 Melbourne Women's Jazz Festivals, 2001 Pinnacles Festival, the Side On Cafe for SIMA, and Melbourne Jazz Co operative's"Alive" and "Transitions" series at Bennetts Lane. Recorded and broadcast on PBS and ABCFM .

The 1996 Barossa International Music Festival with US jazz pianist Kenny Drew Jr. Trio and the Guadanini Ensemble led by Violinist Jane Peters with soloist Peter Waters .

 

Performances with Paul Grabowsky, The Jex Saarelaht Trio, the Alan Lee Quintet, Bob Sedergreen, Ted Vining , Adrian Sheriff, the Adam Simmons Quartet, the Gai Bryant Quartet, Sandy Evans, Niko Schauble, the Helen Matthews Quartet, and the Sue Bluck Trio. Tour of Korea and Australia in September 2000 as a cultural exchange with the Gai Bryant Quartet and The Won Family (Masters of Traditional Korean music).