Ross Bolleter

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title: "Ross Bolleter" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["australian-male-composers", "australian-composers", "1946-births", "living-people", "musicians-from-perth,-western-australia", "zen-buddhist-spiritual-teachers", "australian-zen-buddhists", "the-blackeyed-susans-members", "university-of-western-australia-alumni", "avant-garde-pianists"] description: "Australian composer (born 1946)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Bolleter" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Australian composer (born 1946) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]

Field	Value
name	Ross Bolleter
image	Ross Bolleter 01 (cropped).JPG
caption	Bolleter at a ZGWA gathering in 2012
birth_date
birth_place	Subiaco, Western Australia
education	University of Western Australia
occupation	Composer
known_for	Ruined pianos
website
::

| name = Ross Bolleter | image = Ross Bolleter 01 (cropped).JPG | alt = | caption = Bolleter at a ZGWA gathering in 2012 | birth_date = | birth_place = Subiaco, Western Australia | death_date = | death_place = | education = University of Western Australia | occupation = Composer | known_for = Ruined pianos | website = Ross Bolleter (born 1946 in Subiaco) is an Australian composer and musician whose work is focused on ruined pianos, abandoned pianos that have been warped and changed naturally by time and weather. He is a founding member of The Blackeyed Susans and co-founder of World Association for Ruined Piano Studies (WARPS) with Stephen Scott. In addition to teaching music, Bolleter also taught Zen Buddhism prior to his retirement in 2023.

Career

Bolleter was given his first instrument, a piano accordion, by his parents when he was 11 years old. He learned to play piano in the 1960s Bolleter played piano with the house band at a hotel in Parmelia (later bought out by Hilton) for six years, spending the final year playing solo in the front bar. He later held various other jobs, including a deckhand, an orderly and an apprentice roof plumber.

In the 1980s, he formed a musical improvisation duo, Alone Together, with flautist Tos Mahoney. They released Openings in 1982 on Wasit Music. Bolleter was first inspired to explore prepared piano in the 1980s during an improvisation session with his friend Ryszard Ratajczak, who stuck things into the strings of his double bass to change the sound. He released his cassette The Temple of Joyous Bones in 1985 on Homegrown Headroom. He received a creative development grant from the Department of Culture and the Arts in 1986 to develop skills and techniques on the prepared piano and accordion. In June 1987, during a family trip to Nallan Sheep Station in Cue, he was tipped off about an abandoned piano that had sat on a tennis court in direct sunlight and through a flood for a year before being moved to a nearby shed. This was his first experience with what he calls "ruined" pianos: pianos subject to weather and time, warping and decaying the wood and strings in a way that produces unpredictable sounds. When the property was sold many years later, he was invited to relocate the piano to his home in Perth, where it remains in his kitchen.

In 1989, he founded The Blackeyed Susans with Phil Kakulas, Rob Snarski, David McComb and Alsy MacDonald. He played organ and accordion in the band before leaving to play piano bars in Japan. Also in 1989, he started the Synchronicity Project, a collection of "intuitive pieces" of improvisation, wherein musicians performed in different locations across Australia and the world. "Simulplay 1" in September 1989 saw Jim Denley playing flute to a live audience in Linz, accompanied from the ABC radio studios in Perth by Bolleter on piano and accordion and Carol Henning on a plastic trombone. The second work, "That Time/Simulplay 2", was a piece for two musicians on opposite sides of the continent. They played simultaneously but were unable to hear each other, while an audience listened to the overlapping audio. This performance had Ryszard Ratajczak on double bass at ABC FM Sydney and Bolleter on two different pianos (standard and prepared), played through on separate recordings, from ABC's Perth studios. "Time/Simulplay 2" was released as part of the album Crow Country in 2000. It included musicians Jim Denley (Radio ORF Vienna), Stevie Wishart (BBC Radio London), David Moss (SFR Berlin), Jon Rose (ABC Sydney) and Simone De Haan (ABC Melbourne). It was later released as a CD under the same name in 2004.

In 1991, Bolleter and Stephen Scott started the World Association of Ruined Piano Studies (WARPS), a record label and informal group of ruined piano musicians.

In 2005, following an installation (Piano Labyrinth) of 17 ruined pianos at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), Bolleter collaborated with York olive farmers Kim Hack and Penny Mossop to create the country's first Ruined Piano Sanctuary. Here, around forty pianos are left to decay in the elements in dams, groves and fields. In 2008, he performed Ruined at the 10 Days on the Island Festival, In 2010, he installed 18 ruined pianos at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery as part of the 10 Days on the Island Festival. in Robert Castiglione's film Invitation to Ruin, which was shown at the Totally Huge New Music Festival in 2015; and in musicologist Tim Rutherford-Johnson's book Music After the Fall (2017). In April 2025, he performed Lee Buddle's score for The Little Prince at Spare Parts Puppet Theatre.

Other artists Bolleter has worked with include Kavisha Mazzella, Lindsay Vickery, Ernie Althoff Carrier's Nothing as a Thing was released on the WARPS label in 2012.

Bolleter's Crow Country was nominated as one of the 10 best albums of 1999 by Cadence Magazine and Secret Sandhills and Satellites (2006) was voted best CD of September 2006 by Blow Up magazine and #2 CD of the year by the French magazine dMute.

Zen Buddhism

Until his retirement in 2023, Bolleter was a Zen Buddhist teacher in the Diamond Sangha tradition. He trained with Robert Aitken and John Tarrant from 1982 to 1992, when he was authorised by Tarrant to teach. He received transmission from both Aitken and Tarrant in 1997. He taught primarily in the Zen Group of Western Australia (ZGWA) but has also taught extensively elsewhere in Australia and in New Zealand. He has given transmission to: Mary Jaksch, Susan Murphy, Bob Joyner, Ian Sweetman, Glenn Wallis, Mari Rhydwen

Personal life

Bolleter has two children, Amanda and Julian. As of 2015, he had five ruined pianos in the kitchen of his Perth home.

Selected works

Books

• 1986: Fostering Creative Improvisation at the Keyboard: A Handbook for Piano Teachers, R. Bolleter.
• 2004: All the Iron Night (edited by Andrew Burke), Smokebush Press.
• 2005: The Well Weathered Piano, WARPS.
• 2009: Piano Hill, Fremantle Press.
• 2014: The Five Ranks of Dongshan: Keys to Enlightenment, Wisdom Publications.
• 2017: Du piano-épave / The Well Weathered Piano (bilingual edition), Editions Lenka Lente.
• 2018: The Crow Flies Backwards and Other New Zen Koans, Wisdom Publications.
• 2020: Blind Summits (with Christopher Konrad), Sunline Press.
• 2022: Average Human Heart: left hand stories, Editions Lenka Lente.
• 2022: The Piano Book (with Antoinette Carrier), WARPS.
• 2025: Suivez ma Trace / Track Me Down (bilingual edition), Editions Lenka Lente.

Discography

::data[format=table]

Year	Title	Label	Record number	Notes	Refs
1982	Openings	Wasit Music		With Tos Mahoney
1985	Temple of Joyous Bones	Homegrown Headroom	001
1986	Sky Burial	Wasit Music		With Nathan Crotty
1991	Pocket Sky
1993	Country of Here Below	Tall Poppies	TP045
1997	The Night Moves on Little Feet	WARPS	W03	With Rob Muir	url=https://researchers-admin.westernsydney.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/94871534/uws_8844.pdf
Left Hand of the Universe	W02
2000	Crow Country	Pogus	P21021-2		url=http://kalvos.org/playl00.html
2002	Satellites	WARPS	W06
Secret Sandhills	W05
2004	Paradise Café	Sunset Ostrich	S01		url=https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/archived/dailyplanet/argentina-rough-guide-repeat--first-aired-on-april/3436492
Pocket Sky	WARPS
2006	Secret Sandhills and Satellites	Emanem Records	4128	With Anthony Cormican
2008	Café Sophia	Sunset Ostrich	S02
2009	Five by Five	WARPS	W11	DVD of 5 pieces in 5.1 Surround
Intimate Ruins	W10
2010	Night Kitchen: An Hour of Ruined Pianos	Emanem Records	5008		url=https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/ross-bolleter/
2011	Piano Dreaming	WARPS	W12	2nd edition
Spring in Iraq	W13	2nd edition, with Anthony Cormican
Solitary Light	W14
Gust	W15	2nd edition
Music of Chance	W16	2nd edition
2012	Concertino Latino	Sunset Ostrich	SO3	With Anthony Cormican
Vault	WARPS/Myo On		With David Kotlowy
2013	High Rise Piano	WARPS	W19
Songs from the Third Watch: a song cycle	W18	With Anthony Cormican
2014	Frontier Piano	W20
Music of Chance	W21	2nd edition
2015	While my coffee cools	W22	Bolleter's poetry set to music
2017	Quarry Music	W23	With Anthony Cormican
Inland Sea	W25	With Martin Seddon
Night is a world lit by itself	W26	Total Piano, volume 1
2018	Speak Love	W27	Total Piano, volume 2
2019	Beloved on this Earth: a song cycle	W28	With Anthony Cormican
Café Antoinette			url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/249801982	title=Cafe Antoinette / Ross Bolleter	publisher=National Library of Australia
Heard from Earth	WARPS	W28	Total Piano, volume 3	url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/sites/default/files/attachments/2022-03/feb22alp_rap.txt	title=Recent Australian Publications
2020	Terra Incognita	W29	Total Piano, volume 4
2021	Ross Bolleter’s Total Piano, vol. 1-4	Thödol Music
Closer than Breathing	WARPS	W30	With Sylvain Roux
Compound Fracture	W31	With Antoinette Carrier
2022	Beloved on this Earth: a song cycle	W29	2nd edition, with Anthony Cormican
2023	Darkshine: a synchronous creation	W32	With Eduardo Cossio
The Synchronicity Project	Thödol Music	THO052	Triple album including Closer than Breathing, Compound Fracture and Darkshine
Such & Such		With Eduardo Cossio
WARPS	W33
2024	The Colour of a Thousand Miles	W34
::

Additionally, he performed “Nallan Void” on New Albion Records' Austral Voices in 1990 and Margaret Leng Tan's She Herself Alone in 2010.

References

References

1. (2023-10-23). "Devanney Haruta: Investigating the life and death of musical instruments". Brown University.
2. (January 2007). "Interview de Ross Bolleter". CanalBlog.
3. (2015-03-22). "Ross Bolleter - An interview with the Australian composer who specializes in creating compositions with ruined pianos". musicguy247.
4. "Black Eyed Susans Bio". Australian Rock Co.
5. (1991). "Improvising with synchronistic experiences".
6. (1991-10-21). "ABC Radio National 576". The Sydney Morning Herald.
7. McLennan, Andrew. "A Brief Topology of Australian Sound Art and Experimental Broadcasting". KunstRadio.
8. (1993-03-22). "Pocket Sky - Simulplay III". The Sydney Morning Herald.
9. Cseres, Jozef. (April 2025}} he and several other left-hand piano players ([[Michal Murin]], Zdeněk Plachý, Milan Adamčiak, Stephen Scott, Dan Wiencek, and Nathan Crotty) simultaneously played damaged pianos across Europe, the United States and Australia. The result, ''Left Hand of the Universe'', was released on CD in 1997 by WARPS.{{cite web). "Objevování hudby v australské pustině / Ross Bolleter". His Voice.
10. Krekovič, Slávo. "Organized sound and experiments in Slovak music". Sound Exchange.
11. Bevis, Danella. (2014-03-26). "Organic farmers in tune with the land". Yahoo! News.
12. Crombie, David. (2017-07-25). "Piano Sanctuaries. Good or Bad?". World Piano News.
13. "Ruined". Ten Days.
14. "An Invitation to Ruin". Cafe Oto.
15. (2015-05-13). "Totally Huge New Music Festival". X-Press Magazine.
16. Rutherford-Johnson, Tim. (2017). "Music After the Fall". University of California Press.
17. (2025-03-31). "The Little Prince invites you to rediscover wonder under a canopy of stars". Perth Now.
18. Quirk, Margaret. (2014-10-23). "Extract from Hansard". Parliament of Western Australia.
19. Combes, Sarah. (2003). "Totally Huge contemporary chamber music". Real Time.
20. (April 2025}} he has collaborated with Antoinette Carrier, who marries the art of weaving with the piano.{{cite web). "Antoinette Carrier: Fracture and Weft". RTR FM.
21. (2013). "Pianos - Antoinette Carrier". Fremantle Festivals.
22. (April 2025}} and who, in 2017, performed ''Quarry Music'' with him as a sound installation at the Totally Huge New Music Festival at [[Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts). "Annual Report 2017". Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts.
23. (2009-12-04). "Interview with a poet: Ross Bolleter". Fremantle Press.
24. "Ross Bolleter". Wisdom Publications.
25. Baroni, Helen J.. (2022-12-08). "Casting Indra’s Net across the Pacific: Robert Aitken and the Growth of the Diamond Sangha as a Trans-Pacific Zen Movement". Journal of Global Buddhism.
26. Spuler, Michelle. (2003). "Developments in Australian Buddhism: Facets of the Diamond". RoutledgeCurzon.
27. "Fostering creative improvisation at the keyboard : a handbook for piano teachers / written by Ross Bolleter". National Library of Australia.
28. Yeoman, William. (2009-12-01). "Music springs from ruins". The West Australian.
29. Byrne, Christopher. (July 2020). "restricted access Neither Straight Nor Crooked: Poetry as Performative Dialectics in the Five Ranks Philosophy of Zen Buddhism". Philosophy East and West.
30. "Ross Bolleter: Du piano-épave – The Well Weathered Piano". Les Presses du Réel.
31. Coote, Gillian. (2018). "Notices: Book review". Sydney Zen Centre.
32. "Blind summits / Christopher Konrad & Ross Bolleter". National Library of Australia.
33. Alen, Philippe. (2023-11-03). "Ross Bolleter ou le piano aborigène". Jazz In.
34. "Ross Bolleter: Suivez ma Trace / Track Me Down". Les Presses du Réel.
35. (2006-07-30). "Satan Phone God". ABC Radio National.
36. Jones, Elizabeth Aileen. (February 2008). "Accordion exposition: Investigating the playing and learning of advanced level concert accordion repertoire". University of Western Sydney.
37. (2011-10-30). "Birth and Age". ABC Radio National.
38. (2007-01-08). "The Best (According To Us) CD Of 2006". All About Jazz.
39. "EMANEM CD musicians A B". Emanem Records.
40. (2009-01-11). "Steve Tilston ( first aired on 28.9.08 )". ABC Radio National.
41. (2012-07-07). "Pat Metheny - 'Unity Band' (with Chris Potter, Ben Williams, Antonio Sanchez)". ABC Radio National.
42. Belhomme, Guillaume. (2014). "Ross Bolleter: Frontier Piano (WARPS, 2014)". CanalBlog.
43. "Cafe Antoinette / Ross Bolleter". National Library of Australia.
44. (February 2022). "Recent Australian Publications". National Library of Australia.
45. "Ross Bolleter - The Synchronicity Project (2022-2023)". ZoAnima.
46. "Ross Bolleter". Mode Records.

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