My Story

But I never had the courage to take my composing further.

I became a successful solo and orchestral bassoonist, Section Principal Bassoon with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and this was more than enough to take all my focus and passion.

That was until my world fell apart with a diagnosis of dystonia, a neurological disorder that took away my ability to play my beloved bassoon mid-career and threw me into the world of disability.

I was left without music in my life, and this was a whole new world to navigate.

Eventually I was diagnosed with cancer, and I finally realised I had nothing to lose. I started composing to restore music to my life.

After so many years away from my early experiences, I began writing short tunes in Chrome Song Maker, where the coloured boxes representing notes lit up my creative brain and inspired new ideas.

I moved on to one-minute pieces and alternated between Musescore and Dorico software, slowly building a world of music once more.

Music was back inside my head, and I felt my courage grow. Composing became a way to lift the brain fog from chemotherapy, and I began to feel like myself again.

Lessons with the composer, Christopher Healey, followed, and his encouraging teaching style led me to discover new abilities within myself.

It dawned on me that my years of being a performing musician had secreted inside my brain a vast understanding of music that I could draw on in unexpected and highly rewarding ways.

With this in motion, I started my first major piece, Soul Food for Solo Bassoon, where I took the chance to pour out from my soul all my sadness and insight from being forced to leave music and survive the trauma of cancer.

What better vehicle for this than my bassoon, where my knowledge and relationship with the instrument was deep and almost sacred. It was as if I was playing the bassoon again as I built the piece into its final form.

I wanted to create a work that would resonate with fellow musicians and listeners who were also going through the highs and lows of life, the thrills and spills, the regrets and nostalgia, and finally the joy that can be found when all artifice is stripped away.

Soul Food was accepted for publication by the first publisher I submitted it to and my courage was strengthened.

The stage was set for me to explore my abilities further. A hunger to express myself through the human voice naturally led to a work for choir as my next project.

My early years had included a long membership of the Woden Valley Youth Choir, with whom I performed for the Queen, for international heads of government, and at Disneyland. This built in me a solid foundation in choral training, as well as an adoration of the choir sound and the experience of humans coming together to create a resonance that feels deeply moving.

The urging of my soul was crying out for salvation as I wrote my first work for choir, In the Heavenly Hour. I was experiencing the raging, changing climate that lit up Australia with bushfires of unprecedented strength across our entire continent, filling the air with heavy smoke. Floods and landslides were also causing havoc around the globe and it became vital to me to convey an urgency in the song, alongside hope and beauty to lift the spirit and inspire action.

Shortly after I completed In the Heavenly Hour, my bassoon piece, Soul Food, received its premiere performance by Nicole Tait, Section Principal Bassoon, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, at the Australasian Double Reed Society Conference.

Alas, I was unable to attend. My cancer had metastasised and my life was to change once more.

And yet, a climate change forum in Canada called for musical works that included real underwater marine sounds, and I found my spirit could not be stilled. I was hooked by this concept.

I fashioned Blue Whale Heart Song in response, again for choir, this time accompanied by blue whale song and a bass drum. I worked to create the experience of an encounter with a majestic whale, underscored by the bass drum beating as the human heart, giving an ecstatic sense that we are all as one when it comes to living on this planet.

My metastatic cancer worsened and I was placed on permanent chemotherapy.

Alongside me through all my trials and tribulations was my dear husband. When it came time for his birthday, I was keen to give him a special gift and wrote my song, In Search of Diamonds, to honour him as the wonderful and very special person he is. I scored it for the intimate combination of solo voice and guitar and chose a crossover folk/pop style, in remembrance of our shared enjoyment of lyrical musicians such as Simon and Garfunkel.

In Search of Diamonds describes the diamonds I found as I came to know my husband’s deepest qualities, not immediately visible to others, but shining brightly in his integrity, intelligence and kindness for the world. When I received a surreally beautiful recording and arrangement of the song from producer, Kieran Roberts, singer, Rylee Desalis, and guitarist, Sam Roberts, it brought tears to my eyes.

Writing the song helped me through a difficult time, and I was further lifted by a glowing review of my piece, Soul Food, in the international magazine, Das Orchester, written by the German bassoonist, Wolfgang Rüdiger. 

I was inspired to seek a mentoring session with the ARIA award-winning composer, Nat Bartsch, where I learnt how to see myself in my new identity as a composer living with dystonia and metastatic cancer. 

From that session grew the idea to organise my historical performances from my early life as a bassoonist into a digital format to share with the world, as a complement to the release of the Soul Food sheet music into the public sphere.

At this time in my life, my dearest wish is now to hear my compositions performed.

A beautiful charity, Dreams2Live4, has made my dreams come true by organising for my two choir works, In the Heavenly Hour and Blue Whale Heart Song, to be recorded especially for me. I am absolutely thrilled and cannot wait to share the recordings with you.

If you wish to perform any of my pieces listed on this site, I would be so delighted. Please do get in touch or visit the linked stores to purchase the sheet music.

And do let me know about your performances.

An exciting piece for orchestra is my next focus, as well as a work for soprano saxophone, and a new crossover folk/pop song, The Frog and the River.

My story is not yet over, and I am excited to continue sharing with you my musical knowledge and values of kindness and care for this planet as I travel my composing journey.