Lisa is writing a work for ensemble which will be performed in March 2027. Her first commission for the London Sinfonietta was Tiding for solo electric guitar as a Sinfonietta Short in 2021. Many of her compositions arise out of working with non-tempered tuning systems, playing close attention to sonority, subtly unfolding harmonic forms, auditory phenomena and perspective. Now she will create a larger concert work for a future main stage event at the Southbank Centre.
This new work is supported of the Cockayne Foundation Grants for the Arts.
More About Lisa Illean
Born in Australia and now based in the UK, Lisa Illean composes “music that seeps into your consciousness” (ABC Classic FM). Reflective and compelling, her “exquisitely quiet shadows” (The Sydney Morning Herald) invite contemplation, often exploring unconventional tunings and the phenomena that arise through the interaction of quiet layers. Much of her work combines live and pre-recorded instrumental sound in performance to create ”a soundscape unlike any other” (Limelight).
Her debut portrait album arcing, stilling, bending, gathering - described as ‘extraordinary stuff’ (The Arts Desk) - has been released on NMC recordings. Illean has written widely across orchestral and chamber music, including An acre ringing, still — a ‘fascinating’ twenty-minute work for orchestra and electronics commissioned by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra — and Tiding for electric guitar. In recent years she has oriented her practice as a composer to include making long-form pieces with both performed and pre-recorded material, in close development with one or two others.
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