"Sidekick" recording project by Ziggy and Miles, the Johnston Brothers

The goal of this project is to create a CD recording/album with accompanying videos and photos that represent the relationship and artistic journey between Ziggy and Miles Johnston (myself and my brother). As part of our journey as artists, this project is essential to define our narrative and image as artists. While the album’s physical release will have some commercial release, the purpose of this project is to create materials that we can use as marketing tools that will help forward our careers by generating press across both Australia and the US.

For the album, we will be creating about 50 mins of audio recordings for release online through platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and Instagram, and physically on CD. Our goal is to create all these recordings ourselves, and get it released through a boutique record label in Australia in July 2023 when we next return home. While releasing it through a boutique label will be necessary for us to reach a wider audience and allow us to be nominated for awards, we will release it ourselves if we are unable to find a suitable label. Pressing of the CD for US audiences will happen in the Fall of 2023.

Each piece on this CD reflects a different aspect of our relationship, history, and mission as artists. The repertoire that we will be recording includes works by major guitar composers (Tonadilla by Joaquin Rodrigo and Jongo by Paulo Bellinati), arrangements of popular works for piano (Valses Poeticos by Enrique Granados, and our own arrangement of Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy), the defining Australian work for guitar duo (Songs from the Forest by Nigel Westlake), and two new works that we have commissioned (Sidekick by Katie Jenkins – a piece written by a close friend of ours as a satire of our brotherly dynamic and musical history; Trin Warren Tam-Boore by Ken Murray – a piece that imitates the calls of Australian birds).

The video recordings we aim to create will serve two purposes. The first is creating a short “trailer” for us that showcases our relationship together when performing, and the stylistically diverse repertoire that we have. The second is to create videos of the Australian pieces and new commissions to represent our commitment to building the future of guitar duo repertoire, and to showcase the incredible music the composers we grew up with back home have created. All the videos that we currently have for promoting ourselves were shot with a single camera angle. All the videos we will be creating as part of this project will be done with multiple camera angles as it tells a dynamic story about the pieces and us as artists bringing them to life.

We have decided to do all the recording and filming at Skillman Studio in Brooklyn, NY, as they have endless experience in recording and producing captivating videos of classical musicians at all stages of career. Recording all the audio tracks for this album will require 3 full days in the studio, plus an additional day to edit and master the recordings. Skillman offers a 5-camera cinematic camera style, for which we aim to take 4 hours to film and 6 hours to edit. To define our visual brand and create photos for album art and promotional materials, we have selected to work with the photographer Kevin Condon, and stylist Fay Lesner as they each have an immediately eye-catching and modern style that will showcase the duality we have between classical and contemporary popular musics.

We aim to first release the album in Australia in July 2023, and in the US during Fall 2023. These releases will accompany and promote public performances we have organized to showcase the works in this project.

About us, the current position of our careers, and why this project is important to us:

We are a professional classical guitar duo from Australia that's has been based in NYC for approximately the past 4 years. In addition, this year we have become the first Australians, second guitarists, and first guitar duo in history to be accepted into The Juilliard School's prestigious Artist Diploma Program. As a direct result of this, when we were last back in Australia (June/July 2022), an article was written about us in Australia's largest Newspaper (The Age and associated press) detailing this achievement and was published all around the country. This led to interviews on radio, selling out a concert at a major venue in Melbourne, and receiving a 4.5/5-star review for the concert. Thanks to this, we have been able to self-organise a tour of Australia in July/August 2023 where we will be presenting 11-concerts across the country, along with masterclasses and educational talks for universities and secondary school students, and community engagement performances.

We are undergoing this recording project to build the narrative and image we will define and market ourselves with. We have chosen to express this through a CD and video recordings as it is accessible to diverse audiences through today’s streaming platforms regardless of the sacrificed revenue. The project will help us gain media attention to continue the momentum we have built in Australia and leverage that success to engage with presenters and managers more easily in the US.