Biography (short)

[~ 100 words, current to 2022.02.12]

Wally Gunn is a composer who makes use of patterns and processes in his work, and sometimes utilizes speech, gesture, and movement to heighten the theatricality of musical performance, all with the aim of creating music that is expressive and affecting. The extramusical themes in his work look outward to explore the natural world, and inward to reflect queer identity and experience. Hailing from rural Australia, Wally first played in rock bands, then attended Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, before moving to New York to study at Manhattan School of Music, and pursue a PhD at Princeton University. He currently divides his time between USA and Australia.

Biography (long)

[~ 900 words, current to 2022.02.12]

Wally Gunn is a composer who makes use of patterns and processes in his work, and sometimes utilizes speech, gesture, and movement to heighten the theatricality of musical performance, all with the aim of creating music that is expressive and affecting. The extramusical themes in his work look outward to explore the natural world, and inward to reflect queer identity and experience.

Hailing from a rural town in Australia’s southeast, Wally first began making music in his early teens, writing on a Casiotone keyboard for his electronic dance band, which never played a gig. After high school, he moved to Melbourne to join rock bands, and spent several years writing songs, recording albums, and performing shows around the country.

In 2002, Wally enrolled in the Victorian College of the Arts composition program, where he collaborated with students from the Film & Television, Art, and Dance Schools, and as a result of several collaborations with the Drama School, he developed an interest in composing for experimental theater. After graduating with honors, he worked with his friends and fellow composers Kate Neal and Biddy Connor in the new music organization Dead Horse Productions to stage concerts of their own and other composers’ music in unusual spaces around Melbourne. Wally wrote concert music for several Australian ensembles, including Atticus String Quartet, The Dead Horse Ensemble, Silo String Quartet, Speak Percussion, and Three Shades Black, and from 2005 – 2008 he also wrote original scores for a number of Melbourne theatre companies.

Wally moved to New York in 2008 to begin a masters degree in composition at the Manhattan School of Music where he studied with Julia Wolfe, and he began writing concert music for US ensembles such as American Modern Ensemble, Dither Guitar Quartet, Ensemble Mise-En, Escher String Quartet, futureCities, Mobius Percussion, Red Shift, and Sō Percussion. His music has been performed at many US festivals, including Bang On A Can Summer Festival in MA, Carlsbad Music Festival in CA, and River To River Festival in NY. Maintaining his keen interest in theater, Wally composed original music for Manhattan-based The Actors Company Theatre.

In 2011, Wally began pursuing a PhD in composition at Princeton University, NJ, studying mostly with Steven Mackey and Daniel Trueman. In his first summer there, he participated in the Sō Percussion Summer Institute (SōSI), and the experience led Wally to write more percussion music, much of which includes gesture, speech, and other theatrical elements. Several of his percussion pieces have been featured at SōSI 2012 – 2015, at Neif Norf Summer Festival 2014, at TorQ Percussion Seminar 2015 in Canada, and most recently at the Percussive Arts Society International Conference (PASIC) 2015.

A collaboration in 2012 with vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth and Melbourne poet Maria Zajkowski yielded three songs entitled ‘The Ascendant’ that the ensemble recorded and released on their album ‘Render,’ for which they received a Grammy nomination in 2015. The success of the collaboration prompted the commissioning of three more songs completed in 2016, and New Amsterdam Records released Roomful of Teeth’s recording of the six songs together in August 2020.

As part of Princeton Sound Kitchen’s initiative The Black Box Project in 2013 and 2014, Wally devised new work with Brooklyn-based experimental theater company Nothing To See Here, under the artistic direction of Laura Sheedy. He went on to become a company member in 2014, and together they created the piece ‘Long Distance’ in collaboration with Melbourne writer Scott Brennan.

Wally is the founder of a collective called Biome Project which is a long-term collaboration between artists from many different disciplines working together to create a multimedia portrait-of-place in unique natural environments all over the planet. Biome Project’s first excursion to collect and develop material was in August 2013, when the artists spent a week at Nanya Research Station in the South Western corner of New South Wales, Australia. This venture continues as a work in progress.

In recent years, Wally has received commissions from Architek Percussion, Astra Chamber Music, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, percussionist Becca Doughty, Gemini Duo, The Letter String Quartet (AU), the New Works For Percussion Project, Roomful of Teeth, Rubiks Collective, percussionist Eric Shuster, guitarist Laura Snowden (UK), Steady State, Tala Rasa, Three (AU), and percussionist Jason Treuting.

Wally’s 2019 work ‘Moonlite,’ is a 90-minute oratorio for voices, percussion, and viola, with libretto by longtime collaborator Maria Zajkowski. The work is based on the true story of the queer 19th-century Australian outlaw Captain Moonlite, and is set in countryside close to the rural Australian town of Wally’s origin. The work was premiered in Philadelphia, PA, New York, NY, and Princeton, NJ, in May 2019 by Variant 6, Mobius Percussion, and Veronica Jurkiewicz. In November 2019, Wally received the Albert H Maggs Composition Award for the work.

Wally and Maria’s most recent collaboration, ‘I heart Artemis,’ was commissioned by the Maggs Award and was completed in 2021. It is a 60-minute oratorio for 6 voices that imagines a love affair between the mythological goddesses Athena and Artemis, set against the very real crisis of climate change. The piece premiered in Philadelphia, PA, in March 2022, and in Melbourne, Australia, in September 2022.

Current projects include a commission for a concert-length song cycle for Melbourne chamber ensemble Rubiks Collective with acclaimed jazz vocalist Gian Slater, to be premiered in December 2024.

Wally currently divides his time between USA and Australia.

Artist’s Statement

[~ 275 words, current to 2020.03.11]

Composition, for me, is a way to connect with others by telling a musical story, engaging an audience’s intellect and eliciting strong emotions. Stories of all kinds are inspiration: stories from personal history, from social history, from anthropological history, from biological and geological history. Stories that elicit awe for our universe, or pique curiosity about the lives, loves and extraordinary experiences of our fellow humans; these become metaphorical starting points for my work. Utilizing physical gesture interests me, and I sometimes employ speech and other vocalizations to heighten and extend the theatricality of musical performance. When I compose, I begin with simple mathematical patterns and processes, layered and woven into canons, echoes, hockets, and ostinati. As these textures unfold, I focus on the moments of emergent beauty that appear in the warp and weft. Beauty, as I see it, can come in different guises: sometimes in expressive lyricism, sometimes in clashing harmony or ungainly rhythms, and sometimes in the rigid grids of patterning. Part of my craft is to carve away at the textures as a sculptor might carve stone to reveal beautiful figures or forms, another part is to add complementary or contrasting material that is devised in response. In this way, the process consists of equal parts calculation and intuition. I am influenced by polyphonic music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras of the Western art music tradition, and equally, from pop music I listened to in my youth—especially 80s New Wave from Britain, and 90s grunge from the US—some of which similarly utilizes pattern and process in its construction.

– WG, 2020

Curriculum Vitae

[Current to 2022.09.01]

Education

current, PhD Candidate in Composition, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

2010, Master of Music in Classical Composition, Manhattan School of Music, New York, NY, USA

2005, Bachelor of Music Performance (with Honours) in Composition, Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Scholarships and Fellowships

2011 – 2015, Mark Nelson Fellowship, Princeton University

2008 – 2010, Manhattan School of Music Scholarship

Residencies, Masterclasses & Summer Schools 

2022, UKARIA Cultural Centre, Mt Barker, SA, Australia

2020, Millay Arts, Austerlitz, NY, USA

2019, MacDowell, Peterborough, NH, USA

2018, I-Park General Residency, East Haddam, CT, USA

2018, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Boscawen, NH, USA

2017, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Boscawen, NH, USA

2016, I-Park Composers + Musicians Collaborative Residency, East Saddam, CT, USA

2016, Toronto Creative Music Lab, Toronto, ON, USA

2016, Sō Percussion Summer Institute, Princeton, NJ, USA

2015, Sō Percussion Summer Institute, Princeton, NJ, USA

2014, Sō Percussion Summer Institute, Princeton, NJ, USA

2013, Sō Percussion Summer Institute, Princeton, NJ, USA

2012, Sō Percussion Summer Institute, Princeton, NJ, USA

2011, Bang on a Can Summer Festival, North Adams, MA, USA

Commissions

2024, ‘Rorqual’ (45:00), voice, flute, clarinet, cello, piano, percussion, Rubiks Collective, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

2022, ‘Book of Hours’ (10:00), solo percussion, Eric Shuster, Salisbury, MD, USA

2021, ‘I heart Artemis’ (55:00), 6 voices, Albert H Maggs Composition Award, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

2018, ‘Ore,’ (06:45), percussion duo with speaking voices, New Works For Percussion Project and consortium, USA

2016, ‘Seven Shells,’ (07:00), solo drum kit and speaking voice, Becca Doughty and consortium, Salisbury, MD, USA

2016, ‘Astonishing Islands,’ (09:00), solo guitar, Laura Snowden, London, UK

2016, ‘Highway, Night,’ (10:00), percussion trio, Tala Rasa, Baltimore, MD, USA

2016, ‘Bare White Bones,’ (09:30), flute and percussion, Gemini Duo and consortium, New York, NY, USA

2016, ‘Pinwheel’ (10:00), trumpet, trombone and guitar, Three, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

2016, ‘The Ascendant’ (3 new songs) (15:00), 8 voices and drum kit, Roomful of Teeth, Williamstown, MA, USA

2015, ‘Blood’ (20:00), The Letter String Quartet, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

2015, ‘Willow’ (04:00), solo drum kit, Jason Treuting, Princeton, NJ, USA

2015, ‘The Earth Must Move’ (06:00), men’s vocal ensemble, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Kris Burke, Conductor, Brooklyn, NY, USA

2014, ‘Little Things’ (22:00), percussion duo, Steady State Percussion Duo, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

Awards and Nominations

2019, Albert H Maggs Composition Award, for ‘Moonlite’ (88:00), libretto by Maria Zajkowski, 6 voices, 4 percussion, 1 viola

2017, International Rostrum of Composers, Recommended Work nominee for ‘Pinwheel,’ (10:00) (2016), trumpet, trombone, and guitar

2015, Grammy Awards nomination for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for Roomful of Teeth’s ‘Render,’ featuring ‘The Ascendant.’

2009, Green Room Awards nomination for Best Original Songs for ‘Kiosk’ by Wes Snelling

2008, Green Room Awards nomination for Best Sound Design / Composition / Performance for ‘Catalpa’ by Itch Productions

2007, Drama Victoria Best Performance for Young People for ‘Shrimp’ by The Shrimp Company

2004, John Gaitskell Memorial Mensa Award

2002, Quip Quip Composition Award for ‘Gymnorhina’ for solo trumpet

Grants

2022, APRA/AMCOS Art Music Fund

2009, Ian Potter Cultural Trust for international study at Manhattan School of Music (MSM)

2009, Opus 50 Charitable Trust for international study at MSM

2008, Ian Potter Cultural Trust for international study at MSM

2008, American Australian Association Dame Joan Sutherland Fund for international study at MSM

2008, PPCA Performer Trust for international study at MSM

2008, Opus 50 Charitable Trust for international study at MSM

2006, City of Melbourne Presentation Funding for the presentation of new work at The Forum, Melbourne in February 2007 by Dead Horse Productions

2005, Alan C. Rose Memorial Project Grant awarded to Victorian College of the Arts student.

Photographs

Photography by Emma Byrnes