About
Music is all about communication for me. I like to blend influences from all the different genres I have worked in during my journey. Classical training lives alongside experience in commercial and contemporary music, community groups, and educational music. Lush Romantic textures can merge with pop harmony, and songwriting ideas can be expressed using Classical forms. I’m equally at home synthestrating with samples or recording live musicians in the studio. My screen and media music includes film scores, TV commercials, playlists and podcasts, whilst live music includes band arrangements, music for the theatre, and lots of concert hall music. As a performer I'm a trumpet and keyboard player working in Melbourne, Australia, often with originals funk band Speakeasy. The band's song Straight Ahead won the Soul and R&B category of the Voyager International Songwriting Contest, judged by Dami Im and Isaiah Firebrace. Check out the band's latest release You and Me
Playing live with my funk-rock band Speakeasy. Photo: Natalie Robertson - Melbourne Music Management
Dave Elton and Umberto Clerici recording my Trumpet Concerto for the ABC
My concert hall music includes commissions for the Melbourne Symphony and the ABC, participation in the Australian Composer’s Orchestral Forum with the Tasmanian Symphony, and collaborations with many other artists and groups including Elision ensemble, Perihelion, and jazz legend James Morrison. Residencies have included the Sydney International Brass Festival and the Gravissimo! Festival in Portugal, where my music was also performed during the São João Festival. Recent work includes a Trumpet Concerto for David Elton and ABC Classic, and a commission as part of the ANAM Set.
Prizes and awards include the Corbould Composition Prize with the Queensland Philharmonic, the Qantas Youth Award of the Paul Lowin Prize, the Harvey Phillips Award (USA) for brass composition, a Local Heroes commission from the Melbourne Recital Centre, and commendations in the National Songwriting Contest and the Albert H. Maggs Award.
My music has been performed, broadcast and recorded in Australia and around the world. Some of my educational music is included in the HSC, VCE, and AMEB syllabi in Australia, with some also having been test pieces for brass band competitions in Australia and New Zealand. I’m published in Australia, Europe and the USA.
I work as a freelance composer and arranger, and teach at the Melbourne campus of the Australian Institute of Music. I like to hang with other creative people like Jacqui Grantford, who's amazing portrait of me graces the Home page. Our collaborative project AnJaq presented an exhibition joining Jacqui's art with my music in 2022
Performing as a singer-songwriter
