BIOGRAPHY

Olivia Bettina Davies is a Perth based composer currently studying at the University of Western Australia. At this early stage of her career Olivia has already been involved in a number of key musical events and programs including the performance of her work Derelict for two classical guitars at ‘BREAKING OUT Composers’ Concert (part of TURAs 12th Totally Huge New Musical Festival in 2015) and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra’s Young & Emerging Artists: Composition Project (2015). The latter three-month intensive project involved writing and workshopping a new work titled Coalescence for WASO’s chamber orchestra and included in a masterclass conducted by renowned English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage.

In 2015, Olivia was awarded UWA’s prestigious Dorothy Ellen Ransom Prize in Musical Composition for her piece OBSERVED for wind quartet, also winning the People’s Choice Award and more recently won Best Original Score at the 168 Film Festival in LA, for her music on the short film The Voice in the Wilderness. This year, Olivia was one of just four composers invited to participate in the 2017 Australian Youth Orchestra’s Music Camp, where she was mentored by Australian composer Gerard Brophy and produced her latest work White Walls for chamber orchestra.

Composer website: https://soundcloud.com/empty-chair-sounds

FEATURED WORKS

in Delta, for guitar.

in Delta is an ambient track that explores the texture of sound in a non-linear form. My decision to use a broken guitar gave me not only the opportunity to record a variety of sounds without fear of damage, but it also set its own limitations on me. I was only ‘allowed’ to use the strings it had left and ‘accept’ the sound and tuning into which they had settled over time.

Featured in Ambient Waves – October 2017