Liza Lim

Liza Lim (*1966) is a composer, educator and researcher whose music focusses on collaborative and transcultural practices. The roots of beauty (in noise), time effects in the Anthropocene and the sensoria of ecological connection are ongoing concerns in her compositional work.

Her operas The Oresteia (1993), Moon Spirit Feasting (2000), The Navigator (2007) and Tree of Codes (2016), and the major ensemble work Extinction Events and Dawn Chorus (2018) explore themes of desire, memory, ritual transformation and the uncanny. Her percussion ritual/opera Atlas of the Sky (2018), is a work involving community participants that investigates the emotional power and energy dynamics of crowds.

Liza Lim has received commissions from some of the world’s pre-eminent orchestras and ensembles including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC, SWR and WDR Symphony Orchestras, Ensemble Musikfabrik, ELISION, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Modern, Klangforum Wien, International Contemporary Ensemble, Arditti String Quartet and JACK Quartet. Her music has been featured at the Spoleto Festival, Miller Theatre New York, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Venice Biennale, Lucerne Festival, and at all the major Australian festivals.

Her Annunciation Triptych, performed in 2022 under the direction of Cristian Mâcelaru in its entirety for the first time, draws a broad line from the Greek poet Sappho to Mary, the virgin Mother of God, to Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, founder of Islam. The composer considers the stories of these three women as comments on ecological, spiritual and transcultural issues of our times.

Lim is Professor of Composition and inaugural Sculthorpe Chair of Australian Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Recognition for her work includes the Don Banks Award for Music (2018), Paul Lowin Prize for Orchestral Composition (2004), Fromm Foundation Award (2004) and DAAD Artist-in-residence Berlin (2007-08). She has been awarded the 2021 Happy New Ears Prize of the Hans and Gertrud Zender Foundation and is a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskollleg zu Berlin in 2021-22.

Her music is published by Casa Ricordi Berlin and on CD labels such as Kairos, Hat Art, WERGO, HCR and Winter & Winter.

As of August 2022