October 2025
September
Over the past several months, I’ve been curating for Creative Original Music Adelaide’s COMA Curated series, which an opportunity bring together artists around a topic or theme of their choice over two performances in the COMA annual season.. Keen to share soundscape composition, multichannel surround sound and environmentally-responsive improv with South Australian audiences, I was grateful to congregate several local and interstate friends, ushering in the beginning of spring.
On September 1, I had the pleasure of performing alongside Georgia Oatley and Margie Jean Lewis with their piece soak, a sonic meditation on the current drought effecting the Adelaide Hills and continuing (devastating) algal bloom on the South Australian coastline.
My own piece, sanctuary x mill, a collaborative work with Clocked Out, QLD, explored the sound of the ruined pianos at the Murray Bridge Piano Sanctuary and The Piano Mill, in concert with their attendant soundscapes. Chris Reid, reviewing for the Barefoot Review shared his thoughts:
The resulting orchestration of this diverse range of sounds was utterly absorbing, immersing the audience in a sonic world that situates the piano and its life cycle in the living environment. The sound is wondrous, but the message is also clear: the decaying piano may be seen as an allegory for human civilisation, with music as the transient, fragile expression of civilisation, and it obliquely recalls the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi — finding beauty in imperfection and impermanence.
This concert was a delight but also deeply thought-provoking. The use of electronic technology greatly expands the field of musical composition and permits the composer not only to draw on a much wider range of sonic material and effects but also to draw in the symbolism of the sound sources. The use of live, mediated performance together with pre-recorded samples creates a novel musical form that generates a unique aesthetic and enables the composer-performer to highlight important issues. Both works in this concert gently but firmly reminded listeners of the precarious environmental situation confronting us.
Read Chris’s full review here,
On September 15, dear friends Continental Drifts (Vicki Hallett, VIC) and Abstract Human Radio (Fin Wegener, QLD) presented the second set at The Wheatsheaf Hotel – check Fin’s modular synth set out on the link below:
October Update
On Thursday 2 October, for the Australian Network for Art and Technology ANAT Spectra 2025 conference, dear friend Vanessa Tomlinson presented the next exploration Channelling Dulcie’s Piano: How the River Taught the Piano to Sing at the University of the Sunshine Coast (QLD).
The work follows a 1920s Milton pianola, once belonging to Vanessa’s Nana in Adelaide, on an 8-day journey in May 2023 from the Murray Bridge Piano Sanctuary to The Piano Mill at Willson’s Downfall. Along the way, we listen to the rivers and tributaries that flow between these places: the Murray, the Darling, the Barwon, the Gwydir, Boonooboonoo Creek, and countless lagoons and billabongs.
This 15-minute version of the piece explored the soundworld of the hydrophone recordings we made through the piano: channelling fish songs, aquatic resonances, and histories of place through the ivories, metals, woods, felts and glues. Channelling Dulcie’s Piano attunes to rivers, memory, and the voices that flow between, engaging art, science, and technology to explore how listening can connect us to water and place.
Photos and video to come soon!
I’m also delighted to announce that I’m one of the Elizabeth Wood Musicology Fellows in 2026!
Two fellowships awarded by the University of Adelaide are known as the Elizabeth Wood Research Fellowship in Musicology, named in honour of world-renowned musicologist Dr Elizabeth Wood who holds Bachelors' degrees in English literature (with Honours) (1961), and musicology (with Honours) (1970) from The University of Adelaide, and a PhD from the same university (1970). Her work includes the first history of Australian opera and a series of critical studies of Ethel Smyth. A Fulbright Scholar and National Endowment for the Humanities (USA) Fellow, she received the Tormore prize (Adelaide) (1959) and Philip Brett Award (AMS) (1997) for her pathbreaking essays in gay and lesbian musicology, and a New York State Council on the Arts award for her journalism in regional arts (2001). The Fellowships have a fixed-term annual stipend and can be held for up to one year. The annual value of each stipend is $40,000 plus $10,000 top-up for travel expenses.
My Fellowship will focus on two topics both with ethical and creative exploration: one on more-than-human recorded mimesis (exploring the ethical impacts of playing an animal’s call back to them - how might this impact their behaviour and the wider ecosystem), and speculative soundscape composition through generative AI (connecting large-scale ecoacoustic databases with complementary non-acoustic datasets).
Upcoming in November
I’m looking forward to rejoining Chamber Music Adelaide’s On The Terrace Festival this year, with a new piece, Volumes.
On The Terrace is a free mini-festival of pop-up concerts for all ages - experience the intimacy and wonder of chamber music set amongst Adelaide’s iconic galleries, museums and creative spaces on North Terrace. More information available on the Chamber Music Adelaide website.
Designed for an octophonic sound array with live performance elements, Volumes envelops audiences in a multi-dimensional sonic landscape exploring the voluminous materiality and sounds of water, sand, vehicles, rockets, news media, and biodiversity in Volusia County, Florida. The piece follows my residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida, as part of my 2024 Arts SA Fellowship.
Later, on 19 November (my birthday!), I’m looking forward to revisiting several songs from Joe Twist’s beautiful oratorio Watershed, which I was fortunate to repetiteur for back at its premiere in 2022. Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan was commissioned by the Adelaide Festival to commemorate 50 years since the murder of Dr George Ian Ogilvie Duncan in Karrawirraparri / The River Torrens.
This event, The Valley Called Hope, as part of Feast Festival 2025 commemorates the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in South Australia (the first jurisdiction in English-speaking world). Very much looking forward to performing alongside dear friends conductor Christie Anderson, tenor Mark Oates and members of Adelaide Chamber Singers. Hope to see you there!
