Pantun (for piano and dancer)

October 26, 2019

Commissioned by Brisbane Music Festival for its program bloodpaths. Friday 29th November, & Sunday 1st December, Alex Raineri (piano) and Katina Olsen (dancer). Born in Malaysia, I am yet somehow more literate in things French than Malay. I adore the exquisite pantoums made by Maurice Ravel and Charles Baudelaire – but I also know a third world poetic […]

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Lasseter’s Diary

August 1, 2019

At Extended Play 2019, The Australian Voices will perform “Poisoned Today”, an excerpt from a major work they’re commissioning from me. In 2005-6, the State Library of NSW exhibited the last diary of enigmatic prospector Harold Lasseter, who infamously died trying to re-locate a gold reef he believed he once found in the Central Australian […]

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Virelai (2019) for String Quartet

July 1, 2019

Every year, I give a new piece to my dear friends the Acacia Quartet, and I am always moved by their playing of it, and how they surprise me in finding things I didn’t know were there. This year, I wanted them to have something unlike the complex pieces I usually give them. This time, […]

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Carnival of the Chinese Animals

February 11, 2019

During this Lunar New Year season, the fantastic Southern Cross Soloists will premiere my quirky new work Carnival of the Chinese Animals See event details here or in my calendar. This 20-min piece for narrator and large chamber ensemble was commissioned by the venerable Southern Cross Soloists for their opening concerts in this, their 24th year. The […]

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Nineteen to the Dozen

October 11, 2018

Update, Oct 2019: this piece is now rehearsed and embarking on tour. Details and tickets here. Here is my ‘program note’ while heeding Artistic Director Antony Pitts’ wish to have no program and no title … Untitled (2019) for Voices – Lyle Chan Human beings are meaning-seeking creatures. Spiritual teachers and psychologists alike tell us this. […]

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Three Bilitis Movements

October 2, 2018

Illustration by Georges Barbier, 1922. My good friends Alicia Crossley and the Acacia Quartet recently recorded my new work Three Bilitis Movements for an upcoming album, and already premiered the first movement at Extended Play. The entire work will be premiered at Sydney Opera House on December 8, 2018 in conjunction with the album release. Tickets […]

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Messiah, Reimagined

June 9, 2018

Michelle Leonard, me, and pianist Ben Burton in rehearsal. Photo by Leichhardt Espresso Chorus I’m so thrilled to be working with the fantastic Leichhardt Espresso Chorus for the first time. It’s a community choir that spends much of its resources commissioning new music – a staggering 200 works since 1998, in fact. This being its […]

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Six Sonates pour Divers Instruments – a Debussy Centenary project

February 17, 2018

Update July 10, 2018. The final Sonata No. 6 for 13 instruments was broadcast by ABC Classic FM. You can hear it here, with my profound thanks to the student players of ANAM, conductor Tristram Williams and ABC production team. The score and parts are available on Nkoda here. Update May 2018. Australian Music Centre […]

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Wandteppiche

January 26, 2018

This unusual new work for speaking voice and portatif organ – called Wandteppiche – was commissioned by the Art Gallery of NSW Foundation and Music Curator Jason Catlett as part of Music in this Stillness, a new-music program to greet the six-panel French medieval tapestry suite La dame à la licorne as it begins its Sydney […]

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(“Andante Moderato”)

October 23, 2017

My dear friends the Acacia Quartet will give 4 performances of this new work over Oct and Nov 2017 in Sydney and Melbourne. You can see details here or in the Calendar. Like nearly all my pieces that Acacia has premiered, it is an excerpt from my ongoing String Quartet and was sketched many years […]

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