The tour starts at Maleny Players Theatre on Saturday night (July 15), before heading down to the Murwullimbah Citadel on July 22 and onto Sydney.

East of West is led by Bosnian-born composer Goran Gajić on the Double Bass, who explores new compositions springing from his rich musical influences from the Balkans and the Mediterranean.

Philip Griffin and Malindi Morris complete the trio, and with each of them born in a different country, they create music that questions boundaries and borders, reaching across them to touch minds and hearts.

Griffin shows true mastery of his music craft on the oud and Greek laouto, seamlessly interweaving traditional techniques with modern influences, while Malindi Morris is a sensitive and creative instrumentalist on traditional hand drums and cymbals.

For Goran Gajić, his background as a Brisbane based but Bosnian born double bass player and composer has led him to play around the world.

He explains how their second album Moving Home was written just before the time in which the world ‘moved home’ during the pandemic’s long isolation periods.

“So about five years ago, I was finishing jazz studies at the Con here in Brisbane and I wanted to combine what I learned in the jazz course, which was one of my interests with this sort of music of where I come from, which is the Balkans region,” Gajić said.

“I wanted to find, to make this sort of fusion music that’s got elements of jazz and elements of Balkan and a bit of traditional.”

East of West’s intricate story-telling compositions are spun over rich traditional rhythms, entwining elements of jazz and allowing space for open solos and improvisation.

Over the years, East of West has developed an intuitive musical relationship, unfolding through their dynamic interplays, virtuosic unison melodies, and expressive soloing.

“When I moved to Australia 13 years ago, I moved and did my studies here and then met Malindi, who plays percussion. She’s been playing similar kind of music for about probably 20 years now or longer,” he said.

“Phillip plays a lot of genres, he’s classically trained, he sang, he played, he was working in Sydney opera, he plays the classical guitar.

“He also plays Baroque instruments, but some of the instruments he plays in music is Balkan music and he’s been doing that kind of music since the eighties. So yeah, it’s quite interesting that I happened to be here in Brisbane when two of them were also living in Brisbane and we managed to meet and get this tour going.”