Since its commencement in 2003, The Cybec Foundation has generously supported the MSO’s Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers’ Program.
Widely regarded as one of the nation’s pioneering and preeminent professional development opportunities for emerging Australian composers, the year-long program selects four participants who are individually mentored by a leading Australian composer and commissioned by the Orchestra to compose a 10-minute piece. The resulting four pieces are performed by the MSO in a public showcase event, following which, one participant is selected as the MSO’s Young Composer in Residence and commissioned to write further works.
Since its establishment in 2003, the program has seen more than 80 emerging composers from across Australia have works commissioned and performed by the MSO. All have continued onto widely diverse creative practices and the MSO has offered several subsequent commissions to graduates of the program.
Applications
Applications for the 2024 Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers’ Program are now closed.
Naomi Dodd – 2024 Cybec Young Composer in Residence
Naomi Dodd is an emerging contemporary classical composer based in Sydney, whose music transports listeners and evokes emotional response. Her music draws from impressionist, programmatic and romantic influences while her inspiration is deeply connected to her emotional sensitivities, with compositions often finding their genesis in Naomi’s experiences and impressions of subjects such as Australian landscapes and coastlines, home and family. Her work ranges from intensely passionate and colourful moments to gentle fragments echoing the ethereal. Naomi’s belief that all people possess an innate potential for musical appreciation shapes her desire to create music that reaches and impacts all who listen.
Katy Abbott – Lead Mentor and Artistic Advisor
Composer Katy Abbott is forensically curious about what makes us tick. Her music explores our passions, fears and motivations using contemporary musical flavours in traditional musical settings. Musing on the concepts of connection, place and humour, Abbott’s compositions are performed, published and recorded around the world.
Katy has been Senior Lecturer in Composition at Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne for 10+ years and founded The Artists’ Mentor which supports mid-career and established artists across disciplines to build long-term, vibrant practices with impact and meaning.
