Student Achievement : Sage Ryan

Winner of Victorian Young Composer award : Australian Society of Music Education

Year 11 musician and composer Sage Ryan was recently selected to attend 2023’s Australian Society of Music Education (ASME) National Conference, as a part of the Young Composer Project, representing Victoria. Sage's winning contemporary classical composition 'Chimera', was written for flute, clarinet, cello and keyboard, an instrumental combination that was a requirement of the project.

As part of their prize, Sage travelled to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in July, and over the course of three days, they and four other young composers from across Australia, workshopped their compositions in a collaborative environment. The group were supported by composer-in-residence Holly Harrison and compositions were performed by Ensemble Offspring.

Sage wrote recently in the ASME journal about their experience:

Throughout the whole process I learned about a lot of composition conventions, techniques and ideologies not only from Holly but also from the other composers. Working on all their pieces was a fantastic opportunity to go through the workshopping process with an emotional detachment from the piece, helping us to improve our decision-making skills when it came to assessing our own compositions. 

This whole experience was invaluable and completely eyeopening for me. It helped me gain perspective on composing as an artform, and really cemented my desire to pursue music composition further after secondary school. A huge thank you to ASME for this incredible opportunity! 

You can listen to Sage's composition on Soundcloud here. Congratulations on this wonderful achievement Sage!