Lisa Cheney

Lisa Cheney (b.1987) is an Australian composer and pianist of acoustic and acousmatic music, hailing from Queensland. Her music communicates through varied styles which often explore a fascination with the 'edge' of beauty; expression, poeticism, fragility, delicacy, resonant space, pacing, light and dark and atmospheric soundscapes. Cheney's work has been described as 'atmospheres of unfathomable spaciousness' (Partial Durations), 'melodic slivers with plaintive intensity' (The Australian) and 'fantastic and frightening in its detail and colour' (Resonate). Her body of work incorporates orchestra, chamber, voice, acousmatic collaborations, arrangements and works for theatre and ballet.

Cheney has received several accolades, including grants from the Australia-Korea Foundation, the 2017 Art Music Fund, the Griffith University Owen Fletcher Postgraduate Award, the Silver Harris and Jeff Peck Composition Prize, 2019 Dorian Le Gallienne Composition Award, and was a finalist for Instrumental Work of the Year at the 2018 Art Music Awards for her cello work ‘When We Speak’. Her music has been commissioned and performed by The Southern Cross Soloists, The Australian Voices, Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra, Plexus, Syzygy, Sydney Antiphony, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and the Australian Ballet amongst others.

Cheney holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition and Master of Music from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music where she studied with Gerard Brophy and Dr. Gerardo Dirie respectively. She is currently completing a PhD in Music at The University of Melbourne, supervised by Dr. Elliott Gyger and Dr. Linda Kouvaras.

Lisa is the co-founder of 'Making Waves' and was an executive producer of the Making Conversation: Australian Composers' Podcast. In 2017 she was named Victorian Young Achiever of the Year for the Arts and was a recipient of the APRA AMCOS Art Music Fund to write a new opera for children based on Edward Lear's nonsense poem, The Owl and the Pussycat. The opera premiered at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and was a finalist for Best Composition at the 2018 Matilda Awards. Recent 2021 works include Before You, bass recorder for Alicia Crossley and Heavenly Bodies, flute and piano for Jonathan Henderson and Alex Ranieri.

In 2022 she will be making a guest appearance at The Room of Her Own Workshop, adjudicating for the ASME Young Composers’ Competition, teaching music privately and has recently had a chapter published in A Century of Women in Composition: Music Against the Odds (Palgrave Macmilllan).

For more information please visit: www.lisacheney.com.au