I'm very honoured to announce that I'm the winner of the 1st Stelvio Cipriani Composition Competition for Film Music 2022. From over 200 international entries in the first round, down to 60 in the semi finals, then 4 in the finals. I'm still pinching myself! I'm looking forward to heading to Rome later in the year to the awards ceremony and to meet all the judges and the other finalists.

The last month has been a busy one preparing the sound design and backing tracks for the upcoming Sydney Children's Choir show Hypnopompia (or the edge of the unkown). Artistic Director Lyn Williams and Stage Director Alexander Berlage and the incredible team at Gondwana Choirs are putting on this remarkable show with the Senior Choir who are sounding stunning! With a diverse range of repertoire from Australian composers and Contemporary artists this show explores the edge of adulthood and finding a new sense of reality. This week has been particularly exciting seeing and hearing all the elements come together for opening night this Thursday 23rd June. 

About the show:
Hypnopompia (or the edge of the unknown) explores the edge of adulthood and finding a new sense of reality – what it is to be a teenager and grow up in an uncertain world. Looking around at a world filled with war, climate change, celebrity influencers, and the pressures of social media, Hypnopompia (or the edge of the unknown) explores the place of young people in the strange nightmare that is our century, and questions what is real and what is not. It’s a sonic journey – a gamut of musical styles, pushing and pulling against each other, filled with magnetism and electricity.
Ground-breaking works of the children’s choir repertoire will go hand in hand with new arrangements of electro-acoustic hits by Sufjan Stevens, Fever Ray, ANONHI and Billie Eilish. In a first for the Sydney Children’s Choir, Artistic Director Lyn Williams is joined by stage director Alexander Berlage (American Psycho, Cry-Baby), two-time winner of the Sydney Theatre Award for Best Direction of a Musical.

Book tickets here

Excited to announce that I'm one of four finalists in the Cipriani Film Scoring competition alongside international composers Minzuo Lu from China, Satoshi Kanno from Japan and Giuseppe Gammino from Italy. From over 200 international entries we're now down to the final four. We have one more submission to make by the end of May then the winner will be announced on June 15th.

It's such an honour to make it this far in the competition, especially amongst such talented composers. It's also been a lot of fun diving into the music of Stelvio Cipriani, one of the great Italian film composers.

Listen to one of his great tracks "Mary's Theme" here

"...was a fine vehicle in which to transport us to the emotion and reality of modern cruelties. The agony of imprisonment was vividly painted for us." - Paul Nolan review in the Sydney Arts Guide

You can read the full review from Paul Nolan from the Bass Instincts concert at the Utzon room last month here
A great review from this stunning concert which will be repeated in both Melbourne and Canberra.
You can get tickets for the Melbourne show which is at the Melbourne Recital Centre on Sunday April 10th at 3pm here
Tickets for the Canberra show at the Wesley Music Centre which is 24th April at 5pm are available here

Alicia Crossley's 'Bass Instincts' concerts kick off next week in Sydney with further performances in Melbourne and Canberra. Performing all the works from her latest album, all commissioned by Alicia and all composed by Australian women composers: Holly Harrison, Anne Boyd, Alice Chance, Lisa Cheney, Amanda Cole, Jessica Wells and Fiona Hill. Fiona will be performing the electronics component live with Alicia enhancing the usually inaudible sounds of the instruments and creating the cavernous atmosphere of the piece. Inspired by the poem 'Lost in the Darkness' by a young refugee in detention, Maryem, the work aims to sonically capture aspects of the poem through musical devices. Fiona first discovered the poem in an Arts Zine published by the Refugee Art Project #6, the image 'Girl with Flowers' by Tabarak above is from the same Arts Zine and appears on the back cover.

You can book tickets for the performances here:
Sydney - Wednesday March 16th, 7pm, Utzon Room Sydney Opera House
Book Tickets Sydney

Melbourne - Sunday April 10th, 3pm, Melbourne Recital Centre
Book Tickets Melbourne

Canberra - Sunday April 24th, 5pm, Wesley Music Centre
Book Tickets Canberra

Absolutely thrilled to be nominated for Best Music for a Short Film in the APRA AMCOS Screen Music Awards 2021!! So much great talent in this years nominees so I'm honoured to be up there amongst it. Good luck to everyone who has been nominated! Look out for the winners on February 22.

The wonderful film 'Circumstance 2020' by Sue Healey is now free to stream on line through the Sydney Festival It was such a treat to compose the score for this work with incredible performances by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Fellows under the baton of Roger Benedict with an epic mix by Evan McHugh! Brilliant performances by Allie Graham, Billy Keohavong and the Sydney Dance Company PPY 2020 dancers are enhanced by the stunning footage of DOP Ken Butti. So beautiful to see both the Paddington Reservoir and Bombo in this way.
It's a lovely way to spend 22 minutes of your life so be sure to click on the link to watch!!

This week is the final week of performances for 'Springtime Again', the amazing new work I've been collaborating on with Lilian Steiner and the Sydney Dance Company dancers. It's been so incredible to be in the theatre every night controlling the live elements of the sound which is triggered through motion tracking and gestural controllers in Max MSP. It's not too late to grab a ticket: here and see the lava lamp come to life!

Listen to the Interview here. 

MBElectroacoustic experimentation is composer Fiona Hill’s specialty. Her collaborations with filmmakers, choreographers and instrumentalists such as recorder player Alicia Crossley have balanced high-tech production with emotive and organic evocations of the natural world. As she prepares a new score for Sydney Dance Company’s New Breed season with choreographer Lilian Steiner, Fiona stops by the music show to explain how she uses gestural controllers and a “blob tracker” to make music.

Jeannie Lewis has a career spanning over fifty years and probably as many genres. Perhaps best known for her 1970s protest-music infused album releases, she has worked with Peter Sculthorpe, Tully, and many great musicians of Central and South America, turning her considerable and distinctive vocal talents to jazz, cabaret, and tango. In her first interview for The Music Show, she shares her philosophy of music, the voice, and collaboration.

For our AusMusic Month series Postcards, some of our great musical émigrés are sending notes home and today James Cuddeford’s dispatch from Hong Kong hits The Music Show’s doorstep.

Duration: 54min 6sec
Broadcast: Sun 21 Nov 2021, 11:05am
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Music played at the start of the show:
Title: Leaking Light
Artist: Lachlan R. Dale
Album: Eclipsing // Orbs (with Joseph Rabjohns)
Label: Art As Catharsis

In the Fiona Hill interview:
Title: Imago
Composer: Fiona Hill
Artist: Lamorna Nightingale (flute), Jane Sheldon (voice), Fiona Hill (live electronics)
Album: Other Voices
Digital release

Title: Lost In The Darkness
Composer: Fiona Hill
Artist: Alicia Crossley (bass recorder) Fiona Hill (electronics)
Album: Bass Instincts
Label: Move MCD 624
Title: Circumstance 2020 (excerpt)
Composer: Fiona Hill
Artist: Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Fellows, Fiona Hill (piano, electronics)
From Circumstance 2020, by Sue Healey

In the interview with Jeannie Lewis:
Title: The Stars Turn from Love 200
Composer: Peter Sculthorpe
Artist: Jeannie Lewis, Tully
Album: Live at Sydney Town Hall 1969-70
Label: Chapter Music

Title: Whose Hand?
Composer: Margaret Kitamura
Artist: Jeannie Lewis
Recorded at the University of Sydney in 1967

Title: Fasten Your Wings With Love
Composer: Jamie McKinley/Jeannie Lewis
Artist: Jeannie Lewis
Album: Free Fall Through Featherless Flight
Label: EMI EMC 2505

Title: Pilgrimages
Composer: Jim Cotter/Jeannie Lewis
Artist: Jeannie Lewis
Album: Journeys: Australian Women in Mexico

Title: Motherless Child
Composer: Harry Burleigh
Artist: Jeannie Lewis
Album: Free Fall Through Featherless Flight
Label: EMI EMC 2505

Music in James’s Postcard:
Title: Triptych
Composer: James Cuddeford
Artist: Hong Kong Sinfonietta
Supplied by James Cuddeford & the Hong Kong Sinfonietta

Title: Sonata No. 3
Composer: George Enescu
Artist: James Cuddeford and Daniel Herscovitch
Supplied by James Cuddeford & the Hong Kong Sinfonietta

Producers: C Benedict and Ellie Parnell

Engineers: Simon Branthwaite, John Jacobs, and Jennifer Parsonage

See the Full Original ABC page here: 

I'm appearing on The Music Show with Andrew Ford today at 11am; Sunday 21st November. Andrew Ford interviews me about my works Imago, Lost in the Darkness and the new work Springtime Again with choreographer Lilian Steiner for Sydney Dance Company New Breed which opens Thursday 25th November.

ABOUT THE MUSIC SHOW 
A mix of conversation and music hosted by Andrew Ford. Gregorian chant or hip hop, kd lang or a rookie conductor — all get the rapt attention they deserve. Andrew Ford is a composer, writer and broadcaster and has won awards in all three capacities. A former academic, Andrew wields a versatile pen and writes books and radio features as well as music.

Listen for free on your mobile device on the ABC Listen app, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or your favourite podcast app.