Holly Harrison is the Canberra International Music Festival’s composer in residence.

“Not all composers are dead, white and male,” says artistic director Roland Peelman.

“[Holly] works very hard,” he says of Harrison. “She is articulate and she’s not lost for notes.”

He’s right. Now 36, she’s been attached to the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra for a few years as a composer in residence, including during covid when the TSO wanted new pieces.

Holly Harrison’s work, Swoop, her ode to crows will be performed by the Ellery String Quartet at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture on May 1, Balderdash by the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam at Albert Hall on May 2, Ice Giant at the High Court on May 3 and Feature Creature, Music for three percussionists at Snow Concert Hall on May 5.

Of late, Harrison says, she’s been focusing on orchestral works in her search to “find out what my voice might sound like. I’m really into stylistic juxtaposition”.

Growing up on a three-hectare property on the Hawkesbury with a brother who played the euphonium, her supportive mum and dad parents wisely converted the family stables into a music studio where she got into drums, “and we jammed, away from the neighbours”.

“I loved loud music and it had a powerful influence on my orchestral writing,” she tells me, adding that she’s always enjoyed improvising and has a bit of residual anxiety about notated music.

Always keen to take a different path, she signed up for a music degree at the University of Western Sydney, which opened up the world of “weird and wacky music” along with traditional courses. She completed honours and a doctorate there and still lives in Penrith.

Harrison quickly became well-known for a portfolio of works developed for her doctorate, including Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup, where she looked at Lewis Carroll’s Alice books through a musical lens. 

“I was using literary ideas to create music,” she says, “I always like putting unlikely things together.”

Harrison is nothing if not cool and groovy in her choice of titles – Daredevil, Hi-Vis, Pounce, Burnout and, for our festival, Ice Giant, Creature Feature, Swoop (her ode to crows) and what she calls “a kind of nonsense piece” from 2018 – Balderdash.

Canberra International Music Festival, May 1-5.

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