composition and sound design
I've been lucky enough to be asked to lend my music to these amazing projects. An honour and and pleasure to work alongside these other creative talents and telling these amazing stories.
FREEMAN
I was pleased and honoured to be asked to do compose the music for this wonderful documentary. There were so many amazing moments to punctuate with emotion from her talking about her life as a child to winning gold at the Sydney Olympics. Nice to hear such a good response to it from the people who watching it premiere.
You can still watch it here - https://iview.abc.net.au/show/freeman/
SEASONS
SEASONS in Blak Box is a multi-part sound work that explores the integral role of plants in the Kulin seasonal calendar. Through the time-honoured practice of deep listening, SEASONS invites audiences to experience climatic and seasonal variation, less as a weather event and more as a cultural phenomenon.
AN OCTOROON
Queensland Theatre asked me to come up to Brisbane and be the Composer and Sound Designer for this ambitious take on An Octoroon. Was a hilarious and powerful play which resulted in Colin Smith winning Best Male Actor in a Leading Role at the Matilda Awards.
Blood on the dance floor
I was asked by writer/performer Jacob Boheme and Director Isaac Drandich to compose the sound design for this piece. This went on to receive 6 Green Room award nominations including a nomination for Best Sound Design and took out the award for Best Independent Production. It also received 4 1/2 Stars in the Age and was well received at the 2017 Sydney Festival. More about BOTDF here.
coranderrk
Director Eva Grace asked me to compose the music for Coranderrk. I tried to keep the music in the late 19th century when the play is set and limited the instrumentation to 4 instruments to match the 4 actors on stage. An honour to be a part of the telling of this story. More about the Coranderrk tour here.
sand song
I was asked to help extend the work which was initially composed by Aunty Lou Bennett. The piece has since been performed in Shanghai and Okinawa and has other plans for international performances. It is a performance for children and I would like to think I kept it quite light to cater for this. More about Sand Song here.
TANDERRUM
An honour to be asked to be musical director and facilitate the writing of music by people of the Kulin Nations to perform Tanderrum as part of the opening of the Melbourne Festival. A balance of ceremony and performance, my role was that of filing in the gaps of groups to have their people's stories represented in song in a danceable format. I held this role for the first 3 years of Tanderrum opening the Melbourne Festival in '13, '14 and '15. More about Tanderrum here.
Click here to listen to a track
Photo by Peter Berg - www.facebook.com/fotonimo
BUKAL
I got to go up to Cairns for a few weeks to help tell the story of Aunty Henrietta Marrie and here amazing journey from Yarrabah mission to the UN.
THE HONOURING
Jack Sheppard wrote a one man piece about depression and suicide. I was given the challenge of representing some of his darkest imaginings musically with this one. It was performed as part of Yirramboi 2019.
Still Here
White Night commissioned me to write a piece of music with Emma Donovan to go along with the images of Josh Muir in conjunction with Ample Projects. It was an amazing canvas and a lot of fun to work on. A slight challenge to work with 10 separate channels to pan sounds across, but a welcome challenge.
The sound isn't so great on the amateur video, but you can watch here. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q02xxb7LCc
ADVERTISING
Occasionally I’m asked to write music for advertising. Quite often I’m asked to write something which is a Traditional/Contemporary Aboriginal blend.
NGARRA BURRIA
Ngarra-Burria is an artist development program intended to build bridges for First Peoples musicians to step forward, further develop their composing skills, and connect with the art music sector. The program was initiated by Dharug composer Chris Sainsbury, and the words 'art music' here refer to the vast spectrum of contemporary classical/new music, contemporary original jazz and improvisatory practice, experimental practice, including sound art and installation, computer music, and more.