LUMEN Spring 2022 - Flipbook - Page 43
Anne Cawrse
PhD Music Folio/Composition
Class of 2008
Anne Cawrse is an award-winning
Australian composer of acoustic
solo, chamber, orchestral and
vocal works, based in Adelaide.
She currently teaches secondyear composition students at the
University of Adelaide.
I’m often delighted and surprised about
how much you can learn about yourself and
music more broadly from teaching. It’s really
rewarding, and the one-on-one lesson
scenario we have is quite unique. There are
not a lot of opportunities at uni to spend that
amount of time with one person. It’s very
grounding and illuminating, helping students
along their journey and hearing different
perspectives and thoughts about music. Elder
Hall is such a special and beautiful space with
a lovely acoustic. I have had many premieres
there over the years, starting right back when
I was a student at the Elder Conservatorium.
I wrote a ballet suite for orchestra in my
Honours year. The Elder Conservatorium
Symphony Orchestra performed it at an
evening concert in Elder Hall in 2002. More
recently, in 2020, the Australian String
Quartet premiered my work, A Room of Her
Own, at Elder Hall. This work was supposed
to go on a national tour around the country,
but COVID had other plans.
I did win a couple of rather lovely awards last
year for A Room of Her Own – the 2021 APRA
AMCOS Art Music Award for chamber work
of the year and the 2021 Albert H Maggs
composition award. It’s been wonderful to
have that national recognition for the piece.
I’ve recently released my first album, most of
which was recorded in Elder Hall with some
of Adelaide’s finest chamber musicians. It has
taken a few years to put it together, but I’m
really proud of the end result. It includes
works for string quartet, soprano and guitar,
and I believe it demonstrates the range and
scope of who I am as a composer.
LEFT
Andrew Bain
Photo credit:
Mathew Imaging
BELOW
Anne Cawrse
Photo credit:
Angus Northeast
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