Indie/pop/choral musician and vocal trainer, Aphir, is an ACT Young Artists Startup Grant recipient and winner of the 2013 MAMAs’ Best ACT Vocal/Choral Act. We caught up with her for five quick questions.

1. What is your musical background?

I think it’s been pretty non-traditional. I never went to music school or anything and I was a pretty ridiculous child, so whenever my parents tried to send me off to have lessons with an instrument I would just burst into tears under the pressure of my tutor’s scrutiny. I was always pretty good at singing, though, and I went through a couple of choirs and had singing lessons in high school once I had chilled out a bit.

2. What is your particular music style?

I’ve been calling it ‘dreamchoral’ because that sounds sort of beautiful and important, but essentially what I make is pop songs sung over renaissance-choral style backing tracks that I sing myself. That sounds pretty weird in writing but it works when you listen to it.

3. What do you do as a ‘day job’?

My income mainly comes from teaching singing and tutoring in English and Philosophy.

4. Your view on the Canberra music scene – current state, opportunities, challenges, goals etc.

For a while now it seems like the Canberra music scene has been diversifying to accommodate more experimental and electronic styles, so that’s a really positive thing. I think it’s also great that there are more labels blooming in Canberra and (as a result) more opportunities for musical communities to develop. I help to run one fairly new label – Early Music – but there are heaps of impressive groups in town – Cinnamon Records and Dream Damage to name a couple.

5.  What do you listen to when you’re not playing?

I’ve been really obsessed with Mø at the moment – I’ve basically lost count of how many times I’ve listened to her album – and I’ve been listening to heaps of textural electronic stuff like Vania Dantas Leite and Holly Herndon, too. There have also been some dark times with Katy Perry’s recent album! I can’t decide whether I find it inspiring or upsetting. I’ve spent a lot of time changing all the song titles into bad things like ‘Whimper’ and ‘This is How We Doom’.

Aphir will be playing at the launch of brand new feminist blog, Feminartsy, at 7pm on Friday 20 June at Smith’s Alternative. You can find her music online via Facebook or Soundcloud.