Selected Vocal Music

I am a proud choir nerd. It started with my early days in the Adelaide Girls' Choir (now Young Adelaide Voices), then performing in the Public Primary Schools' Festival of Music, then joining all the choirs at the Marryatville High School Special Interest Music Centre. The interaction between music and words is what I most love about writing vocal music.

Please contact me directly if you are interested in purchasing scores.

Ensemble Songs

To explore the songs composed during my residency with Young Adelaide Voices, 2019–2020, please ✩ click here ✩

The Gift to Sing

For SATB choir with strings (but designed for flexible instrumentation in school settings) [5′ 30′′]
Text by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)

Composed for Pembroke, June 2023, with assistance from the Year 10 Music Studies class – part of my time as Artist-in-Residence. From my program note:

Particularly in the last few years and through the continuing impact of the pandemic, I’ve been reflecting more about the role of music – composing, performing, listening – in my own career and life (although in saying that, the separation between a musical career and life is a difficult thing!). The students shared some of their favourite song lyrics, and what role music played in their lives, and we went from there. A big part of this for a lot of us, myself included, was self-soothing, or, as some would describe: escapism. Escapism through music can be just what we need in the moment. 

Mistletoebird

For SATB choir, a cappella [4′ 20′′]
Text composed by me!

Commissioned by Christie Anderson and the Adelaide Chamber Singers, Christmas 2022. Due to COVID, the premiere was delayed until Christmas 2023. I also wrote a blog for CutCommon Magazine about composing this “moderately festive” Australian Christmas carol for our times. The process of this piece being put out into the world was both joyous and challenging in many ways.

Make Way

For SATB choir, a cappella [5′ 00′′]
Text from Isaiah 43:18-19

Commissioned by the St Peter' s Cathedral Music Foundation, November 2022, to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Anglican Church of Australia. Fun fact: the piece includes a musical quotation from ‘We Shall Overcome’ – the women campaigning for this change sang 'we shall be ordained' to this tune after one of the 'failed' Synod votes in 1987 (the failed vote was a clear majority but not a technical majority within the voting structure). Click here to listen to the piece sung during a live-streamed service.

Respice Exaudi Me

For SATB choir, a cappella [5′ 00′′]
Text from Psalm 13:3

Commissioned by the St Peter' s Cathedral Music Foundation, North Adelaide, Good Friday 2022. South Australian composers were featured in the Cathedral’s annual Good Friday Meditation Concert – read more here! Click here to listen to the piece in the live-streamed concert.

Strength For All

For three sopranos, a cappella [3′ 30′′]
Text by Emma Lazarus (1849–1887)

Commissioned by Harmonia Australis for Out of his shadow – a concert celebrating International Women’s Day – 8 March 2020. Just before the whole world changed!! There is currently no recording of this piece, and the score only exists in… *gasp*… hand-written form! I think this could work for an ensemble as well as one-voice-per-part (as it was premiered by Lucy Schneider, Bonnie de la Hunty and Jessica Taylor in Perth, Western Australia). Let me know if you’re interested in trying it out…

White Bellied Sea Eagle

For treble choir and piano [3′ 30′′]
Text inspired by the children of The Flame Tree Project

Commissioned by Kate Whitworth for The Flame Tree Project, 2020 – an annual choral program which draws inspiration from the physical landscape of the Illawarra, its culture and history.

Locus Iste

For SATB choir, a cappella [6′ 30′′]
Traditional Latin text

Commissioned by Leonie Hempton, previous Director of Music at St Peter’s Cathedral, North Adelaide (and one of my excellent high school music teachers!), 2019. A recording from an Evensong service is available on YouTube.

In Due Season

For SATB choir, a cappella [7′ 30′′]
Text by Valerie Volk, from In Due Season – Poems of Love and Loss

Commissioned by Adelaide Chamber Singers and composed in my honours year of composition study, 2018. You can listen to the premiere performance by ACS on YouTube (linked at the top of this page). It was a very special experience to meet Valerie in person that year and discuss setting her beautiful poetry to music.

Journey to Heard Island

For treble choir and piano [1′ 30′′]
Text from the 1950 diaries of my grandfather, Mike Bruer (1927–1985)

This piece was written for the Sydney Children's Choir Emerging Composers Program, 2015. Click here to listen to the SCC ‘mini singers’ perform the whole piece! 

The Star

For upper voices (SSAA) a cappella, with optional percussion [3′ 00′′]
A setting of all five verses of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, written by Jane Taylor (1783–1824).

Composed at Gondwana National Composer School, 2015, under the mentorship of Paul Stanhope, and performed by Gondwana Voices.

The Violet

For upper voices (SSAA) a cappella [4′ 30′′]
Text by Jane Taylor (1783–1824)

This was the first original song I ever wrote for upper voice choir! It was composed in 2013 – my first year of undergraduate composition study. I have made various instrumental arrangements of this piece over the years, too. The Violet has most recently been arranged for solo tenor voice and piano, and was premiered by Kim Worley and Yundi Yuan in The Firm’s 2024 concert series.

Solo Songs

Powerful Wom*n

A a cycle of three songs for high soprano and piano
Texts by Mary Eliza Fullerton (1868–1946), Lesbia Harford (1891–1927), and Elinor Morton Wylie (1885–1928) 

Movement 1 - Etchings [4′ 30′′]
Movement 2 - Legends [1′ 40′′]
Movement 3 - A Proud Lady [4′ 10′′]

This cycle was written for, and in collaboration with, Adelaide soprano Cassandra Humble. We are both passionate about uncovering women’s voices that have been hidden by the dominant telling of history. That was our starting point for putting together this cycle using text by late 19th- / early 20th-century women writers.

Love's Philosophy

For soprano and piano [3′ 30′′]
Text by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

This was the first ‘art song’ I ever wrote! It was composed in 2013, and I have since arranged a ‘song without words’ version that can be played by any solo instrument. The original song (with words) also exists in a soprano, flute and piano version, and can be easily transposed for other voice types. Sadly, I don’t have a shareable recording of this piece. If you’d like to make one, let me know!!