By reimagining the sounds of everyday objects, Samantha Wolf’s composition Want Not has won the Sue W Chamber Music Composition prize for 2019, worth $7000. The biennial award is part of an initiative at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music to support female Australian Composers and is made possible by a gift from Mrs Sue Willgoss and Associate Professor Richard Willgoss.

Composer Samantha Wolf

For Wolf, music is a way of understanding and interacting with the world around her and Want Not does exactly that. Originally commissioned by Rubiks Collective for the Inaugural Pythia Prize, Want Not is a culmination of the sounds of traditional instruments – piccolo, piano, percussion and cello, and the sounds generated from discarded, damaged or unused objects, such as gum packets, fruit bowls, and plastic forks. The Chair of the judging panel, Professor Liza Lim describes the work as “taking a sensual, tactile approach to sound that imaginatively responds to a challenging social and environmental issue”

Wolf said, “I am absolutely thrilled to have been awarded the Sue W Chamber Composition Prize for 2019. I am especially delighted that Want Not, a work that is very special to me,...