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Photo: Rani Tesiram (2023)

Frankie Dyson Reilly is a Meanjin (Brisbane)-based interdisciplinary composer, artist, and researcher. Through vivid audio-visual depictions of Australian landscapes and fauna, she seeks to highlight intimate companionships between humans and natural worlds. Her works, which emphasise collaborative creativity and multi-sensory scoring, have been recently commissioned and performed by The Muses Trio, Contra Guitar Duo, Dr. Rebecca Lloyd-Jones, Tura New Music, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Queensland Wind Orchestra, UCLA Berkeley, and ABODA QLD. In 2020, Frankie was selected as the Queensland mentee for the Summers Night Project, culminating in a premiere of a new chamber work at the Melbourne Recital Centre in 2022. She has won awards such as the Australian Women's Wind Band Composition Competition and the Alan Lane Composition Prize.

Frankie's research into colour notation and graphic scoring practices formed the basis of her Doctor of Musical Arts research at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University (2021-2024). During her DMA she created several new audio-visual and multi-media compositions in which the score acts as visual accompaniment to the work. Her interdisciplinary practice led to several positions as Artist-in-Residence in 2024, including at the Mt. Wilson Old School (NSW) and at the Piano Mill in Harrigan's Lane (NSW). The residency at Mt. Wilson saw the completion of a new audio-visual work Liarbirds (2024) celebrating the birds of the Blue Mountains, which has since been performed at Easter at the Piano Mill (NSW), the Innovation in Music Conference in Norway, and displayed as part of the Gold Coast's Big City Lights festival (QLD). Other recent interdisciplinary projects include Tiny Little Worlds (2023) for percussion, fixed media, and projections portraying rock pool scenes, collaboratively developed with and performed by percussionist Dr. Rebecca Lloyd-Jones; and Scenes from a Migration (2024), an audio-visual commission for the Contra Guitar Duo premiered during the Milbi Festival in Bundaberg in celebration of the turtle migration season at Mon Repos.

Frankie's residency at Harrigan's Lane saw the development of a research collaboration with musician Alexandra Gorton exploring disabled experiences in musical spaces through diverse scoring practices and sensory-friendly sound-making. Alexandra and Frankie acted as Performance Mentors for performance collective Dots + Loops NONSTOP program at the Brisbane Powerhouse in 2024.

In 2025, Frankie will continue her research into interdisciplinary art and diversity/equity as a Research Adjunct with the Creative Arts Research Institute at Griffith University (QLD).

Biography provided by the composer — current to January 2025