For Piano Solo

For Orchestra

For String Quartet

Clarinet Trio (2022)

The challenge in writing this trio was to create a logical structure out of musical ideas that behave irrationally. Each episode within the form consists of wild, improvisatory gestures which pop in and out of the piece without warning. By drawing out the subtle connections between these apparently disparate ideas, I aimed to create a composition which unfurls like a bizarre dream where strains of subconscious thoughts collide and melt into one another.

Score Preview

Sorrow Circling (2022)

Two short pieces for string solo and piano. A meditation on loss and renewal.

Score Preview

In My Brain (2021)

Composing is a vocation that requires one to spend much of their lives in their own head, which is perhaps why I am often drawn to texts which explore the inner workings of the mind. Having battled mental health issues throughout my life, I was immediately struck by this remarkable poem by Emily Dickinson, which, for me, lucidly captures the experience of observing one’s own loss of touch with reality. In my setting of the text, I have sought to project the constant fluctuation between denial, numbness, panic and hopeless nostalgia that has often accompanied my own periods of psychological ailment. 

Score Preview

Performance by Anna Fraser and Jack Symonds,

presented by Sydney Chamber Opera and Phoenix Central Park

Street Scenes (2021)

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s electrifying depictions of Weimar street life have an astounding resonance in our time. This collection of early expressionist paintings, created throughout 1913-15, echoes the horrifying degradation of German society at the beginning of the 20th Century, and each painting explodes with energy in its representation of prostitutes, street party revellers and the architecture of Weimar Berlin.

In my work for mixed sextet, I have aimed to reflect these qualities through the use of dark, shrill timbres created by this unusual ensemble. Each movement explores the same dissonant trichord in variously violent or desolate ways, and the entire piece is characterised by a “weeping” effect, created by downward pitch bends in the winds and strings.

Score Preview

Suspended Tear (2020)

Suspended Tear is a short but intense reflection on my neurotic experience of the COVID-19 lockdown in London. Already dealing with personal loss at the time, I suddenly found myself in a surreal position of solitary confinement, unable to process my sadness. My state of suspended sorrow is echoed by the plaintive lyricism of much of the work, which is intruded upon and frustrated by obstinate pedal points, forcefully and rhythmically reiterated throughout. The piece was written for Evan Bish as part of my Composition Fellowship with Tanglewood Music Center in 2020.

Score Preview

Kiss by the Window (2017)

Kiss by the Window, 1892 is one of a series of short movements for string quartet based on paintings by Edvard Munch. Despite the amorous connotations of the title, this piece does not convey a romantic kiss. I am particularly drawn to the artist’s often disturbing depictions of the isolation and psychological turmoil experienced by his subjects, and in this piece I have attempted to encapsulate the conflicting emotional states I perceive in Munch’s dark and broody lovers.

Score Preview