In October last year, a new Australian musical by Mathew Frank and Dean Bryant, based on Miles Franklin’s 1901 novel My Brilliant Career, had its first stage outing at Monash University in Melbourne.

Commissioned, developed and produced as part of the Jeanne Pratt Artist in Residence program at Monash University, the musical had a week of performances, directed by Petra Kalive, and received an enthusiastic response.

In January this year, Frank and Bryant went into the recording studio with the lead actors and a band of professional musical theatre players led by Music Director James Simpson, who orchestrated the score, to record an original cast recording.

Comprising 19 tracks, the beautiful, beguiling album– which is now available on Spotify, Apple Music and other digital platforms – features Luisa Scrofani as Miles Franklin’s intoxicating, headstrong heroine Sybylla Melvyn, along with Andrew Coshan, Natalie O’Donnell, Anne Wood, James Millar, Alister Kingsley, Melanie Bird and Jerome Javier.

“It was lucky that we pushed ahead with getting the cast into the studio at the end of January because if we had waited another month or two we wouldn’t have been able to do it for months now,” says Bryant.

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