biography
Alys Rayner is a Brisbane-based composer in love with the music of spoken voice. Working closely with local musicians and artists, she has a passion for writing chamber music and digging for poems to wend into compositions. Her most recent project has been collaborating as speaker/composer with Brisbane's Riverbend Ensemble for the work "Three Poems of Christopher Brennan" (2023). She was the 2020 Composer in Residence for The Australian Voices.
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Growing up in Albury, regional New South Wales, Rayner commenced her musical studies as a violinist and violist. Playing in string quartets, piano trios, quintets and Baroque ensembles with her cellist sister and other students, she gravitated towards Chamber and Early Music due to their potential for human expression and interaction. She was a member of Canberra Symphony Orchestra, Australian Youth Orchestra and was completing a performance degree at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University (QCGU) when she turned focus towards composing. Studying with teachers including Michelle Walsh, Gerardo Dirié and Gerard Brophy, she graduated from QCGU in 2018 with a Bachelor of Music and Graduate Certificate in Composition.
Rayner’s first major work was a collaboration with young Bathurst writer/musician Brendon McLeod - song cycle To Let the Grass Grow, for alto, clarinet, scordatura cello, piano and speaker. Mid-20th century Australian poet and WWII correspondent Kenneth Slessor was featured in her work Out of Time, written for multi-instrumental sextet and speaker. This work was selected as a finalist in Concept ensemble’s 2019 call for scores, and has been rearranged as single percussionists’ piece for performance in Toronto, April 2020. She was selected for the 2019 Australian Youth Orchestra National Music Camp where she wrote orchestral ensmble work Conscious Arc. Her output also includes smaller collaborative chamber works, written for local musicians including violin/looping pedal artist Katisha Lindee (For we do not know the hour, 2018), cellist Michelle Gomez and harpist Tijana Kozarcic (Red Ochre Scarf, 2019). Her compositions and arrangements for The Australian Voices, including Moreton Bay (2019) and Psalm 139 (2020), have been performed at Woodford Folk Festival, Fremantle Town Hall, and the Festival of Voices in Hobart.
Alys Rayner was featured in the 2020 Women of Noise collaborative concert with QCGU celebrating international Women’s Day in March 2019. She is currently teaching upper strings and composition, in addition to working on composing choral, solo instrumental and chamber music.