Sydney-based composer Harry Sdraulig has won the 2019 Layton Emerging Composer Fellowship, which will see him write two works for the Australia Ensemble over 12 months. As a Fellow, Sdraulig will be mentored by a member of the UNSW School of the Arts and Media Composition staff, and work with members of the Australia Ensemble, to create one work for small ensemble and one for large.

Harry Sdraulig

The Fellowship required applicants to submit at least three pieces of music, two of which had to be purely instrumental and one of which was for chamber ensemble. One of the works also had to be from the last three years. Sdraulig won over the judges, who selected him unanimously, with his Octet for Strings, which premiered at the 2018 Huntington Estate Music Festival, Speak, for flute/piccolo, clarinet, violin, cello and piano, and Joybox, for piano trio. The jury said his submissions demonstrated “excellent craft, sophisticated compositional techniques, and a clear understanding of chamber ensembles.”

“I’m really excited to be collaborating with the Australia Ensemble,” Sdraulig told Limelight. “I had a taste of meeting and working with musicians from the ensemble last year when the...