Andrea has devised and produced a formidable body of work— ranging from solo to large ensemble and including both cross-genre and cross-cultural collaborations and commissions.
Born of Czech parents, Andrea grew up in Sydney, Australia. She studied piano, flute and saxophone at the Sydney Conservatorium High School. Inspired by her older brother, she penned her first compositions at the age of 10 and received her AMusA with distinction on piano at age 14. It was around this time that she was introduced to jazz music and the art of improvisation. Continuing to explore classical, jazz and original musics throughout her teenage years, her musical path became more defined when she moved to Melbourne as a lone teenager in the 1990s to study improvisation at the Victorian College of the Arts.
Committed to creating new music with an emphasis on improvisation and collaboration, she has released twenty-three albums as bandleader since 2000, and has performed on many other albums, including those by the Black Arm Band Company, the Australian Art Orchestra, the Vanessa Perica Orchestra, Sam Anning Septet, and Eddie Perfect. Andrea has also been invited to compose works for a variety of artists and ensembles – most recently for ‘Across Silence’ (the art of music, Auslan and haptics), the Monash Art Ensemble, Genevieve Lacey and Marshall McGuire, and Ensemble Offspring.
Highly lauded for her music, Andrea has received numerous awards over her career. In 2022 she was the HC Coombs Fellow at ANU Canberra and received the Art Music Luminary (Victoria) Award. Previous recognition includes three ARIA awards, multiple Australian Jazz Bell awards, a Music Victoria award, multiple Art Music awards, the Merlyn Myer Composing Women’s Commission, the Melbourne Music Prize – Beleura Emerging Composers Award, an APRA Professional Development, an Australia Council Fellowship, and the inaugural MCA/Freedman Foundation Jazz Fellowship.
Andrea holds a Bachelor of Music in Improvisation (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts, a Master of Arts (Research) from Queensland University of Technology and a PhD from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney University.
A champion of Australian creative music and a nurturer of emerging musicians, Andrea curates Monday nights at the Jazzlab, runs the educational program Gender Defying Jazz and is Head of Jazz & Improvisation at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne.