alphabet soup (2022)

for Vanessa Tomlinson

premiered at Percussive Arts Society International Convention, Indianapolis

three vignettes (2022)

composed whilst Artist in Residence @ Bondi Pavilion Housewarming

recorded by Christina Leonard, Jackson Bankovic and Jason Noble

pocket treasures (2021)

flute, tenor saxophone, trumpet and violin

composed for the music box project

The first draft of pocket treasures was composed two weeks before Sydney went into lockdown in 2021. I suggested to the music box project that we meet up at our favour rehearsal venue and pub The Glebe Hotel for a read through and planning session for the concerts we had looming on the horizon. Unfortunately, the impending lockdown pressed an unwanted pause on our activities as a collective. Fortunately, this allowed me to workshop pocket treasures over an unintentionally and luxuriously long period of time and dip in and out of the process to extend, edit and refine the structure and material of the work that is inspired by Naomi, Pete, Joe and Jane of ‘the music box project’.

I composed pocket treasures with the initial intention of drawing on the episodic and tangental structure of an earlier work for ‘the music box project’ - prelude & pickle. In creating pocket treasures, I sketched, sifted and wove together various sound worlds using a palette of sounds/textures drawn from sonic memories of previous works and improvisations I feel fortunate to have shared with this group of musicians since 2015.

red banksia (2020)
solo cello

composed for Freya Schack-Arnott as part of the Voices of Women film project CLEARWAY‘, with sculptures by Rox De Luca

‘тише едешь, дальше будешь’ - ‘quietly you go, further you will’

this piece was inspired by Rox De Luca’s incredible sculptures along with text from monologues featured in the 2019 film CLEARWAY by Voices of Women. whilst composing the piece and thinking about Rox’s process of collecting, cleaning, sorting and assembling plastic found on the beach to create sculptural forms, I was reminded of the Russian proverb above. I also was thinking about the ‘crescendo’ of a walk down to the beach - hearing the wash of the ocean from a distance, gradually approaching/focusing in on the shoreline, diving in. i sketched out the structural trajectory of the piece whilst having this network of ideas on my mind.

additionally, in my music, I often have enjoyed imagining quiet, subtle sounds that are intensely energetic - ‘‘frenetic silence’ as I have referred to it in a few scores now. in red banksia, this idea is translated to the cello through wrapping a piece of painter’s tape around three of the cello strings, resulting in a palette of intricate sounds that were exciting for Freya & I to explore. thanks to violinist and dear friend Jane Aubourg who helped me in testing this technique.

prelude & pickle (2019)
music theatre

for the music box project

premiered at Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music during the music box project’s Excellence in Experimental Music/Art Music Award winning performance, prelude & pickle is a collage of (observational, ephemeral, humorous, mundane to deeply personal) thoughts and ideas as explored by the music box project via elements of theatre, colour, movement and sound.

clearway I (2020)
flute trio

composed for Lamorna Nightingale, Naomi Johnson and Jess Scott as part of the Voices of Women monologue project CLEARWAY - LIVE.

whilst composing this work, i enjoyed drawing on the words, structures and titles of the vast array of stories that formed part of this cross-disciplinary project. the work is made up of three movements - each featuring a short musical solo ‘monologue’ for each flutist. the performance of the work was cancelled due to COVID19, however, I assembled a collage of rehearsal footage (video above).

popcorn convection (2016)
saxophone quintet

composed for Petrichor Sax

seeds of ideas for pieces often come from curious combinations of words that for whatever reason I am drawn to. in the case of this piece, I loved stumbling upon the term ‘popcorn convection’ that is used to describe showers and storms that form on a scattered basis with little apparent organisation. thanks to Petrichor Sax for performing the piece on numerous occasions and to Women of Noise for their recent performance (video above).

arrangements

sometimes, i love to arrange music composed by others - having made arrangements for a friend’s jazz album, youth ensembles, weddings and more. above is a snippet of my arrangement of Elena Kats Chernin’s Village Idiot for the music box project and Nick Photinos (founding cellist of eighth blackbird) that was performed as part of a workshop presented by Musica Viva.