Nicky Bomba Barry Deenick Rodrigo Pino Dorian West Antonio Milillo Michael Caruana Michael Havir Stephen Phillips George Servanis Dave Joseph Elvis Aljus Lennox Jordan Steven Montgomery Pat Powell Paul Coyle Patrick Cronin David Henry Sarah Heffernan Theodore Kazan Dean Hilson Justin Forster Robert Calvert Peter Mitchell Laurance Bongailas Anthony Hicks Sally Ford Peter Slipper Kynan Robinson Wally Maloney Michael Boase Jake Savona Cam Hassard Piers Gooding Russell Roberts Stuart Ferguson Ed Farrar Dan Kerr Jessica Jacobs Anna Gordon
Melbourne Ska Orchestra are an ARIA Award-winning Australian ska band formed in 2003 in Melbourne. The group has up to 34 members, and is led by bandleader Nicky Bomba, formerly of the John Butler Trio. The band are signed to FOUR FOUR, an imprint of ABC Music.[1]
Background
The Melbourne Ska Orchestra was created by musician Nicky Bomba and radio presenter Mohair Slim. The band's inaugural performance was on 31 May 2003 to a sold out crowd at The Esplanade Hotel's Gershwin Room (St Kilda).
Drawing inspiration from the vast musical legends that have shaped the Ska genre, from the Jamaican movement through to UK Two Tone and the present day Latino Ska, Melbourne Ska Orchestra demonstrate a unique Australian vision with the exuberance and freewheeling colour of contemporary Ska. The outfit have crafted their sound with unexpected arrangements and seductive harmonies, powerful horns and foot-stomping drums.
The eponymous Melbourne Ska Orchestra album was released to rave reviews in 2013 and picked up 2 ARIA nominations that year.[2]
The band have toured consistently for over a decade, including festival appearances at Bluesfest, Golden Plains, Vivid, Caloundra, Queenscliff and AWME. In addition to their highly visible presence on the Australian touring circuit, the band have built an impressive, ever-growing and dedicated overseas fan base.[3] The band sold out their debut London show, appeared on the bill for the iconic Glastonbury Festival and played a headline set to a crowd 50,000 at the Montreal Jazz Festival during their 2014 tour.[4] The band has performed in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, USA, Canada, Turkey as well as appearing in television commercials in Australia and Japan.
The band released their second album Sierra Kilo Alpha in April 2016, embarking on a national tour to support it.[5]
The band released a follow-up to their acclaimed 2016 release called Saturn Return in late 2016. Saturn Return comprises a selection of songs from the same recording session as Sierra Kilo Alpha and was released on a rocket-shaped USB drive.
In 2018, the band announced that they would release one song every week (each Friday, hence "52 Fridays") for an entire year. At the end of 2019, the entire 52-week series of single releases was successfully concluded with the song "Magnolia Springtime". The resulting collection, One Year of Ska, won the ARIA Award for Best World Music Album in 2019.
