About
Bridget Chappell is an artist working with sound, based in Narrm/Birraranga (Melbourne), Australia.
I founded and run Sound School, a Melbourne music school upskilling and celebrating electronic musicians on the margins. The School is a hub for emerging creatives and an inclusive alternative to mainstream music education. My workshops create a fun and healing space for people to lean in to electronic music. I received the 2017 Music Victoria Best Experimental/Avante Garde Award for my work with Sound School.
As Hextape, I’m published on Australian labels Anterograde and TSV, and European labels Vinylograph and Collective Tantrums. Hextape spans the hardcore continuum (gabber, jungle, breakbeat, and techno) exploring the magical realism of rave culture.
I’ve been artist in residence at Testing Grounds (2020), Bogong Centre for Sound Culture (2019) and Frontyard (2017). Recent exhibitions include No Comment (Blindisde Gallery/Liquid Architecture) and HTTP:PARADISE (Incinerator Gallery). I’ve composed for the City of Melbourne, Knowledge Week, Critical Mass, Melbourne Fringe Festival, and Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio. I co-organised biannual rave Vapor Noir (2016-18) and have curated for Melbourne Music Week, Make It Up Club, and more.
Writing includes To Phase Cancel The Cops: an Acoustic Science of Insurrection in unProjects and Synthesizers and the Space Opera in Difficult Fun.
I trained at Melbourne Conservatorium of Music in cello and RMIT in sound engineering. I founded the Melbourne Squat Orchestra, a scrappy classical ensemble performing in acoustically interesting found spaces.
A City Made By People: Local Heroes: Bridget Chappell
Noisegate: Six Artists Using Korg
3CR: Girls Radio Offensive: Interview with Bridget Chappell, 26 March 2018
Identical Records: Interview with Bridget Chappell of Sound School, 29 November 2017
There’s an interactive synth laboratory in Marrickville, 11 July 2017
This site was made on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nations, and the Ngai Tahu people of Aotearoa. I pay my respects to elders past, present, and future, and acknowledge the sovereignty was never ceded.