Biography

Caerwen (MMusPerf MMusComp) is a cellist and composer who works both nationally and internationally as a new music specialist and improviser. Her compositions are commissioned, performed and broadcast nationally and internationally. Caerwen is represented by the Australian Music Centre as an associate artist and has written for prominent individual artists and ensembles including the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Arcko Symphonic, Syzygy Ensemble, Silo String Quartet, Collision Theory and Speak Percussion.

Caerwen has worked as a cellist with some of Australia’s most celebrated musicians and actors at major festivals and venues across Europe, Australia, South Africa, Japan, Taipei and America including a performance with Barrie Webb and Silo String Quartet at Carnegie Hall in 2008. Caerwen is the artistic director of Silo String Quartet, which she founded in 1998. Scholarships and prizes include the Catherine Mary Sullivan Scholarship for excellence, The Orloff Family Trust Scholarship, the Sir John T Reid Bursary Fund Scholarship, The Guitar Perspectives Award for Excellence, the Research Training Program Scholarship, and the Athenaeum Prize.

Current ensembles include Arcko Symphonic, Silo String Quartet, Bolt Ensemble, Sophie Koh, Ruth Roshan Tango Noir, The Modern Post Quartet, and The Birds Duo. Caerwen is also a passionate teacher of cello and composition studies at tertiary, secondary and primary levels and is a public speaker for BeyondBlue.

Composer websites:  silosq.com, www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/martin-caerwen

Featured Works

Hellow, for cello and answering machine.
Composed for the Adelaide Biennale 2004 for the film Reception by James Geurts.

The piece Hellow is a one work film score for the art film Reception by James Geurts. It was featured in the Adelaide Biennale 2005. The film highlights the unheard voices of refugees in Australia.

Featured in Experimental Waves – May 2016 (1/05/2016)

I sleep alone, for soprano and string quartet.

The string quartet are a dream state and the singer longs to be asleep to see her love. a graphic score with some traditional notation for the vocalist.

Featured in Vocal Waves (September 2017).

The Beauty of Now Mvt 2, for Violin and Piano.

a spacious reflection on the complex relationships between mother and child, this is the inner movement for the 3 movement work the Beauty of Now. available on crackbellrecords.

Featured in Human Waves (October 2018).