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WAAPA Ignites Francis' Jazz Journey

Friday, 03 October 2025

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  • Dr Mace Francis

    Dr Mace Francis

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From 18 October to November 2, Perth comes alive with world-class music as the annual Perth International Jazz Festival (PIJF) presents an array of outstanding jazz musicians performing at venues across the city. It’s the culmination of a year of planning by WAAPA alum Dr Mace Francis, who has been the Festival Director since 2017.

“The very best part of the job is sitting in the audience listening to music that would not have happened on that date without the Festival,” says Francis. “It is always a really proud moment.”

Francis is himself a gifted jazz composer, band leader, and musician. He is also a passionate advocate of original Australian large ensemble jazz music.

“Big bands play a big part of my work and creative life,” he laughs. “It’s the energy and the sound that’s created by 15 to 20 people all just pushing air and feeling the time the same.”

Yet Francis, who grew up in Geelong, Victoria, originally dreamed of a career as a jazz guitarist. Following that dream, he scored himself a place at WAAPA in 2000. However, not long after arriving in Perth, his flatmates – who were also at WAAPA – introduced him to modern big band music. It was life changing.

“The first time I heard Bob Brookmeyer’s Remembering, I became a big band junkie,” he says.

Francis changed his WAAPA course to jazz composition, arranging and conducting – and he hasn’t looked back.

In 2005, the year after he graduated from WAAPA, Francis formed his own 14-piece ensemble, the Mace Francis Orchestra (MFO). Still performing, recording and touring, MFO released its tenth album last year.

Francis’s work as a guest composer and conductor has taken him around the world, while at home in Perth he was Artistic Director of the West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra (WAYJO) for 17 years, only stepping down in late 2024.

His original music has garnered a swag of awards and nominations, most notably an APRA Professional Development Award, the Italian international composition prize ‘Scrivere in Jazz’, and the 2015 APRA Jazz Work of the Year Award.

Francis has also excelled in academia: he graduated from WAAPA with First Class Honours in 2004 and followed this with a PhD on site-specific composition that was so outstanding, he was awarded ECU’s 2015 Education and the Arts Research Medal.

In 2024 Francis was awarded a prestigious Churchill Fellowship, which afforded him the opportunity to travel overseas to research world-leading European jazz organisations. The experience provided inspiration for ways to move forward with PIJF.

“I have an enormous passion for jazz in WA and am always looking at ways to improve,” he says. “PIJF reflects our mission to evolve how people experience jazz – by embracing the diversity of styles it influences, from funk and soul to pop and hip-hop.”

With PIJF about to open, Francis is a busy man. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a list of other projects on the go, including recording dates with indigenous artist Vaughn McGuire and Melbourne singer/songwriter Benjamin Golby, and a plan to return to Europe with Zero Emcee in 2026 for more touring of their hip-hop big band project.

Looking back to his time at WAAPA, Francis remembers it as being the place where his music career really kicked off.

“I had great teachers and peers. I learnt so much from my classmates, playing in ensembles, jamming and doing lots of gigs. It was a place to learn and network.”

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