Length: 9:50 approx.

Difficulty: Advanced

Reference recording below.

There is something very human about the need to understand the world through cycles. Some cycles are natural, like the change in seasons or the circadian rhythms that govern our sleep patterns.

Others are imposed by people, like musical patterns, social cycles or the growth and harvest of crops. Cycles explain birth, life and death, giving order to what otherwise might seem like chaos, through comforting inevitability.

Lake examines life cycles and their role in human connection. Based Claire Nashar's twofold elegy for a loved one and for a degrading natural environment, Lake uses the decay of natural ecosystems as a lens for navigating human loss. Macro and micro worlds become intertwined: creatures and organisms bubble, froth and decompose against intimate words of familial love.

Through this enmeshment, deeply human emotions find their contrast in cool waters. These worlds collided, a new phase in the lifecycle begins.

Difficulty: Advanced (AMEB Grade 8+)

Length: 6:50 approx.

Recording link below for reference.

The smell of salt water saturates my home in Western Australia. It permeates the air, the buildings, the wind. It gets in your hair and your eyes and your mouth.

At a microlevel, the smell of saltwater is caused by a combination of decomposition and chemical reactions. Marine worms and algae produce bromophenols, which give salt air its iodine quality. Bacteria consume dead phytoplankton, which produces the chemical dimethyl sulphide. And at low tide, seaweed eggs release the sex pheromone dictyopterenes to attract sperm.

It amuses me that my nostagia is actually the smell of decomposition and pheromones. This work is a reflection on the macro and the micro. On the macro it sits still: a deep breath in and out. On a micro-level it bubbles, a combination of tiny reactions and movements bouncing.

Written for Duo Alterity in 2019. Recorded by Issie Brown and Matthew Withers for Eliza Shephard’s March of the Women in 2024.

Difficulty: Advanced (Grade 8+)

Length:

The title of this work, (i carry it in my heart), comes from a poem by e.e. cummings. The poem begins:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

For those who have experienced the early days of parenthood, they come with a brutal combination of unrelenting monotony and overwhelming love. This work captures those conflicting emotions.

Please note: This work has an optional static track. If chosen, static can be generated as the performer chooses -e.g. tape track, AM radio, or another means entirely. I have, in the past, used surface transducers on snare drum to create this sound to great effect. If preferred, the static can be removed and replaced with silence.

AMEB approx: Grade 4/5

Length: 5 mins

In 2019 Creative Original Music Adelaide (COMA) commissioned a chamber music work from me, as their composer in residence. The work that emerged was a love letter to Adelaide, South Australia: a city where I had found an unexpected home. This work was based around a simple melody comprised of five notes, that formed a quietly persistent refrain.

In 2025 I have arranged two versions of this melody: one for string quartet, and one for orchestra. Originally written for violin, cello and percussion, my goal was to capture the same intimacy of a love letter, in different musical forces.

Although for me this melody marks a period in my life, the experience of finding home somewhere unexpected is universal. As I rework this melody into a new piece, it is this universality that I hoped to capture.

Whether home is found in a place, or a person, or somewhere else entirely, I hope you find a moment of that sensation in this work.

Please note: this download link is for the string quartet version of this work. The orchestral and vln/vc/vibraphone versions are available elsewhere on this website.