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For Solo Trombone (2024), duration: 7’

This piece was originally written without program notes, because the piece is really ‘absolute’ music, that reveals its own meaning quite clearly. However, since finishing it, I’ve been reflecting on the process of writing it, and I have come to realize that all the musical characteristics that make the piece what it is, are thanks to my collaboration with Archer. Since the beginning, he was completely willing to offer his advice, support, and outstanding technique, whilst also being constantly open to new ideas. This has really made the piece what it is, allowing me to write for the Trombone in a very comprehensive way. I dedicate this piece to Archer.

For Solo Piano (2025), duration: 5’

This piece responds directly to a photograph by Diane Arbus – “The Backwards Man in His Hotel Room”. The work is one of Arbus’s early works, and in each piece, there is always a sense that she recognizes the subject and the subject recognizes her – an act of mutual seeing. This picture in particular always seemed like such a complete picture of loneliness, and the despair one feels when they are at odds with their own body. There is something poignant about the hotel room as well – the bare lightbulb, the asymmetrical furniture. The sense that the very world of the photograph is temporary and fleeting. That the man in the picture – maybe a contortionist? – is performing for themself. Ever since first seeing the photograph, I have always wanted to write music to accompany it. Music that would be both tentative and voyeuristic, and that expresses that same sense of loneliness.

For solo piano, (2025), duration: 1’30”

There are paths in outer Kangaroo Valley that I would often walk through. If the time of day was right, the escarpment would glow of amber, illuminating the burned trees on the ridge line. Since 2020, much of the land has been going through a process of quiet regeneration. Although now the damage is almost invisible, there are still small signs of what was. I frequent those paths less often now, but I walk through them when I can. This work was written quickly, in one night and lots of the harmonic language goes back to my first musical influences – Bill Evans in particular. As well as this, I was feeling the nostalgia of returning to a place that holds so many complicated memories. It was a strange feeling – like running into an old friend, and partway into the conversation, you realise you in fact have nothing in common anymore, and you don’t even know how to meaningful talk to this person. The piece simultaneously looks back to what was, and forward to what may be. Written for the World Piano Teacher’s Association Australia (WPTA) Inaugural International Piano Competition.