explore

dnka + zil (2016-ongoing)

duo project with guitarist Danica Hobden

Danica and I met as noisy teenagers, learning and playing jazz as part of SIMA’s Young Women’s Jazz Workshops. at these workshops we also met our dear friend Laura Andrew. the three of us stayed connected beyond the course, playing as a trio “Shady Lady” whilst remaining kindred spirits.

in 2019, Danica and I first performed as “dnka + zil” for LOST+SOUND collective’s series. we performed a set of 20 miniatures we had composed together - exploring a vast array of musical worlds and possibilities (including Bach, folk, electronic, experimental and other imaginary music) with our instruments and objects. in 2021, we created and composed two tracks for The House That Dan Built’s “Festival in a Box” accompanied by a recipe that we shared as a story. In 2022, we performed in a (not so quiet) library a set of music ranging from a Bossa Nova to a structured improvisation based on extinct animal species, a rag to Ravel. As a performer, I feel simultaneously adventurous and supported when playing with Danica. It’s really special and I hope to make and share more music together in the future.

tea suite (2022-ongoing)
suite of solo piano pieces for anyone to play!

I’m currently composing a (growing!) suite of solo piano pieces inspired by tea. by the end of the project, I hope to compile a book of sheet music and illustrations for anyone to explore on the piano. the compilation will be aimed at people who love to play the piano (beginners and rusty pianists included!) and drink tea.

tea suite is inspired by beryl shereshewsky’s call out asking how people around the world drink their tea. I liked the idea of creating a musical response to this proposition.

25 scenes (2020)
solo percussion

This work was created for HiberNATION Festival 2020’s Care Packages project. I created this package for percussionist Claire Edwardes, who unravelled and explored its contents live via Twitch.

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.

ten tangents (2020) work in progress
10 mini miniatures for viola/voice

composed as part of nonclassical academy

(1) opening (2) rubber band society (3) word association (4) dance party (5) baba yaga (6) falling (7) art gallery (8) real-time translation (9) aaaaaaaaagh (10) countdown

this piece is a little bit of a nonsense machine… with a very tight deadline, ten tangents was composed one morning with the idea of creating a tangental conversation between two instruments. as this piece was composed for a workshop scenario, i liked the idea of composing a piece that explored ten very short ideas that i might choose to develop in the future. since being a young music student (when the doors of exploratory music were first left wide open for me to explore) i have always been attracted to music made up of tangental strips of sound (eg: cathy berberian in ‘stripsody’ or john zorn in ‘spillane’). other pieces of mine such as prelude & pickle (2019) and field notes (2019) explore a somewhat similar tangental construction within the context of chamber music, however, the challenge of composing a piece that maintains a tangental pacing for two seemed interesting to me and something I’d like to refine and explore further in future pieces. as this is a work/idea in progress, i was only happy with perhaps 7 of the 10 mini miniatures. 1 mini miniature i absolutely can’t stand (hence why the beginning of the recording has been cut….I mean what was i thinking?!) and 2 of the mini miniatures I don’t particularly like. have fun guessing!

all text used throughout the piece is written by me (eg: by playing a word association game by myself) or extracted/mixed up from translations of russian fairytales in the public domain and titles/dates/materials of artworks by wassily kandinsky.

sound parcels (2018)
performed by Elizabeth Jigalin, presented by Ensemble Offspring

sound keepers network (2020)

composed for the music box project

as part of hibernation festival’s contribution to “make music day 2020”, the music box project curated a 6 hour livestreamed ‘sound game picnic’. as part of the picnic, TMBP (in our red beanies and live artist cams) navigated through a series of mini-games i had composed to be performed whilst navigating various tasks such as people-watching, sitting along the shoreline and exploring the island.

EXQUISITE CHORUS (2020)
web/game opera

commissioned by Gaudeamus Muziekweek

I had lots of fun building EXQUISITE CHORUS for SCREEN DIVE curated by the awesome Luke Deane and Maya Felixbrodt. EXQUISITE CHORUS is made up of three (slightly nonsensical) games or “acts”of sorts - constructed from material i have been in the habit of recording on various phones for the past couple of years - intentionally and sometimes accidentally. whilst creating this work, it was quite strange to revisit so many different sounds long after they were recorded - especially as a lot of the sounds, at the time, were recorded without any real purpose…sometimes I will record something knowing that it will be curiously funny to listen back to later….sometimes I record a sound that i feel captures a place/time/situation i find myself in. i hope to write a little bit more about this work in the future (especially about why i call it an ‘opera’), however, in the meantime…i hope you can dive in and explore it and the rest of the works part of the project.

music for (silent) films

over the past couple of years, I have composed and performed soundtracks for over 20 silent film shorts as part of Australia’s Silent Film Festival and Kammerklang’s ‘Something Will Happen’. I have loved diving into the rabbit hole of silent film and am continually in awe of the creativity and originality of early film makers. in 2017, i collaborated with violinist Jane Aubourg (who i have had the pleasure of creating multiple soundtracks to silent film with!) to record and release “Photoplay: Music for Silent Film, Vol. 1”

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.

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).

sound on toast (2020)

video above: still life ignoring (2020) for toy piano

as part of hibernation festival of lo-fi, i presented a 1-hour breakfast show sound on toast - live-streamed every wednesday morning for ten weeks. i was interested in this idea of cooking up a regular sonic breakfast inorder to make a habit of beginning my day making/exploring music at a time when usually I would be simply waking up, drinking coffee and eating toast. i enjoyed the limitations (& possibilities!) of performing in my home and exploring my local surrounds to make music - for example: I never thought that I would be giving the Australian premiere of a Peter Ablinger work on a pedestrian footbridge above one of Australia’s busiest roads (depending on how you think of it to an audience of one…me… or to an audience of hundreds - unbeknownst to the drivers passing by the performance!), nor did I ever think I would stage an opera of sorts in a shoebox at 8AM.

after most episodes of sound on toast, I would spend the hour afterwards scribbling down the rush of ideas that would follow as result of the strange tension of performing from the comforts of one’s home to an online audience that might be listening. following this, i would edit a short video work using the content i had live-streamed that very morning and uploading these videos that same afternoon. much of these experiments you can explore via my notebook - a space i have enjoyed carving out for my ideas in motion.

music for (creative) films

over the past couple of years , I have loved collaborating with animators, film-makers, photographers, architects and organisations to compose music alongside videos. in composing this kind of music, I love working at the piano, often (somewhat) solving my frustrations with my favourite instrument by preparing it (ie: putting objects into the piano to change the sound and extend the possible sounds I can work with).

the samples of music you will hear in the clip above come from music i composed/recorded for Moorambilla Voices Magic Modules (with photographer Noni Carroll) and JigSketch (aka my architect father) alongside footage of my own (mostly taken on a trip to Japan along with a clip from a work at Sculptures by the Sea!).

o (2016-2019)
open instrumentation

an animated collection of scores for musicians to explore. i am happy that many ensembles have enjoyed exploring this work including: Stereo Mono, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory New Music Ensemble & COMA New Music Ensemble.

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.

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).

your ears are appreciated (2017)
community workshop & piece for 11 musicians

commissioned by Kim Williams for Ensemble Offspring, supported by Reverse Garbage, Marrickville

I love creating curious music experiences that can involve audiences as active listeners/makers. in particular, I love working in this way with younger audiences in mind - thinking about how they can get messy with music. thanks to Ensemble Offspring, I have had the opportunity to explore this kind of work as part of their annual event at Petersham Bowlo “Sizzle". your ears are appreciated saw audiences building instruments for their ears in preparation for a game like piece performed by Ensemble Offspring & Sirens Big Band musicians. in 2018, i returned to Sizzle with sound parcels where i built little parcels of sound live for two people at a time - the tiny sounds of constructing these parcels amplified for audiences to hear.

I have also translated this way of making/sharing in music for workshops in schools and youth music organisations such as Sydney Youth Orchestras and hope to continue to create this kind of work with audiences of all ages! I’m also slowly working on a book that collates a lot of these games/community composition scenarios that i hope would encourage teachers to introduce whacky, fun and messy music-making scenarios in the classroom.

in 4 (2015)
participatory work curated by the music box project

In 2015, ‘the music box project’ facilitated the creation of a new work by 40 composers around the world ‘in 4’ inspired by Terry Riley’s ‘in C’. this was our first participatory focused project and it was exciting to have the resulting work premiered by a quartet of quartets made up of upcoming Sydney musicians. I’ve used ‘in 4’ as a model work for collaborative composition workshops in high schools - creating similar works with students contributing small musical ideas to form something bigger, then guiding students through the exciting process of performing/presenting the world premiere of their work! as a keen collaborator myself, i love working with others (musicians, other composers, directors, poets, visual artists, software developers, etc). in the classroom, i love creating learning situations for students to create work together and opening up the composition process to not just be the lonely process it often can be. more-so, i have loved working with students to consider how they can share this way of working outside of the music classroom and creatively engage their peers/school communities in music. some examples of these projects include: creating a graphic ‘donut’ shaped score at lunchtime in the playground, releasing albums of piano music performed and composed by quartets of students and creating sound installations in school hallways.