Login

Enter your username and password

Photo: N JAYAKUMAR

Emma Jayakumar is an Australian composer of opera, ballet, orchestral and chamber music.

Completing a practice-led research PhD in composition in 2018, which was subsequently awarded the 2018 ECU WAAPA Research Medal for most outstanding research thesis, Jayakumar is also an award-winning singer, and an alumna of post-graduate study at Royal Academy of Music and Sydney Conservatorium of Music opera courses, and undergraduate study at WAAPA. She is a sought-after composer and fierce advocate of engaging and accessible works for young audiences (her PhD subject), as well as new music celebrating diverse Australian voices.

Jayakumar primarily works in music drama, or vocal and narrative-driven music. This has included opera, ballet and music written for theatre works, as well as song cycles for piano and chamber ensembles and orchestra. She cites major influences in the operatic and choral works of Benjamin Britten and Gustav Holst, as well as characteristic elements of American minimalist composers John Adams, Arvo Pärt, Meredith Monk and Steve Reich. Jayakumar has also reflected that in her youth she was discouraged by the lack of woman composers around her, and that contemporary artists Björk and Kate Bush filled many gaps in her own compositional confidence development and influence.

Jayakumar's instrumental works have also generally preceded from narrative sources, such as poems and stories.

Recent major commissioned works for orchestra and ensemble include an extended song for Darlington Piano Quintet and mezzo soprano Caitlin Hulcup to poem text by Sarah Holland-Batt (2023), Our Little Inventor (2022) for West Australian Opera, Bell Birds Suite for String Quartet (2020) for the ABC recorded by the Darlington Quartet, The Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (2020) for West Australian Ballet and Awesome Festival, and opera Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge (2021) for MusicBook Stories and the City of Perth Winter Arts Festival.

Emma Jayakumar — current to March 2023