The Sydney-based composer and arranger on translating the much-loved Australian film for the stage.

How did you get involved in the show?

I collaborated with Baz Lurhmann most recently on The Great Gatsby soundtrack. I was working in a capacity where we were trying out lots of different approaches to doing different arrangements in different styles – going between the 20s and the music of Craig Armstrong’s beautiful scores and interpreting that in different ways and so that created a really good shorthand for communicating musically on that project. So when Strictly Ballroom came up it sort of seemed like a very natural continuation to just keep working together.

What is Baz like to work with?

Baz is fantastic to work with. He’s so incredibly inspiring and he has such a fantastic musical vocabulary. With some people that you work with coming from a different area you have a communication problem, but with Baz it’s very, very easy to get ideas across. He’ll sing counter-melodies to me or say ‘There should be strings in here’ or ‘Let’s try putting beats in here’. He’s extremely involved in every musical decision, and also has a gift of creating environments where people feel extremely comfortable collaborating...