Music

Composer, Collaborator, Multi-instrumentalist

Compositions

papillon (2025)

papillon (2025) was composed in the spring of 2025 at my home studio in Brooklyn, New York. This work was a meditation on transformation. Papillon (french) translates to butterfly.

After moving from Aotearoa - New Zealand, to New York, my creative practice transformed from classical clarinettist to multi-instrumentalist and composer. This work originally began as a score to a student film and then evolved to an ambient stand-alone track.

papillon was released to accompany the publication of my first book Meditations for Musicians, a guidebook that centres creative confidence in a musicians practice through journalling prompts, deep listening exercises and graphic scores. The PDF version of the book can be purchased from my store.

papillon features synths, violin, flute, humming, and field recordings from the Zealandia ecosanctuary taken by my dad. It can be streamed and purchased from Bandcamp.

instrumental ambient track, field recordings

my heart, the ocean (2025)

my heart, the ocean (2025) was created in the summer and fall of 2025. It is my first attempt at sonification, the creative practice of turning scientific data into sound.

With the help of my dad, I created a piece of code that translated tidal data into midi files that could be played by digital instruments to create an ambient soundscape. The code took every low and high tide mark in 2025 in the bay of my hometown, Te Whanganui-a-tara, and set it to a specific pitch. The code also set when the pitch would be played according to the time of day that the tidal height was reached. Tidal data was taken from Land Information New Zealand.

my heart, the ocean is accompanied by a film shot and edited by the composer, Leah Jane. The footage is of different bays around my hometown including the Eastern Bays, the Kapiti Coast and Red Rocks. The footage was shot on a hand-held camcorder and is to be played alongside the ambient track.

my heart, the ocean (2025) was premiered at the Mannes Composers concerts in October 2025 in New York City, and is available on YouTube.

fixed track, multi-media installation

all that glitters (2025)

all that glitters (2025) was written for Jessica Ringston. A recording of the full performance is available on YouTube and Bandcamp.

all that glitters was premiered in December 2025 at the Mannes Composers Concert in New York City. The work features a solo flautist and fixed track. The fixed track combines digital instruments, vocal recordings and synthesised percussion sounds - recorded by Matthew Magocsi. The work is inspired by my favourite portrait, portrait of Adele Bloch-Baeur painted by Gustav Klimt, which I fell in love with during my ventures to the Upper East Side art galleries when I first moved to New York. The composer notes, as found in the first page of the score, are copied below:

In 1998, Maria Altmann began her legal fight to reclaim Gustav Klimt's painting of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, known as "the Woman in Gold". Her portrait was illegally seized by the Nazis during the occupation of Austria in World War II. Adele's glittering image was kept in shadow in the vault of the Belvedere Museum until Maria's successful case brought her to the United States. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) now lives at the Neue Galerie in New York City.

all that glitters was written following a two year obsession with Klimt's portrait and the story of Adele's journey to the United States. The infamous phrase and title of this piece, all that glitters, has been taken from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice which asks us about the true nature of justice and mercy.

This work is a meditation on both Klimt's artistic aesthetics, including his use of gold-leaf and mosaic influences, and the ghosts that inhabit the art we experience. Does the glimmer of beautiful work ever distract us from the approaching darkness? Or remind us that it is already here.

all that glitters (2025) score and track is available for purchase from my store.

solo flute and fixed track

i remember roe (2025)

In 2022, the US Supreme Court removed federal protection for abortion access by overturning precedent set by Roe v Wade. Like most women, it broke my heart permanently.

i remember roe is my second work for fixed media and my first creative piece that brings my legal training to my musical work. This work features excerpts from the dissenting judgement of Hobbs v Jackson, read by four of my friends and synthesised to become part of the fabric of the piece. The track also features crunchy violin, flute, drum beats, sirens and breath. i remember roe explores the joy, beauty and unrelenting pain of womanhood.

i remember roe was recorded and mixed at my home studio in Brooklyn, New York. The work features an accompanying film self-produced in my bedroom, blending images from abortion access protests in the 1970s in North America and symbolic imagery of pomegranates and flowers.

i remember roe (2025) is available on YouTube.

fixed multi-media, audio and visual installation

Toroa (2025)

symphony orchestra

Toroa (2025) is a meditation on migration and my first piece for symphony orchestra. Toroa was read and recorded by the Mannes School of Music orchestra during the composition departments annual orchestral readings in November 2025.

Toroa is the Te Reo Māori name for the Royal Southern Albatross. Toroa are majestic seabirds with wingspans reaching 3 metres. These incredible birds are migratory and spend most of their life in the air, when they do land its in places like the Southern most points of New Zealand. The natural world teaches us that migration is a natural, inevitable and beautiful thing. This work is a meditation on my own migrations from the the north hemisphere, to the south and back. Its also a peaceful and loving act of resistance to the dialogue around immigration that we are having in the United States. Toroa turns the orchestra into an ocean soundscape with harmonic gliss (the seagull harmonic) in the strings, an active percussion section, a reflective piano solo and turning the orchestra into a chorus in the final moments.

Toroa (2025) is under revision and a re-recording will be available in May 2026.

myfanwy : my beloved (2026)

myfanwy : my beloved (2026) is a meditation on homesickness and nostalgia. The piece is a retelling of the Welsh folksong of the same name, “myfanwy”. The track features field recordings from my hometown Te Whanganui-a-tara, (Wellington, New Zealand). The recordings include sounds of the ocean along the East and Kapiti coast of the Wellington region, seagulls, breathing, humming and footsteps. myfanwy : my beloved (2026) was premiered in February 2026 at the first Mannes Composers Concert of the year. It was performed by the composer.

For this composition, I wanted to focus on the experience of performing the work rather than how it sounded. While it is notated, the effect is organic, and the performer has freedom on where to place the musical material against the fixed track. The piece is a moment of rest in a world of chaos, and yet another example of how the sounds of the ocean are part of my musical DNA.

The full performance of myfanwy : my beloved is available on YouTube. The score and track is available for purchase from my store.

solo bass clarinet and fixed track

moon, earth, and back (2026)

flute, violin, viola, double bass

moon, earth, and back (2026) is a meditation on the life of nun, mystic and composer Hildegard von Bingen. The piece was commissioned by the new music ensemble, Astra Collective, in December 2025 and completed in January 2026. It was premiered at the Mercury Lounge in New York City.

The piece is modal and vocal, inspired by the plainsong chant written by Hildegard von Bingen and her study of the stars. The flute carries the opening of the piece with a long, winding, free solo that is open to ad lib ornamentation and decoration. The piece also features an open section for improvisation on the core mode of the piece, this recording features an improvised double bass solo by Billy Popfinger. The piece ends with a Philip Glass-like section to modernise the medieval source material.

moon, earth and back (2026) is currently under revision and will be re-performed by the Astra Collective in April 2026. A full audio and visual recording will be available soon on YouTube. The score will soon be available for purchase from my store.

A huge thank you to my friends in the Astra Collective for their time and generosity.

“When I play music, I want to feel weightless. I want my instrument to vibrate and sing back to me in a song as rich as honey. I want to feel so locked into my body that the air I draw into my lungs is pulled directly from the earth. I want to play with a chosen family who push and pull against each other as reliably as the tides.

I hope to make music that is poetic and inevitable.”

Leah Jane, Preface from Meditations from Musicians

Photo by Paul Gordon