BIOGRAPHY

Sarah Elise Thompson (b. 1996) actively creates exploratory music. She is in her third year at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music studying a Bachelor of Music (Composition), under the guidance of Gerard Brophy. She has been commissioned by interstate ensembles including the Briar String Quartet, Sideband, and Ensemble Nouveau. She has also worked with Gondwana Choirs, the Allotropy String Quartet and Claire Edwardes.

Sarah was also a featured artist in the inaugural Sound Gardens: New Music at the Con project, as a part of the Vivid Sydney Festival. She was resident composer at the Tilde New Music Festival and the Atlantic Music Festival in Maine, US. Her works have been aired on 3MBS and 102.5 Fine FM radio stations.

Sarah also works as a part of lost+sound: an all female composer collective based in Sydney; and is the co-artistic director, keyboardist, and a composer in new music ensemble SPIRAL, where she curates and creates new, minimalist inspired works.

Composer website:  via Soundcloud.

FEATURED WORKS

When The Ice Melts…, for Bass Clarinet, Harp and Vibraphone.

Late February 2016, I went on my first trip to Queenstown, New Zealand, where I encountered the natural spectacle of The Remarkables; it was bare yet had the slightest dusting of ice and snow atop the rigid rocky mountain scape. I designed the piece as to be a microscopic view of these ice fractals, zooming in and out, ice cracking, melting….

Featured in Minimalist Waves October 2016

Refracted, for Violin, Cello, Flute, Bass Clarinet, Piano and Vibraphone.

I was inspired with this piece by large glass sculptures and how they interact with light. When you take a look at a sculpture from afar, it looks carefully constructed with every little detail carved and crafted intricately. Yet glass up close can become blurred or clouded, with light twisting out at all sorts of angles. I wanted to create a piece that captured the essence of light interacting through glass.

Featured in Dream Waves playlist, December 2017.

String Quartet No 1. ‘First’.

I always heard the phrase ‘The first step is always the hardest’.  Beginnings spark a potential energy, waiting to burst out.  The endless possibility and avenues a road can lead is enthralling; blossoming new and dynamic waves.

This piece is my first step.

Featured in the playlist String Quartet Waves (March 2019)