Abbey Felton

After stumbling across the classical guitar at eleven (a dangerous thing to do given it's made of delicately crafted wood), Abbey began to love the instrument.

​She began seriously considering tertiary studies on the instrument in high school, and so began her Bachelor of Music (Classical Guitar) at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) in 2017.

Abbey has performed many times over the course of her studies thus far, in a range of genres and fields. In 2018 she performed at the Perth International Jazz Festival in an all-female jazz ensemble, and took part in a performance of Terry Riley's In C with WAAPA's Electric Guitar Orchestra (EGO). That year she also co-devised a performance art piece with local artist Amy Reid, exploring the idea of women as muses and creators. There she premiered her first solo work for classical guitar, The Space In Between.

In 2017 she performed in WAAPA's Verge end-of-year dance show for the classical dance performance of highlights from Don Quixote. Her love for collaboration with dance has only grown since then, with multiple projects and performances in 2019. Sharing, choreographed by Scott Galbraith, was chosen from STRUT's Shortcuts season to be performed again at The Blue Room's Winter Shorts. It involved her performing and improvising live using a looping station. She is active in the classical guitar scene, performing with her university ensemble, Plectra, and her quartet, the Black Star quartet, across the state and around Australia. In 2019 she formed a guitar-percussion duo with fellow WAAPA student Gabrielle Lee, and they performed Maria Grenfell's Di Primavera at Abbey's third year recital.

2020 saw her research contemporary guitar works by Australian women composers for her honours, culminating in the presentation of these works in her graduation recital. Abbey now plans to pursue further training and education, building a diverse career that engages with all the forms of her practice and interests.