Lachlan Skipworth
Composer
What is your musical background?
I came via recorder to clarinet, and this led me to a place in the Perth Modern School music scholarship program. Alongside an immersion in the Kodaly method and regular choral singing, my passion for clarinet and chamber music blossomed. After then studying clarinet at the University of Western Australia, I traveled to Japan for three years to learn the shakuhachi, an end-blown bamboo flute. I then returned to Australia, pursuing both a Master and PhD in composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
What is your advice to singers performing your works?
My music is harder than you think!
Songs by Lachlan:
What are your favourite pieces you’ve composed?
Ode, for violin and piano – people seem to love it the most!
Intercurrent, a reverse canon for bass clarinet, marimba, piano and electronics – it was the most fun to actually write.
Mass for Easter Sunday – adding the brass, timpani and organ to the choir just about lifts the roof off!
Oboe Quartet – it turned out a nice balance of my mathematical and lyrical leanings, plus… Diana Doherty!
Breath of Thunder – writing for Riley Lee, Taikoz and the Sydney Symphony seemed like the culmination of all my shakuhachi study in Japan and subsequent work to turn this into a compositional language.