FQ SYNDICATE

MARIA GRENFELL’s work takes much of its influence from poetic, literary and visual sources, and from non-Western music and literature. Her orchestral music has been commissioned, performed or recorded by all the major symphony orchestras in Australia and New Zealand. Her chamber music has been performed by musicians such as members of eighth blackbird, the Australia Ensemble, the Vienna Piano Trio, New Zealand Trio, ACO Collective, and numerous other ensembles. Her work is broadcast regularly in Australia and New Zealand, is released on ABC Classics, Kiwi-Pacific, and Trust CDs, and is available from the Australian Music Centre, SouNZ New Zealand Music Centre and Reed Music. In 2013 Maria won ‘Instrumental Work of the Year’ for Tasmania at the Australian Art Music Awards for her septet Ten Suns Ablaze, commissioned by the Australia Ensemble, and in 2017 her double concerto Spirals won the Tasmanian award for ‘Orchestral Work of the Year.’ Her music was commissioned for the documentary film Quoll Farm, aired in 2021.

Maria is an Associate Professor at the University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music and co-ordinates the composition stream. She was Head of the Conservatorium from 2018-2019.

BRENDA GIFFORD is a Yuin woman, originally from Wreck Bay on the South Coast of NSW. A contemporary classical composer and classically trained saxophonist and pianist, she has twenty years of extensive experience as a musician. A First Nations person, her culture is the basis of her arts practice.

Brenda has been commissioned by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, by Canberra International Music Festival and by Four Winds Festival. Mungala (Clouds) 
commissioned for American star flautist Claire Chase premiered at National Sawdust New York in 2019.

Brenda was Ensemble Offspring's First Nations Composer In Residence 2020 while undertaking a Master of Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as part of the Composing Women program.

Her ARIA-nominated album Music for the Dreaming, a work tailored for children exploring Dreamtime stories, received multiple performances at the Sydney Opera House in 2019, co-presented by Ensemble Offspring, ABC KIDS Listen and ABC Classics. Her music is available on the ABC Classics label.

Brenda was a member of the Band Mixed Relations with Bart Willoughby from No Fixed Address. She has toured extensively around Australia and internationally to Native American communities and the Pacific Islands. She worked with Kev Carmody, on his album Eulogy (for a black person), playing saxophone on the track 'Blood Red Rose', album/CD/-Festival/D-30692. She wrote the album sleeve notes for the reissued The Loner album by Uncle Vic Simms. Brenda has also conducted over 100 interviews and oral histories with Indigenous musicians and has curated notes and blogs.

Sydney composer, PhD candidate, and music educator NATALIE NICOLAS has her Masters degree from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Nicolas is a tutor/lecturer at said university, the 2021 Composer in Residence at Loreto Normanhurst. She has written for the Goldner SQ, the TSO, the CSO, the ASQ, the ACO, and others. In 2020, the SSO commissioned Nicolas, and she won the Harris Endowment for Medical Humanities Harris Award for her PhD work with music and healthcare. 

In February 2021, the Southern Cross Soloists and Slava Grigoryan commissioned/premiered a new work of Nicolas’ at QPAC to their largest audience in 26 years. Other projects for 2020/21 include collabs with the Aus Ballet and Orchestra Vic, Matt Withers via ABC’s Fresh Start Fund, ZOFO and Connecticut Summerfest, and the MSO Cybec Composers’ Program 2021.