Australian composer Holly Harrison signs to Wise Music Group

Australian composer Holly Harrison signs to Wise Music Group
© Steve Broadbent

Wise Music Group is pleased to announce a global exclusive publishing deal between Australian composer Holly Harrison and Wise Music G. Schirmer Australia Pty Ltd.

With her wildly infectious and dynamic compositions, Holly Harrison has risen to the top of Australia’s new music scene with prodigious speed, and shows no sign of slowing down. Her works are renowned for their driving rhythms, angular textures, raw emotion and absurdist humour, drawing influence from many, often conflicting, musical styles. With a background as a rock drummer and a trumpeter, Harrison has worked her broad musical knowledge into a captivating, energetic style that is winning over audiences world-wide.

As a superb orchestrator, Holly Harrison has been performed by numerous professional and community orchestras, including all of Australia’s major orchestras. She has been championed under the baton of Eivind Aadland who has conducted her works with Oslo Philharmonic, Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, and Uppsala chamber orchestra. But perhaps her most notable orchestral relationship is with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra who have performed and commissioned numerous works during her tenure as their composer in residence across 2020 to 2022.

Harrison’s chamber works have become favourites of many local and international ensembles, such as Orkest de Ereprijs (Netherlands), Eighth Blackbird (USA) and the Goldmund Quartet (Germany).This success has resulted in her winning numerous awards including Performance of the Year at the 2018 APRA AMCOS | AMC Art Music Awards for Eighth Blackbird’s 2017 performance of Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup, a work that also won the 2017 Sue W Chamber Music Composition Prize (AUS);winning the 2018 Nu Deco Ensemble's Nu Works Initiative (USA) for And Whether Pigs Have Wings; and receiving first prize in the 2014 Young Composers Meeting with Louis Andriessen chairing (Netherlands) for her work Cabbages and Kings. In 2022, Harrison’s achievements let her to be given Western Sydney University’s Chancellor’s Alumni of the Year Award.

Here are some selections and recordings from the highlights of Holly Harrison’s catalogue:

Her “breakout work” Lobster Tales and Turtle Soup (2016) launched Holly Harrison into the public eye with the ensemble Eighth Blackbird premiering it on an Australian tour, which has since become a signature work for them. The work shows off her love for and inspiration from poet and author Lewis Carroll.

…a work of riotous energy, eclectic rhythmic complexity and inventive instrumentation drawing on instrumental extremes of range and tone with good humour and vitality.”

Peter McCallum, Sydney Morning Herald

 

The saxophone concerto Superhighway (2024) shows of Harrison’s tendency to merge together a myriad of anachronistic styles into the orchestra, whilst showing of the versatility of the saxophone.

“Superhighway is a super concerto cast in the usual fast-slow-fast movements but in every other respect breaking the mould.”

William Yeoman, Limelight

 

With dozens of performances around the world, Balderdash (2018) is a string quartet that makes the acoustic world imitate the amplified, with the players comically mimicking white noise, distortion, feedback and the like. 

“Balderdash ( … ) presented the opportunity for quartets to move outside their comfort zones, and really innovate in an alternative soundscape to the norm for string quartets with fascinating outcomes.”

John Garran, Cut Common

 

Harrison’s most performed work Splinter (2020), a fractious work for wind band has led to her having great success in the huge world of wind band music in the US.

“Splinter is serious, playful, and absurdly joyous simultaneously in equal measure; a complex, sophisticated delight.”

Lisa MacKinney, Limelight

 

About the signing with Wise Music, Holly Harrison has said “I’m beyond excited to join Wise Music – I’m one very lucky composer. It’s a great team and I’m absolutely pumped for what the future may bring. I can’t wait to share my music more broadly!

Jane English, Managing Director of Wise Music Asia Pacific said of the signing “I loved Holly’s extraordinary music from the first time I heard it. We’re so elated to have such an exciting and beloved composer join the Wise Music family.