Login

Enter your username and password

Photo: James Reiser

Meta Cohen (they/them/she/her) is a composer, sound designer and dramaturg with work spanning music, theatre and interdisciplinary art. They are currently based in Melbourne, Australia, on unceded Yaluk-ut Weelam land.

Meta's music has been commissioned by ensembles such as the Consort of Melbourne, the Sydney Children's Choir and Mosaic Voices, and performed in diverse venues across Australia, the UK and the US ranging from London Synagogues to the Sydney Opera House. In their composition work, Meta particularly loves to explore the properties and theatrical potential of the voice, sometimes combining this with electroacoustic elements.

Meta often prioritises LGBTQIA+ work where possible. In 2022, they were a commissioned composer on the first queer classical album in Australia's history (Spectrum: Divisi Chamber Singers) and composed a new work in partnership with Homophonic, documenting Australia's LGBTQIA+ histories in song. Meta's new queer song cycle a love is a love is a love, commissioned by ABC Classic, was released in June 2023.

Other works of note include Sim Shalom, which was the first piece of music by a non-male composer ever to be performed in an orthodox synagogue in the United Kingdom. Meta's piece Caedo was awarded in the Leonardo Da Vinci International Composition Competition in Florence, Italy, and their work Swerve was a finalist in the 2023 APRA AMCOS/Australian Music Centre Art Music Awards for Work of the Year: Choral.

Meta has applied her compositional training to her work as a theatre maker, sound designer and dramaturg. In particular, she is interested in the intersection of theatricality and sound, specialising in sonic dramaturgy and musical thinking in theatre making. Recent credits include DFLTLX, or Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights (composer/sound designer/dramaturg, dir. Alyson Campbell), and Hedda GablerGablerGabler (dramaturg, dir. Mary Angley). In 2022, Meta worked on the UK/European premiere of promiscuous/cities (dir. Alyson Campbell) as part of the British Council's UK/Australia season in London.

Meta is a resident dramaturg in the Theatre Works She Writes Collective. They hold a Master of Dramaturgy from the Victorian College of the Arts (Melbourne) and a Bachelor of Music Studies from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Meta is especially passionate about bringing queer, interdisciplinary and sound-driven work to the stage.

Meta Cohen — current to November 2023