ANAM Set 2025 Composer: Work Title and Instrumentation to be announced.
About the composer:
Bryony is one of Australia’s busiest screen composers. She graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English and Art. She then completed a Graduate Diploma in Music Composition for Film and Television with First Class Honours from the University of Melbourne’s Conservatorium of music, following which she attend the inaugural Composer’s Program at the Australian National Academy of Music, studying under Simon Bainbridge and Karen Tanaka.
Bryony’s score for Savage River won an AACTA in 2021, 2040 and Lambs of God won AACTAS in 2019 and were nominated for APRA AGSC Screen Music Awards, while the score for Frayed was also nominated for an AACTA in the same year. Bryony’s score for Barracuda was awarded ‘Best Music for a Mini-Series or Telemovie’ at the 2017 APRA AGSC Screen Music Awards. She won ‘Best Original Score’ for Berlin Syndrome (2017) and Noise (2007) at the FCCA Awards. Recently, she has scored Class of 07 for Amazon, The Messenger for the ABC and Human Error for Channel 9 and an independent feature film, Just a Farmer.
Bryony also enjoys writing in other disciplines. Her chamber opera Crossing Live, premiered by Chamber Made Opera in 2007, won a Green Room Award for Best New Australian Work (opera). In 2013, the MSO premiered her adaptation for orchestra and narrator of The Happiness Box, from the seminal Australian Children’s Book of the same name by Changi POWs David Griffin and Leslie Greener. The adaptation has subsequently been performed by MSO twice, NZSO, QSO and SSO. Lockdown Birdsong, a duet for violin and piano, was written for Erica Kennedy, and performed by Erica and Kristian Chong at the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall in March 2021 and subsequently recorded for release on the Lillipilli label. Bryony collaborated with Resident Australian Ballet choreographer Alice Topp and Designer Jon Buswell on Patina, a dance work which was performed in January 2022 at the Playhouse’s inaugural season of Topp and Buswell’s new dance collective Project Animo. The trio collaborated again on Annealing, a new commission for the Australian Ballet, which formed part of the Ballet’s 2022 Triple Bill, premiering at the Victorian Arts Centre followed by a season at Sydney Opera House.
In early 2023, Bryony produced a recording of the Flinders Quartet playing Australia Fair Volume I, her work for string quartet and footage, which will be released later this year on the label Strange Loops. Bryony received an ACO commission for string quartet and narrator, with a script by esteemed children’s playwright Finegan Kruckemeyer, entitled The Prince, The Pea (and the Brave Escapee). It received its inaugural performance at Pier 2/3 in September/ October 2023 and will tour in nationally in 2025.